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HS 61, 62, 63, 65, 42

Garments, Apparel & Hosiery import export data

Customs records across the 5 HS chapters apparel trades under — knitted and woven apparel and the rest of the category, with named buyers, suppliers, quantities and prices.

What moves in apparel

Garments, Apparel & Hosiery covers knitted and woven apparel, hosiery, uniforms and workwear, made-ups and home textiles, headgear, fashion accessories. All of it crosses borders under chapters 61, 62, 63, 65, 42 of the Harmonized System, which is the only definition of the industry that customs — and therefore the data — actually recognises.

Largest importers — apparelUN Comtrade · 2024
#MarketValueYear
01United States$119.2B2024
02Germany$51.8B2024
03France$35.2B2024
04Japan$33.9B2024
05Italy$27.6B2024
06United Kingdom$25.8B2024
07Spain$23.7B2024
08Netherlands$21.6B2024
09Poland$19.4B2024
10South Korea$17.8B2024
11China$16.4B2024
12Canada$14.9B2024
Largest exporters — apparelUN Comtrade · 2023–2024
#MarketValueYear
01China$230.5B2024
02Italy$42.2B2024
03Vietnam$35.9B2023
04Germany$34.9B2024
05France$31.5B2024
06India$24.0B2024
07Turkey$20.3B2024
08Poland$16.9B2024
09Spain$16.7B2024
10Netherlands$16.6B2024
11Pakistan$14.9B2024
12Cambodia$12.1B2024

Source: UN Comtrade, official statistics reported by national authorities. Figures are country-level aggregates, not shipment records.

The HS chapters behind apparel

Open a chapter for its own market table, partner countries and multi-year values. The chapter pages are where a product-level search starts.

What the record shows

Buying and selling apparel, read from customs

Two sides of the same declaration, and they answer different questions.

If you are selling

Import records are your demand map: apparel importers are seasonal, so outreach timed to the buying calendar outperforms outreach timed to yours.

If you are buying

Export records are your supply map: a garment exporter's buyer list is visible in its shipment history, which tells you who it can realistically service.

India's position in apparel

What India reports across the apparel chapters, on each chapter’s latest filed year. Use it to size the domestic base before you go looking for a counterparty in it.

Why apparel has to be read across chapters

There is no single tariff line called apparel. Customs classifies goods, not industries, so the trade that a apparel business actually does is spread across chapters 61, 62, 63, 65, 42. Search one of them and you measure a slice; read them together and you measure the category. This is not a subtlety — for a multi-chapter industry, a single-chapter view can understate the market by more than half, and every conclusion built on it inherits the error.

The practical consequence is that market sizing, competitor tracking and buyer discovery all have to be run across the full chapter set. A competitor that appears to have shrunk may simply have shifted its mix from one chapter to another. A market that looks saturated in one chapter may be wide open in the adjacent one. The chapter pages linked above are the detail; this page is the view that holds them together.

ChapterCoversRead it for
61Articles of apparel and clothing accessories, knitted or cProduct-level markets, partners and multi-year values
62Articles of apparel and clothing accessories, not knitted Product-level markets, partners and multi-year values
63Other made up textile articles; sets; worn clothing; ragsProduct-level markets, partners and multi-year values
65Headgear and parts thereofProduct-level markets, partners and multi-year values
42Articles of leather; saddlery and harness; travel goods, hProduct-level markets, partners and multi-year values

The demand side: finding apparel buyers

Every importer in the record is already buying the category. That is the whole advantage over a directory, and it is worth being precise about how to exploit it. Start by fixing the chapters, then narrow to markets you can actually service — certification, logistics and price all have to work before volume means anything. What remains is a list of companies with a demonstrated, dated, quantified need.

Rank that list on behaviour rather than on size. A buyer clearing consignments in most months has an operating requirement; a buyer with one large consignment two years ago has a project that has finished. A buyer already using several suppliers is more approachable than one that has bought from a single origin for a decade. In apparel specifically, apparel importers are seasonal, so outreach timed to the buying calendar outperforms outreach timed to yours.

The supply side: checking a apparel supplier

Read the export flow of the same chapters and the question inverts. A genuine manufacturer ships consistently, across several destinations, over years, at consignment sizes that are stable enough to imply a production process behind them. A merchant exporter ships across unrelated chapters without a matching input trail. Neither is disqualifying, but you should know which you are talking to before you negotiate terms, because their cost structures are not comparable.

