Where does Bangladesh get its cotton? Imports by country

Bangladesh grows only a small fraction of the cotton its spinning mills use and imports the rest: about 7.2 million bales of 480 lb, roughly 1.6 million tonnes, in the year to July 2026, according to the US Department of Agriculture. That makes it one of the three largest raw-cotton importers in the world, alongside Vietnam and China. Between August 2025 and February 2026 its cotton came mainly from Brazil (30%), West Africa (27%), India (16%), Australia (12%) and the United States (10%). Bangladesh also imports cotton yarn, mostly from India, and cotton fabric, mostly from China. For a buyer the consequence is simple: “made in Bangladesh” says where a garment was sewn, not where its cotton grew, and US and EU forced labour rules ask about the cotton. This guide gives the figures with their dates and sources, explains why they matter, and lists the evidence to ask a supplier for.

How much cotton does Bangladesh import?

The Foreign Agricultural Service of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA FAS) publishes supply and trade estimates for every cotton-trading country, counted in bales of 480 lb (about 218 kg) over marketing years that run from August to July. Its October 2026 report, Cotton: World Markets and Trade, gives these figures for Bangladesh:

In 2024/25 Bangladesh bought about 19% of all the cotton traded across borders. In 2025/26 its imports fell by about 850,000 bales, to roughly 16% of world trade. USDA’s office in Dhaka explained the fall in its April 2026 annual report: gas and power shortages that left many mills working far below capacity, fewer garment orders, a squeeze on credit, and more yarn bought from abroad in place of local spinning. That April report estimated 7.7 million bales for 2025/26; the October figure of 7.2 million is the later one, so use it. For 2026/27 USDA forecasts 7.4 million bales, second only to Vietnam.

Which countries supply Bangladesh’s cotton?

USDA’s Dhaka report draws on import data from Bangladesh’s National Board of Revenue (NBR). It reports West African countries as one group and does not name the 5–6% it calls “others”.

Brazil’s rise is about delivery as much as price. USDA reports that cotton from South America and West Africa is often sold “afloat”, meaning bought while already at sea, and that merchants hold stocks in Singapore, Malaysia and Sri Lanka, so a Bangladeshi spinner can receive it in as little as seven days. US cotton cannot be sold afloat and takes longer to arrive. In February 2026 merchants quoted US and West African cotton at US$0.83 a pound and Brazilian and Indian cotton at US$0.81. Spinners value US cotton for its low contamination, but they pay for it in lead time. Brazil’s supply is still growing: USDA forecasts its cotton exports to all markets at 16.0 million bales in 2026/27, which would be a record for the fourth year running.

How much cotton does Bangladesh grow?

Very little. USDA estimates the 2025/26 crop at 153,000 bales from 45,000 hectares and forecasts the same for 2026/27, and its Dhaka office reports that domestic production supplies less than 2% of the textile industry’s cotton demand. Cotton takes 0.55% of the country’s arable land, on plots often smaller than an acre in 39 of its 64 districts, mainly in the west: Jashore, Jhenaidah, Kushtia, Chuadanga, Meherpur and Magura. Most of it is American upland cotton sown in August and September and picked between January and March. Farmers weigh it against rice and winter vegetables, which usually pay better. The government set a target in 2017 of meeting 10% of national demand from local cotton.

The government’s Cotton Development Board (CDB), which supports growers and sets the farm-gate price, publishes its own production series:

The CDB page does not state the weight of its bale, so its bale count cannot be set directly beside USDA’s 480-lb bales. On either count the crop is a small fraction of what the mills spin: USDA’s 153,000 bales are about 2% of the 7.4 million bales it estimates Bangladesh used in 2025/26. Unless a supplier shows otherwise, assume the cotton in a Bangladeshi garment was grown abroad.

Yarn and fabric: the other ways cotton arrives

Raw cotton is not the only route. Some cotton reaches Bangladesh already spun into yarn or woven or knitted into fabric, and the share depends on the product.

USDA counts 526 spinning mills (2024 figures from the Bangladesh Textile Mills Association), producing more than 1.7 million tonnes of yarn a year, about 80% of it cotton yarn and the rest cotton blends. Their capacity is about 16 million bales of cotton a year against use of about 8.5 million, so there is spare capacity; what holds the mills back, USDA reports, is gas, power and orders. Garment makers have also been buying imported yarn, much of it Indian, which USDA reports was US$0.35–0.60 a kilogram cheaper than local yarn.

