Garment factories in Bangladesh: how many, where, and what they make

Bangladesh has 3,320 export-oriented garment factories, according to the Mapped in Bangladesh database, which showed that figure when we checked it on 18 September 2026 and again on 17 October 2026. Most of them are in four districts: Dhaka, Gazipur, Narayanganj and Chattogram. Other figures you will see are different counts rather than mistakes: the same project’s March 2022 census found 3,723, trade association lists count members, and totals of 4,000 to 5,000 usually include subcontractors that never export directly. The table below sets the main counts side by side.

How many garment factories are there?

Counts depend on the definition, because some factories export directly, some work as subcontractors, and some are members of more than one trade association. The most transparent public count is Mapped in Bangladesh, a database of export-oriented garment factories. On 18 September 2026 its homepage showed 3,320 factories. Industry associations such as BGMEA (woven and general garments) and BKMEA (knitwear) keep their own member lists.

Why factory counts differ by source

You will see numbers between roughly 3,000 and 5,000 quoted for Bangladesh, and studies that also counted subcontractors found more than 7,000 (2015) and over 8,000 (reported in 2017); they are not contradictions so much as different definitions. Mapped in Bangladesh counts export-oriented factories it has physically mapped. Trade associations count members, and a group with several units may hold several memberships. Government registers count licensed establishments, including small subcontractors that never export directly. When a number matters to your due diligence, use the source that matches the question: for “who could make my order”, the mapped export factories list is the most useful.

How much do they export?

According to Export Promotion Bureau data reported by Textile Focus, Bangladesh’s garment exports reached US$39.35 billion in FY2024–25, up 8.84% on the year before. Knitwear grew 9.73% and woven garments 7.82%.

The following year was flat. Export Promotion Bureau figures reported by The Business Standard on 2 July 2026 put garment exports at US$38.70 billion in FY2025–26, 1.64% below the record year before, still more than 80% of everything Bangladesh exports. The European Union took 49.25% of garment exports in FY2025–26 (US$19.06 billion) and the United States 20.01% (US$7.74 billion), on Export Promotion Bureau data compiled by BGMEA. June 2026 alone rebounded 21.52% on the same month a year earlier. For a buyer the direction matters less than the scale: US$38–39 billion a year is roughly US$100 million of clothing shipped every day, and the factories that ship it are the ones described below. Inflated export figures are still quoted online; our Bangladesh clothing sourcing myths and facts guide checks them against Export Promotion Bureau data.

How many workers, and who they are

The census behind that database gives the industry’s most honest headcount. In March 2022 Mapped in Bangladesh, which visited every export-oriented garment factory it could find, listed 3,723 factories and counted about 2.78 million workers, against the 4.3 million in BGMEA’s own worker database, which its president said in December 2021 had not been updated for workers who had left. Independent estimates put the share of women at roughly 60%, down from the 80% quoted a decade ago, as the Economics Observatory noted in March 2025 citing an Ethical Trading Initiative report; the mix has shifted as knitting, dyeing and automated cutting have grown. For a buyer the numbers matter in one way: a factory that tells you it has 5,000 workers should appear in the mapped database with something close to that figure, and a large gap is a question to ask.

Where are the factories?

Four districts hold most export garment factories. Only two have a recent public count of their own, so the table gives a number only where a dated source exists.

Our guide to where clothing is made in Bangladesh compares the four districts by product, factory type and the road to the port.

What do they make?

Factories specialise. Knit units make t-shirts, polos, sweatshirts, fleece and babywear, often with their own knitting and dyeing. Woven units make shirts, trousers and jackets. Denim needs a wash plant, and sweaters need flat-knitting machines. When you look for a manufacturer, ask what makes up most of a factory’s current production, not just what it can make.

Green and safe factories

Bangladesh has the most LEED-certified green garment factories of any country: 291, according to BGMEA’s website on 23 September 2026. In BGMEA’s count of 31 January 2026, 115 of the then 273 were rated Platinum. Since 2013, export factories have been inspected for structural, fire and electrical safety, now by the RMG Sustainability Council and the government’s National Initiative. You can check an individual factory’s safety inspection status on the International Accord’s public factory list.

