National content requirements
National content requirements are the eligibility rules an export credit agency applies to the share of goods, services or intangibles sourced from its home country in a supported export contract. They determine how much foreign content may sit inside an officially supported package, and they are distinct from the OECD Arrangement local-cost rules, which concern expenditure in the buyer's country.
National content requirements on bank export finance desks
On EF desks, national content requirements decide whether a buyer credit or other contract-specific facility can be underwritten at the proposed loan size. UKEF applies UK content rules to contract-specific products where there is an export contract between the UKEF-supported exporter and the buyer or borrower. Non-contract-specific products use a separate exporter test instead.
UKEF's product brochure states that at least 20% of the contract value must be UK content for Buyer Credit Facility eligibility, with the exporter carrying on business in the UK. That 20% floor is the desk's first national-content screen before credit, ESHR and financial-crime workstreams proceed.
UKEF principles and definitions
UKEF defines UK content as total contract value minus foreign content for UK applicants, and as the cost to an overseas applicant of purchasing UK goods, services and intangibles from UK exporters and sub-contractors carrying on business in the UK. Foreign content is the cost of purchasing outside the UK the goods, services and intangibles supplied under the contract.
UKEF's principles-based policy, derived from public consultations in 2007 and 2019, applies three sequential routes:
- Principle One: maximum support for all foreign content is 80% of contract value, requiring a minimum 20% UK content
- Principle Two: the same 80:20 proportions apply to the value of UKEF's support for a contract or a multi-contract project, including multiples of UK content and related-contract aggregation
- Principle Three: support may still be considered where the proposal is conducive to supporting or developing UK exports, often with additional incentivisation measures
UKEF may audit UK content against underwriting expectations and include relevant provisions in loan documentation. Brass-plate routing of foreign goods without UK value-add is not treated as UK content.
Boundary with Arrangement local costs and tying
The Arrangement defines local costs as expenditure for goods and services in the buyer's country that are necessary either to execute the exporter's contract or to complete the project of which that contract forms a part. That is buyer-country content, capped under Article 11 of the January 2026 text at 40% of the export contract value for Category I countries and 50% for Category II countries, and it is not the same thing as national content of the exporting ECA's country. National content requirements are national eligibility policy. They interact with, but are not the same as, tied and untied financing disciplines, which address whether aid or finance proceeds must be procured from the donor or supporting country.