of imports in 2025, up 15.8% in a year, faster than anywhere else in the region, per the State Customs Committee
Azerbaijan: imports are growing, but the EAEU certificate does not travel here
You have an EAC certificate in the folder. You obtained it for Kazakhstan, you know it covers four more countries in the union, and you keep Azerbaijan on the same list of markets. That document does nothing here.
The reason is not bureaucracy. Azerbaijan is simply not in the union.
How much this market buys
The State Customs Committee published its annual figures on 21 January 2026: foreign trade of $49.4 billion, up 3.8%; exports of $25.04 billion, down 5.7%; imports of $24.38 billion, up 15.8%.
The surplus, meanwhile, all but vanished.
Azerbaijan's foreign trade in 2025
- Exports$25.04B
- Imports$24.38B
- Trade surplus$663M
State Customs Committee of Azerbaijan via Report.az, 21.01.2026. The surplus came in 8.3 times smaller than the year before
The State Statistics Committee's nine-month release, published 13 November 2025, puts January-September turnover at $35.40 billion, with exports of $18.63 billion and imports of $16.77 billion. Two agencies count by different methods and point the same way.
An oil exporter with a shrinking surplus has to replace hydrocarbon revenue, and the state has put its weight behind non-oil industry, construction and agriculture. Those sectors buy equipment, materials and inputs from manufacturers like you.
Where your certificate meets the border
Azerbaijan is not a member of the Eurasian Economic Union: the union has five members and Azerbaijan is not one of them. An EAC certificate obtained for Kazakhstan does not cover this market. Certification becomes a budget line and a stretch of calendar of its own, and you want to know that before you promise a distributor delivery dates.
The US Country Commercial Guide, updated 12 January 2026, lists what an importer files: a signed import contract carrying a contract number, a customs declaration, and permissions from the relevant state bodies, plus a bill of lading, sales invoice, packing list, certificate of origin and certificate of quality.
A contract number means the commercial terms are registered before the goods move.
The distribution agreement gets finished and checked at the start here. If you are used to sending a first pallet on a handshake and settling the terms as shipments go out, this market does not work that way.
There is nowhere to hide here
Of the country's 10.4 million people, 9.27 million are online and 7.61 million are on social platforms. Those are DataReportal's figures of 8 November 2025: internet penetration 89.0%, social 73.1%. Instagram reaches 4.25 million, Facebook 1.65 million.
For bearings: Kazakhstan runs 93.4%, Uzbekistan 89.0%, Kyrgyzstan 88.5%. Azerbaijan sits mid-range, which means the buyer who hears your name checks it that same evening and finds either your site or nothing. Telegram did not make the report; it releases no figures.
Language
The contract that gets registered at customs, and the correspondence around it, ran in Russian for us, so the Kazakh document pack works here too. Azerbaijani starts where the product meets the end buyer: packaging, instructions, the shelf.
When the market gathers
Baku stacks its exhibitions into weeks instead of spreading them across the year. Iteca Caspian has run the country's exhibition calendar since 2000 and holds Caspian Construction Week on 14-16 October 2026: six shows in parallel, among them construction, HVAC and water supply, plastics and polymers, and road infrastructure. The defence and internal-security exhibitions run 30 September - 2 October 2026.
For a manufacturer that saves money: one week in Baku puts the buyers of several adjacent categories in the same hall. The organiser publishes the exhibitor list ahead of each show, and that list doubles as a register of who is already active in the category.
What we do in Azerbaijan
Work on Azerbaijan starts with one question: is your category already served, and by whom. Then the list of companies bringing it in today, and correspondence with whoever signs off on purchasing.
The certificate this page opened with is not wasted. It opens Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia, three of the seven markets. Azerbaijan does not join them, and it is better to learn that now than in month two of a project.