One point specific to this category: a garment exporter’s buyer list is visible in its shipment history, which tells you who it can realistically service. That is the kind of detail that separates a useful shortlist from a long one, and it is not visible in any self-reported profile.

What a directory tells you

  • The company exists
  • What it says it makes
  • A contact form
  • No dates, no volumes, no prices
  • Freshness depends on the company
VS

What the apparel record tells you

  • The company shipped
  • What it actually declared to customs
  • Counterparties on both sides
  • Dates, quantities and declared values
  • Refreshed on the customs release cycle

Price, and what a declared value in apparel really means

Declared value divided by declared quantity gives a unit value, and aggregated carefully it becomes a price band you can hold a counterparty to. Carefully is the operative word: compare at the tightest published digit level, within one period, from one origin, in one unit of measure, with the outliers removed. A comparison that fails any of those controls will be dismissed the moment you put it on a table, and rightly.

Read the spread rather than the average. A tight band means the price is structural and your negotiating effort belongs elsewhere — payment terms, lead time, minimum order quantity. A wide band inside a single HS line usually means a grade difference that the declaration does not capture, and asking a supplier to name that difference is a more productive conversation than asking them to match a number.

Seasonality and reporting lag in apparel

Almost every traded category has a buying calendar, and reading a single period against no baseline produces confident, wrong conclusions. Compare like periods year on year, use at least three years before calling anything a trend, and drop the most recent one or two periods entirely — they are still filling in. A buyer who appears to have stopped buying has very often just been read too early.

What this data is, and is not

These are official aggregates reported to UN Comtrade: country-level, annual, and reconciled across reporters. They establish the shape of the market. The shipment-level records that name a specific importer or exporter are a different dataset, filed with national customs authorities, and they are what a buyer or supplier list is actually built from.

How apparel traders use the data

Build a buyer list

Every importer of your apparel lines in a chosen market, ranked by shipment count and declared value.

Qualify a supplier

Confirm shipping history, destination spread and consistency before a first order rather than after it.

Benchmark unit price

Compare declared values by origin so a quotation is argued from the record instead of from a hunch.

Track a competitor

Follow a named company across the chapters — what it moves, where from, and how the volume is trending.

Size a new market

Measure real apparel import demand in a country before committing to registration or certification.

Find the right code

Work back from real shipment descriptions to the classification customs actually accepted for goods like yours.

Garments, Apparel & Hosiery FAQs

What is apparel import export data?

It is the customs record for every consignment that clears under the HS chapters apparel files against — 61, 62, 63, 65, 42. Each row names the importer and exporter, the product as declared, the quantity, the value and the ports used.

Which HS codes cover apparel?

Garments, Apparel & Hosiery spans chapters 61, 62, 63, 65, 42. No single chapter contains the industry, which is why searching one code at a time under-counts the market — the chapters have to be read together.

How do I find apparel buyers?

Filter import records to the chapters above and to the markets you can service. The companies that recur period after period are the accounts worth approaching; apparel importers are seasonal, so outreach timed to the buying calendar outperforms outreach timed to yours.

How do I check a apparel supplier?

Read the export side of the same chapters. A genuine manufacturer ships consistently to several destinations over years. Note that a garment exporter's buyer list is visible in its shipment history, which tells you who it can realistically service.

Can I get apparel trade data for a specific country?

Yes. Every market with a country page carries its own chapter breakdown, and the shipment-level records are filterable by country, port and date range.

Why does a single HS code understate the apparel market?

Because customs classifies goods, not industries. Garments, Apparel & Hosiery is spread across 5 chapters, so a single-chapter search measures a slice of the category and inherits that error into every conclusion built on it. Read the chapters together.

How do I benchmark apparel prices?

Divide declared value by declared quantity, then control the comparison: same tariff line, same period, same origin, same unit of measure, outliers removed. Read the spread rather than the average — a wide spread inside one line is usually a grade difference the declaration does not capture.

Is apparel trade seasonal?

Most traded categories have a buying calendar, so compare like periods year on year rather than month on month, use at least three years before calling anything a trend, and exclude the most recent periods, which are still filling in.

What is the difference between these figures and shipment records?

The tables on this page are official country-level aggregates reported to UN Comtrade — they establish the shape of the market. Shipment-level records are filed with national customs authorities and name individual importers and exporters; that is the dataset a buyer or supplier list is actually built from.

Sample records for apparel

Tell us which of the apparel chapters you trade and we will send live customs records for it, drawn from the market you name.