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HS 90, 30, 40, 94

Medical Devices & Hospital Equipment import export data

Customs records across the 4 HS chapters medical devices trades under — diagnostic and imaging equipment and the rest of the category, with named buyers, suppliers, quantities and prices.

What moves in medical devices

Medical Devices & Hospital Equipment covers diagnostic and imaging equipment, surgical instruments, disposables and consumables, dental and ophthalmic devices, hospital furniture, gloves and PPE. All of it crosses borders under chapters 90, 30, 40, 94 of the Harmonized System, which is the only definition of the industry that customs — and therefore the data — actually recognises.

Largest importers — medical devicesUN Comtrade · 2024
#MarketValueYear
01United States$446.4B2024
02Germany$163.9B2024
03China$137.0B2024
04Switzerland$83.4B2024
05France$77.8B2024
06Netherlands$73.6B2024
07United Kingdom$72.2B2024
08Japan$70.0B2024
09Italy$62.4B2024
10Belgium$59.4B2024
11Canada$51.9B2024
12Spain$44.3B2024
Largest exporters — medical devicesUN Comtrade · 2024
#MarketValueYear
01China$246.9B2024
02Germany$239.0B2024
03United States$224.7B2024
04Switzerland$130.0B2024
05Ireland$111.6B2024
06Italy$94.7B2024
07Netherlands$85.3B2024
08Belgium$74.2B2024
09France$68.6B2024
10United Kingdom$56.1B2024
11Japan$54.6B2024
12Mexico$50.4B2024

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

The HS chapters behind medical devices

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 medical devices, read from customs

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

If you are selling

Import records are your demand map: hospital and distributor buyers are visible by name in most markets, and tenders follow the same import pattern.

If you are buying

Export records are your supply map: regulatory class drives the lane — high-class devices move by air, consumables by sea.

India's position in medical devices

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

India — exports by chapterUN Comtrade · 2024
India — imports by chapterUN Comtrade · 2024

Why medical devices has to be read across chapters

There is no single tariff line called medical devices. Customs classifies goods, not industries, so the trade that a medical devices business actually does is spread across chapters 90, 30, 40, 94. 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
90Optical, photographic, cinematographic, measuring, medicalProduct-level markets, partners and multi-year values
30Pharmaceutical productsProduct-level markets, partners and multi-year values
40Rubber and articles thereofProduct-level markets, partners and multi-year values
94Furniture; bedding, mattresses; lamps and lighting fittingProduct-level markets, partners and multi-year values

The demand side: finding medical devices 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 medical devices specifically, hospital and distributor buyers are visible by name in most markets, and tenders follow the same import pattern.

The supply side: checking a medical devices 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: regulatory class drives the lane — high-class devices move by air, consumables by sea. 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 medical devices 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 medical devices 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 medical devices

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 medical devices traders use the data

Build a buyer list

Every importer of your medical devices 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 medical devices 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.

Medical Devices & Hospital Equipment FAQs

What is medical devices import export data?

It is the customs record for every consignment that clears under the HS chapters medical devices files against — 90, 30, 40, 94. Each row names the importer and exporter, the product as declared, the quantity, the value and the ports used.

Which HS codes cover medical devices?

Medical Devices & Hospital Equipment spans chapters 90, 30, 40, 94. 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 medical devices 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; hospital and distributor buyers are visible by name in most markets, and tenders follow the same import pattern.

How do I check a medical devices supplier?

Read the export side of the same chapters. A genuine manufacturer ships consistently to several destinations over years. Note that regulatory class drives the lane — high-class devices move by air, consumables by sea.

Can I get medical devices 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 medical devices market?

Because customs classifies goods, not industries. Medical Devices & Hospital Equipment is spread across 4 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 medical devices 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 medical devices 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 medical devices

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