Abstract Approximately 5 million people every year die due to trauma, a number which is more than HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria combined. This burden of mortality and morbidity disproportionately affects low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), providing a significant source of lost economic productivity and a barrier to development. While this epidemiological imbalance is widely known, the actual demand for and provision of trauma surgery in LMICs has yet to be clearly described. This protocol describes a planned scoping review that aims to identify all such studies that describe either the need for trauma surgery, or the access to trauma surgery, in LMICs. We will define ‘need’ as the prevalence of injury requiring trauma surgery and ‘access’ as the number of surgeries performed for trauma cases. Any study that is carried out on a multicentre, national, or multinational scale will be included. The need for and access to trauma surgery in LMICs will then be quantified, if feasible based on the available data. The management of trauma patients is much more complex than providing a surgical intervention, but surgery often provides immediate management for life- or limb-threatening injuries and is therefore a crucial stage of care to understand. However, the relationship between need and access is complicated by a variety of human and geographical factors. This scoping review will present the available data describing the need for, and access to, trauma surgery in LMICs.