Reservations drainage: Before the Boom of Tourism abroad, the services deficit arrived AU $ S7.6 billion in 2025

The last numbers of the Central Bank Exchange Balance (BCRA) corresponding to the last month and although they almost do not surprise yes they allow to glimpse that the currency drainage through international trade of services You can mark a historical record this year. It happens that in August this channel registered a U $ S840 million deficit That, although it was 9% lower than the previous month, it meant an interannual increase of 37%, driven by The rise of tourism abroad, international consumption and payments for digital services.

With this record, the accumulated of the first eight months of the year throws a deficit of US $ 7,636 million, already exceeding the entire 2023 and the same for 2024, at 23% and 57% respectively.

Therefore, The 2025 deficit has been only US $ 3,182 million YU $ 2,470 million of the maximums of the historical series that are the years 2017 and 2022, respectively. That is, if no abrupt change of the dynamics that the Services account is showing, in the remainder of the year it is very plausible that not only the maximum records of the series are not only reached but even, even, even, even, Another record is marked.

International Service Trade: What happened in August?

According to the BCRA data, the international decomercio deficit of services is explained by the net expenses in concept of Consumption of goods and services paid with cards, trips and passages (excluding digital services) by US $ 690 million, of Other services by U $ 275 million and of Freight and insurance by U $ S171 million. This negative flow was barely compensated by net income for Professional and Technical Business Services They added U $ 295 million.

When we crumble the August data, it is observed that the Gross expenses For consumption of goods and services paid with cards, trips and passages (excluding digital services) they totaled U $ S934 million (compared to US $ 1,192 million). This currency output flow is explained by gross expenses linked to card expenses by US $ 690 million (vs. u $ s938 million July), a passenger transport services by U $ S139 million (vs. u $ s129 million July) Turistic operators abroad by U $ 106 million (Vs. U $ S124 million in July).

According to BCRA estimates, within card expenses, payments for dispatched goods through Postal services ascended to U $ S91 million (Value of CIF imports reported by INDEC for the month), which, according to the criteria of the BCRA, would not be directly associated with trips. It should be remembered that In July the payments by Courier added, according to the estimate of the BCRA, about US $ 94 million.

Therefore, the estimate of the total Expenses with consumption cards associated with trips reached, according to the BCRA, to U $ S843 million in Augustas a result of the sum of gross expenses for passenger transport services (US $ 139 million), tour operators (US $ 106 million) and the aforementioned estimate of expenses with travel cards (US $ S599 million). In July, this estimate showed an amount of US $ 952 million.

Regarding Digital services paid with cardsgross expenses amounted to U $ S130 million In August compared to US $ 146 million in the previous month, when they began to rethink the statistics linked to payments with cards and expenses abroad. “It should be noted that 70% of all expenses for consumption of goods and services paid with cards are directly canceled by customers with foreign currency funds”, Says the BCRA in its exchange report last month.

For its part, the Gross income For consumption of goods and services paid with cards, trips and tickets they total U $ S239 million In August. “The estimate of net trip and passage expenses reached U $ 603 million in the month ”.

A red that is aimed at historical maximums

On the other hand, operations in concept of primary income They represented one Net exit of US $ 1,164 million in Augustexplained by net interest payments for US $ 1,150 million and net expenses of profits, dividends and other income abroad for US $ 14 million. In this regard, it should be noted that the Government and the BCRA made net interest cancellations for US $ 1,043 million while the private sector did so for US $ 107 million. Finally, operations by Secondary income They represented a surplus of US $ 26 million.

To have a clearer dimension of the magnitude of the net currency exit linked to the services channel, in the accumulated of 2025 the negative balance of Passenger transport services (Airlines and other passenger carriers) is from U $ 675 million while Other trips He added a deficit of US $304 million (-U $ S317 million tour operators and other transfers more + $ 13 million non-residents/bills), and Cards (including trips) He threw a negative balance of US $ 6,168 million (US $ 1,137 million of other consumption of goods and services + U $ 276 million digital services).

Thus the negative balance of consumption of goods and services paid with cards and trips amounts to US $ 6,472 million and the total consumption of goods and services paid with cards, travel and passenger transport to U $ S7.147 million in it accumulated January-August.

The BCRA recalls that through Communication “A” 8254 last June the concept code was modified by which the entities recorded consumption with resident cards with non -resident or non -resident suppliers with Argentine suppliers (which are now reflected in the account of consumption of goods and services paid with cards, trips and tickets). Therefore, this communication allows to separate, from July, the consumption of travel from and to the outside and non -face -to -face purchases to suppliers from abroad/from abroad to local suppliers of digital services consumption to suppliers abroad/from abroad to local suppliers.

Then, from this, digital services consumption are grouped under the account Other services. The BCRA explains that the change is due to improving the statistics since it has the consumption of goods and services paid with cards, trips and tickets should not only be related to travel expenses since, in the turns that are made abroad to cancel the balances with international card issuing companies, both consumption that are made by trips abroad and the non -witnesses of goods and services are included. “In turn, with the intention of reflecting more appropriate consumption with cards for travel and tickets, an estimate of payments/charges for dispatched goods/sent by postal services is made,” says the monetary entity in the exchange balance.