Vietnam’s cashew industry has ended 2025 with record-breaking figures, marking a new milestone in the history of agricultural exports. According to the Department of Customs, in December 2025 alone, the export value of cashew nuts reached 466 million USD. This is a strong increase of 29% compared to the same period last year. The impressive increase at the end of the year contributed to raising the total export value of cashew nuts for the entire year to 5.2 billion USD, officially entering the “5 billion USD club” of Vietnamese agriculture for the first time.
This is the second consecutive year that the cashew industry has set a new record for export value. In 2024, cashew nuts first reached 4 billion USD, and then just one year later, the export value increased by nearly one billion.
Regarding output, 766,585 tons of cashew nuts were exported in 2025, an increase of 5.7% in volume and 20.4% in value compared to 2024. In the context of declining rice exports, cashews have risen to third place among key agricultural exports, after coffee (8.9 billion USD) and fruits and vegetables (8.56 billion USD).
China becomes Vietnam’s largest export market for cashew.
A notable highlight in the 2025 export picture is the significant change in market structure. For the first time, China surpassed the US to become Vietnam’s largest cashew consumer market, with a value of 1.115 billion USD, an increase of nearly 50% compared to the same period last year.
This growth is thanks to the recovery of the Chinese economy, the increasing demand for healthy agricultural products, and the efforts of Vietnamese businesses to better meet the quality, traceability, and logistics requirements of Chinese partners.
In contrast, cashew nut exports to the US experienced a significant decline of 24% in volume and 15% in value in 2025. Since April 2025, after the US government announced plans to impose retaliatory tariffs on its trading partners, many importers have temporarily suspended purchases of Vietnamese cashews.
For over 10 years, the US has consistently been the largest market for Vietnamese cashews, typically accounting for over 20% of total exports. In 2024 alone, this proportion reached nearly 27%. Therefore, the slowdown in the US market is expected to continue to put significant pressure on the cashew industry in the coming period.
Despite achieving high export value, Vietnam’s cashew industry has the characteristics of a large-scale processing industry, heavily reliant on imported raw materials. In 2025, Vietnam spent about 4.5 billion USD to import over 2.9 million tons of raw cashews. After deducting import costs, the export surplus value of the cashew industry is over 700 million USD.
According to the Vietnam Cashew Association (VINACAS), the achieved results are the fruit of a persistent transformation process over many years. Science and technology play a key role.
Since the national science and technology projects on automatic cashew shelling machine manufacturing in 2010–2011, the cashew industry has gradually moved away from reliance on manual labor, increased productivity, and met the strict quality standards of demanding markets like the EU and Japan. This is considered an important foundation for the Vietnamese cashew industry to continue maintaining its world-leading position in the coming years.