State of SEZs 2026 — Annual Global Report
The 2026 edition reports 7,645 current zones (930 forthcoming; 141 status unknown) across 100 countries, with 26 inactive or retired. Snapshot helium-dev-2026-08-15 — a dated edition, not live catalogue state.
What This Report Covers
The 2026 annual report examines global SEZ growth and contraction, by-country zone counts and types, sectoral distribution trends, incentive competitiveness, notable zone launches and closures, and the macro policy environment.
Methodology
Headline buckets are mutually exclusive and exhaustive over the public canonical catalogue (exclude not_an_sez and soft-deletes). Current = operational + partially_operational; forthcoming = planned + under_construction; inactive or retired = inactive + closed; status unknown = null or any other value. Unknown is never folded into current. Public identified total 8,742 versus raw host-line 8,902 on helium-dev-2026-08-15 (difference 160). The earlier 161 not_an_sez note is not confirmed by this public count (8,902 − 161 = 8,741). Country coverage is 100 distinct country codes, not 179 rows of the countries reference table.