Who oversees safety today

After the Rana Plaza collapse in April 2013, two brand-led programmes, the Accord and the Alliance, inspected the factories supplying their signatories for structural, fire and electrical safety and tracked remediation. Their successor since 2020 is the RMG Sustainability Council, a body of brands, manufacturers and unions, which runs inspections, remediation monitoring, safety training and a complaints mechanism for workers. It carries out the International Accord’s Bangladesh Safety Agreement, which covered 1,766 factories employing 2.8 million workers on 30 September 2026, by the Accord’s own count; a LightCastle Partners roundtable report of 4 August 2026 put the Council’s programme at over 1,900 factories. Factories outside that programme, generally those without a signatory brand as a customer, fall under the government’s National Initiative, run by the Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments. The practical difference for a buyer: a factory in the RSC programme has a public inspection record you can read, listed on the International Accord’s factory pages with remediation progress; a factory outside it has an inspection you will have to ask for.

Associations, zones and registers

Three kinds of body keep the lists that count. The trade associations: BGMEA for woven and general garment exporters, and BKMEA for knitwear, which had about 2,540 member factories on its own figures and is headquartered in Narayanganj. The export processing zones: BEPZA runs Dhaka EPZ at Savar, established 1993 on 356 acres, Chattogram EPZ, established 1983 on 453 acres, Adamjee EPZ in Narayanganj, established 2006, and others, each with its own customs regime and factory list; Adamjee alone exported US$1.18 billion in FY2025–26. And the government registers: the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies for the legal entity, and the Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments for the factory licence. A real factory appears in all three places under the same name and address; a factory that appears in none of them is not one you should be sending a deposit to.

Finding the right one

With 3,000-plus export factories, the problem is not finding one but finding the one that already makes your product at your quantity. Start from the product: a knit factory with its own dyeing for t-shirts and fleece, a woven unit for shirts and trousers, a wash plant for denim, flat-knit machines for sweaters. Then the region, because the district decides the shipping route and the supporting mills, as our guide to where clothing is made in Bangladesh explains. Then the registers below. A buying house does this matching for you and takes responsibility for the result, which is how we work as clothing manufacturers in Bangladesh, managed by a buying house; going direct means doing it yourself, and the sections that follow are the checklist for either route.

What a factory profile should tell you

• Legal name, address and the group it belongs to.
• Product types and the machinery to match: circular knitting, wash plant, flat-knit machines.
• Number of lines and monthly capacity in pieces, by product.
• Certifications with numbers, and the date of the last social audit.
• Safety inspection status and whether findings are closed.
• Main markets and, where the factory will say, current buyers.

How to check a specific factory

Search the name in the mapped factory database and in the trade association member lists, then verify each certificate in the issuing body's own register rather than trusting a PDF. Check the safety inspection record on the International Accord's public list. Then look the factory up on Open Supply Hub, a free, open database of production locations run by a US non-profit, where a factory’s profile lists the brands and other organisations that have added it. BGMEA agreed on 10 May 2026 to add its member factories’ information and locations to the platform, each with an OS ID, and BKMEA signed an agreement with Open Supply Hub on 22 July 2025 under which, Just Style reported, its member list would be published there. A listing is a disclosure, not an audit, and each brand decides how much of its supplier list to publish, so treat a missing brand as a question rather than a warning; our certificate verification guide explains how to read a profile. Finally, confirm the address on the certificates matches the address on your purchase order: sister units at different addresses are a common source of confusion, and a certificate for one site does not cover another.

What the numbers mean for a buyer

Three conclusions follow from the data. First, capacity is not the constraint: with more than 3,000 export factories shipping around US$39 billion a year, almost any volume of basic knits, wovens, denim or sweaters can be placed, and the real question is which factory, not whether. Second, verification is cheap: the mapped database, the association lists, the Accord inspection pages and the certificate registers are all public, so a factory’s claims can be checked in an afternoon before anyone travels. Third, scale cuts both ways: the same size that makes prices competitive makes most large factories uninterested in a few hundred pieces, so a first order should be sized for the factory you want, or placed through a route built for smaller runs.

For a shortlist of large groups, see the top clothing manufacturers in Bangladesh. To check a factory’s certificates, use our certifications guide. Or tell us what you want to make and we will match it to a suitable factory.