South Africa is a net exporter of fine art at roughly 5:1 on foreign-trade flows. In 2024, SA exported $61.8 million of genuine art (HS headings 9701 paintings, 9702 prints, 9703 sculpture) and imported just $12.6 million from foreign partners. The USA and the UK together took ~44% of SA art exports by value. Paintings and sculpture dominate the trade.
Source: UN Comtrade, reporter South Africa, HS Chapter 97. Data verified May 2026. See full methodology + caveats at the bottom of this page.
SA art exports by heading, 2019–2024 (USD)
Genuine art = the three Chapter 97 originals headings. HS 9705 (collections) is intentionally excluded — for SA it is dominated by mineral specimens, fossils and natural-history collectors” pieces, not fine art.
| HS code | Description | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9701 | Paintings, drawings & pastels | $36,416,670 | $31,547,354 | $38,993,492 | $34,292,636 | $61,296,213 | $36,893,864 |
| 9702 | Original prints, engravings & lithographs | $1,396,357 | $1,002,563 | $1,148,507 | $1,852,845 | $1,749,030 | $1,795,754 |
| 9703 | Original sculpture | $38,510,019 | $15,772,078 | $13,639,140 | $14,982,826 | $30,424,741 | $23,131,185 |
| TOTAL | Genuine art (9701+9702+9703) | $76,323,046 | $48,321,995 | $53,781,140 | $51,128,307 | $93,469,985 | $61,820,803 |
Export trend — genuine art, 2019–2024
Exports recovered strongly post-2020 COVID, peaked in 2023, and remained well above the pre-2023 baseline in 2024.
SA art trade balance — exports vs foreign imports
South Africa is a net exporter of art. Both totals exclude the SA-to-SA round-trip flow (see callout below).
Top destinations for SA art exports, 2024 (USD)
Genuine art (HS 9701+9702+9703) only. Top 10 partners account for ~80% of the export trade.
| Rank | Destination | USD 2024 | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | USA | $16,086,342 | 26.0% |
| 2 | United Kingdom | $11,020,084 | 17.8% |
| 3 | Switzerland | $5,322,604 | 8.6% |
| 4 | Belgium | $4,306,751 | 7.0% |
| 5 | Germany | $2,936,203 | 4.7% |
| 6 | Greece | $2,213,603 | 3.6% |
| 7 | Italy | $2,051,088 | 3.3% |
| 8 | Namibia | $1,929,562 | 3.1% |
| 9 | United Arab Emirates | $1,903,793 | 3.1% |
| 10 | Netherlands | $1,828,078 | 3.0% |
| Top-10 total | $49,598,106 | 80.2% | |
Related JLog references
- Art HS Codes — Chapter 97 classification reference — heading-by-heading customs classification, duty + VAT, original-vs-reproduction trap.
- Shipping art from South Africa — JLog’s service hub for gallery, collector and art-fair logistics. Official carrier for the Investec Cape Town Art Fair.
- ATA Carnet management — temporary export/import for art-fair exhibits returning to South Africa.
- Custom crating & packing — museum-grade timber crating for fragile works.
Methodology & source
Source: UN Comtrade v1 API (reporter: South Africa, HS Chapter 97). Export values are FOB, imports CIF, all values USD, per Comtrade convention. Period covers 2019–2024 as the headline window (latest complete year); 2025 is excluded from this page (see Data status below).
Data status (applies to every year shown): the rows pulled for this page carry isReported=False in the Comtrade response — i.e., at the time of pull they were not flagged as direct South-African submissions to UN Comtrade. Comtrade derives and reconciles annual aggregates from available partner and submission data, and some lines carry a non-zero legacyEstimationFlag indicating estimated values. This pattern is consistent for SA across the years shown — it is not specific to any single year. Comtrade releases stabilise over the months following first publication as further partner data is reconciled, so recent years are more subject to revision than older years. We deliberately anchor the headline numbers on the latest complete year that has had time to stabilise.
Filter applied: at the API-response level — only all-modes-of-transport ({motCode=0}), all-customs-procedures ({customsCode=C00}), no transit-partner ({partner2Code=0}) rows are summed. This avoids the duplicate sub-totals Comtrade returns for each mode/procedure slice.
“Genuine art” = HS heading 9701 (paintings/drawings/pastels) + 9702 (original prints/engravings/lithographs) + 9703 (original sculptures). HS 9705 (collections) is excluded from genuine-art figures because for South Africa it is dominated by mineralogical, palaeontological and zoological specimens (fossils, minerals, natural-history collectibles), not fine art.
Import-side caveat: Comtrade records ~$36.8M of 2024 genuine-art “imports” with partner=South Africa — the SA-to-SA self-loop covered in the callout above. Foreign-trade import totals on this page exclude that self-loop.
Verified: 22 May 2026. Pull script + raw JSON cache available on request. Analysis by JLog.
Shipping art into or out of South Africa?
Get an art-freight quote from JLog → Custom art-freight crating, customs documentation, SAHRA permit application management, ATA Carnet management, international art-segment freight. Official carrier for the Investec Cape Town Art Fair.
Import series in the trend chart shows the full headline-imports figure each year (including any SA self-loop component). The 2024 foreign-only figure of $12.6M shown in the TL;DR strips out that loop using per-partner detail; pre-2024 per-partner breakdowns weren”t pulled.