The Global Art Market is Becoming More Local

The global art market returned to modest growth in 2025, with sales rising 4 percent to $59.6 billion, according to The Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report 2026, authored by Clare McAndrew of Arts Economics.

But the report also points to a quieter structural change: collectors are increasingly buying closer to home.

Sales to local collectors increased across every dealer segment during the year. Among the smallest galleries, the share of sales to local buyers rose nine percentage points to 71 percent of transactions with private collectors. Even among dealers with turnover above $10 million – traditionally the most internationally oriented businesses – the share of local buyers increased to 29 percent, up six percentage points year on year. “There was evidence in the surveys of an uptick in local sales to private collectors and museums," says Clare McAndrew in an interview with The Art Journal.

Yet tariffs, regulatory complexity and political uncertainty are reshaping cross-border trade, forcing parts of the market to become increasingly regional. Key data from the report suggests that the geography of the art market may be beginning to rebalance – and contract – after decades of globalisation. Rising costs and the explosion of unanticipated events are complicating the cross-border circulation of artworks, collectors and capital that has long defined the international art trade. In such conditions, McAndrew says: “The markets that could rely on a really strong domestic base of buying did better than the markets that were a little bit more international.”

Dealers surveyed for the report identified political and economic volatility as their most significant challenge in 2025, alongside the growing complexity of international transactions. More than half of dealers (56 percent) said tariffs had negatively affected their businesses. Among those reporting difficulties, 72 percent cited higher shipping and insurance costs, while 65 percent pointed to increased duties and taxes when selling internationally. Much of the pressure, McAndrew explains, comes from the mechanics of global trade itself. “A lot of those rising costs are related to cross-border transactions,” she says.

Operating costs are also rising across the sector. The report cites expenses increasing by around 5 percent on average in 2025, outpacing overall sales growth. Shipping and logistics costs rose by 10 percent, while participation costs for art fairs increased by 9 percent. McAndrew notes that “some of the biggest inflation we constantly see in the surveys is in packing, shipping and travel.”

Dr Clare McAndrew © Paul McCarthy

These pressures come as the art market remains heavily concentrated geographically. The United States, the United Kingdom and China together accounted for 76 percent of global art sales in 2025. The US retained its position as the world’s largest art market, representing 44 percent of global sales with a total value of $26 billion. The UK followed with an 18 percent share, while China accounted for 14 percent. McAndrew says the contrast between domestic and international markets was particularly visible in Asia: “You could really see it when we did the research on China – the divide between the very domestic-facing mainland Chinese market and the more internationally oriented Hong Kong market.”

The report notes that policy unpredictability linked to trade measures in the United States during 2025 created additional uncertainty for the sector. Imports of art and antiques into the US rose 13 percent to $9.9 billion during the year, partly reflecting anticipatory moves by dealers and collectors responding to tariff concerns.

Despite these pressures, parts of the market have begun to recover. Public auction sales showed the strongest rebound in 2025, rising 9 percent year on year after a sharp contraction the previous year. Dealer sales grew more modestly, increasing by 2 percent to $34.8 billion globally. Overall, McAndrew characterises the period as “quite a fragmented market in terms of performance.”

At the top end of the market, high-value transactions have returned. In the United States, the combined value of works sold at auction for more than $10 million increased by nearly 40 percent, reflecting renewed activity among the wealthiest collectors. McAndrew notes that much of this activity was concentrated in a short period: many of the year’s biggest sales, she says, occurred “within a tiny bit of action in the space of about a week, mainly in New York.”

The report also points to a narrowing collector base. The average number of buyers per dealer fell to 57 in 2025 – the lowest level since 2021. Smaller galleries experienced the sharpest decline, with dealers turning over less than $250,000 reporting an average of just 29 buyers, down 40 percent year on year.

Meanwhile, online sales continued to decline as higher-value transactions returned to physical venues. Online-only sales accounted for 15 percent of the global market in 2025, down from a peak of 25 percent in 2020.

The return of high-value in-person transactions reinforces the importance of geographic hubs in the art trade. Art fairs alone accounted for 35 percent of dealer turnover in 2025, underlining the continued role of physical marketplaces in connecting collectors and sellers. Collectors are also becoming more selective in how they travel to such events. As McAndrew puts it, “people might travel to a fair overseas, but if they want to go to a fair in Europe they now might go to one – they won’t go to three or four, as they once did”

Taken together, the report’s findings suggest the art market may be entering a period of structural recalibration. While global sales have returned to growth, rising trade friction, regulatory complexity and geopolitical volatility are making international transactions more difficult. If cross-border trade continues to grow more complex, the future geography of the art market may be shaped less by a single global circuit and more by a network of key events that serve collectors from just around the corner, rather than every corner of the globe.