Last year Hawaii exported $9 million worth of fresh water. That is fresh water, leaving an island chain in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
It sounds counterintuitive. Hawaii is surrounded by salt water, so fresh water is not exactly something you can import by pipeline. But the state ships it anyway. Bottled water, processed and packaged on the islands, is one of the state's top ten exports.
The top export? Aircraft engines. $138 million worth. Second place: scrap metal. Nobody puts that on a postcard either.
These numbers come from the U.S. Census Bureau's state export data, one of 833 datasets now searchable in the Hawaii Business Online Data Explorer.
Hawaii's GET tax base crossed $50 billion last year for the first time, meaning Hawaii businesses reported more than $50 billion in gross taxable receipts. That is the base on which the 4% general excise tax is applied, and it is a rough measure of total economic activity across the state.
The state's visitor industry generated $21.75 billion in direct spending in 2025, a 5.7% jump from the prior year despite a slight dip in total arrivals. Fewer tourists. More spending. The shift is visible in hotel rates and restaurant tabs across all islands.
Fresh water is the 8th largest export from Hawaii. Once you see that, you start wondering what else is in the data.