The annual update of the STRI database shows that the volume of services trade barriers has grown over the years, although with differences across countries and regions. 

In 2023, Japan, Spain and the United Kingdom were top ranked performers with the lowest average regulatory barriers to services trade. China, Korea, and Portugal were the countries with the highest degree of liberalising reform. 

The 2023 STRI also highlighted differences between OECD and non-OECD countries, with the average level of restriction in non-OECD countries being on average 1.5 times higher than in OECD countries. This indicates the need for continued regulatory co-operation to overcome fragmentation and uneven market conditions. At the same time, several non-OECD economies, especially in the Asia-Pacific region, have been progressively easing barriers on services trade in recent years.

The 2023 STRI shows that barriers to services trade continue to be high across countries and sectors, influenced by global economic and geopolitical challenges. On average, air transport, legal and accounting and auditing services are the most restrictive sectors. Distribution services, sound recording, and motion pictures services are the most open sectors. 

The figure shows the changes in the STRI index across sectors, where decreases in the index values indicate trade liberalisation and increases show trade restrictive changes. 

In 2023, the liberalisation of infrastructure-related services, such as architecture, construction and engineering services, was particularly noteworthy. Broadcasting, computer services, and telecommunications were the sectors with the highest increase in trade restrictions.

Regulatory database: The online STRI regulatory database displays the detailed information used to develop the index, along with sources and comments for all countries and sectors. This qualitative database also provides the source of the regulation, along with the title of the law, relevant articles, a web link to the law, and a comment if additional explanations are required.

Policy Simulator: The STRI Policy Simulator allows policy makers and experts to explore the impact of a change at a detailed level for each measure, and to compare a specific country with a range of other selected countries in a particular sector.

STRI Explorer: The STRI Explorer is an interactive web tool that allows users to investigate the STRI database and indices in a flexible manner. It allows users to compare the services trade restrictiveness of different countries, sectors, years, or policy areas, or to examine a specific case in more detail. The resulting downloadable graphs and tables can be used to analyse trends and patterns in services trade policy.

Digital Services Trade Restrictiveness Index

Intra-EEA Services Trade Restrictiveness Index

ASEAN STRI

APEC Index

STRI Regulatory Heterogeneity Indices

The STRI scoring methodology uses binary scores. Most measures in the STRI regulatory database have binary answers (yes/no) and binary scores are applied directly. Measures that have numerical answers are broken down to thresholds to which binary scores are applied.

Some measures constitute hierarchies where one or a combination of a few measures would close a market segment or a mode of supply to foreign suppliers. In other cases, a restriction on one measure would render others irrelevant. The scoring methodology captures such hierarchies by conditioning the scoring on measures on the answers to questions higher up in the hierarchy of measures.

Some measures are complementary. These are bundled together in the scoring methodology such that if one measure in the bundle is scored as a restriction, then all of them are.

The methodology note explains the thresholds, hierarchies, and bundling of measures. It starts with the horizontal measures that are included in all sectors, followed by sector-specific scoring methodologies.

• Paper on STRI Scoring and Weighting Methodology (January 2015)
• Methodology note (May 2014)
• All indices