Retail
ZAMBIA RETAIL SECTOR KEY FIGURES
| GDP Share 2025 | GDP Share 2024 | Real Growth 2025 | MFEZ/Rural Enterprise Incentive Threshold |
|---|---|---|---|
| 16.49% | 18.29% | -11.22% | USD 500,000 |
Wholesale and retail trade, including repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles, accounted for 16.49% of Zambia’s GDP in 2025, down from 18.29% in 2024, as the sub-sector’s real output contracted 11.22% for the year.
The decline came even as nominal value added fell only slightly, pointing to a sector where price effects, not volume alone, shaped the year’s performance, while Zambia Development Agency incentives remain available to qualifying trade investments through the Multi Facility Economic Zone and Rural Enterprise routes.
Sector Size and Performance
Wholesale and retail trade, including repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles, generated gross value added of ZMW 119.65 billion in 2025, down from ZMW 121.08 billion in 2024, equivalent to 16.49% of GDP at market prices in 2025 compared with 18.29% in 2024[1]. In real, constant-price terms the sub-sector contracted 11.22% in 2025, a sharper decline than its 1.18% fall in nominal terms, indicating that price and margin effects, rather than a proportional drop in trading volumes, drove much of the year’s headline contraction[1].
Investment Incentive Framework
The Zambia Development Agency’s fiscal incentives, including accelerated depreciation on capital equipment and machinery for five years and a 0% import duty rate on capital equipment and machinery for five years, apply to investments of at least USD 500,000 in a Multi Facility Economic Zone, an Industrial Park, a priority sector, or a rural enterprise[2]. Non-fiscal incentives, including investment guarantees and protection against state nationalisation and free facilitation for immigration permits, secondary licences, land acquisition and utilities, apply to investments of at least USD 250,000 in the same categories[2]. ZDA’s own named priority sectors are information and communication technology, water supply and development, construction, mining, energy, tourism, agriculture and manufacturing, so a wholesale or retail trade investment qualifies for these thresholds through the Multi Facility Economic Zone, Industrial Park or Rural Enterprise route rather than as a priority sector in its own right[2][3].
Investment Opportunities
With retail and wholesale trade’s real output contracting 11.22% in 2025 even as its nominal value held broadly flat, the sub-sector’s GDP share has narrowed from 18.29% to 16.49% in a single year, a shift worth tracking for any investor benchmarking entry timing against the cycle, with ZDA’s Multi Facility Economic Zone and Rural Enterprise incentive routes offering a specific, verifiable path to accelerated depreciation and duty-free capital equipment for qualifying trade investments of USD 500,000 or more[1][2].
Last Update: September 2026