In practice that splits the product range in two. A jersey t-shirt or fleece hoodie is usually knitted from yarn spun in Bangladesh from imported lint, so the cotton’s origin sits with one spinner. A woven shirt, chino or pair of jeans more often uses imported yarn or fabric, and if the fabric came from a Chinese mill, the record of where its cotton grew is in that mill’s files, not in Bangladesh. USDA reports where the fabric was made; it does not report where the cotton inside it was grown. Our guides to sourcing fabric and to combed, carded and ring-spun cotton cover the mill side, and the garment industry statistics put these inputs in context.

Why the cotton’s country matters to a buyer

Forced labour rules follow the cotton

The US Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) presumes that goods made wholly or in part in China’s Xinjiang region, or by a company on its Entity List, were made with forced labour, and it reaches inputs: cotton, yarn and fabric. US Customs and Border Protection’s operational guidance for importers (June 2026) asks for cotton products to be documented “from the origin of the cotton at the bale level” to the finished garment. The EU’s Forced Labour Regulation applies from 14 December 2027 and, without a presumption tied to one region, bans products made with forced labour at any stage, cotton growing included.

China does not appear among the named suppliers of Bangladesh’s raw cotton in the NBR figures. The exposure is mainly in fabric: 70% of the cotton fabric Bangladesh imports comes from China, and China also supplied about 6% of its imported cotton yarn in 2024/25. The import statistics say nothing about where the cotton in that fabric and yarn was grown. That is where a document chain is hardest to build. CBP also describes isotopic testing: a cotton fibre carries a chemical “fingerprint” set by the conditions where the plant grew, not by the seed, and a sample can be compared with a reference library to see whether it is consistent with the claimed origin. CBP notes that results are not instant, that the method does not work for every product, and that it endorses no laboratory. Our guide to forced labour rules and cotton traceability sets out the full document chain, what happens in a detention, and the EU procedure.

Origin rules mostly do not follow the cotton

Where the cotton grew does not decide where the garment comes from for duty. While Bangladesh keeps its least developed country (LDC) treatment, the EU’s Everything But Arms (EBA) scheme accepts garments cut and sewn from imported fabric, which is single transformation, and the UK’s Developing Countries Trading Scheme (DCTS) asks for one significant process such as cutting and sewing. In the US, the country where the garment was wholly assembled decides. Double transformation, where the fabric must also be made in the exporting country, is the EU rule for other developing countries, and it becomes relevant once Bangladesh’s EBA access ends after LDC graduation. USDA’s Dhaka report mentions a 35–40% value-addition threshold; the published garment rules for the EU, UK, US and Canada do not use one, while Australia and New Zealand apply factory-cost tests of 50%. Our rules of origin guide gives each market’s rule, the proof of origin guide covers the documents, and the LDC graduation guide follows the dates.

US cotton could lower the US tariff

Since 24 July 2026, most goods of Bangladesh entering the United States pay an additional Section 301 duty of 10%. In the same notice the US Trade Representative said it would establish, “when feasible”, tariff-rate quotas with an initial duration of three years, letting a volume of Bangladeshi textiles and apparel, based on Bangladesh’s imports of US inputs, enter free of that duty. None had been published when we checked on 17 October 2026. US cotton made up 7% of Bangladesh’s raw cotton imports in 2024/25 and 10% from August 2025 to February 2026. If the quotas arrive, Bangladesh’s purchases of US cotton and other US inputs will set how much apparel can enter free of the 10%. How a shipment will be admitted under a quota has not been published, so keep cotton records by lot in case they are asked for. Our guide to US tariffs on clothing from Bangladesh follows the rates.

What evidence to ask for, and what each piece proves

The strongest file combines two kinds of evidence: commercial documents for each lot, and production records that link those lots through each mill. A programme or a test supports that file but does not replace it. Before you confirm an order, put these questions in writing:

1. Is the yarn spun in Bangladesh or imported? Which mill, in which country?
2. Is the fabric knitted or woven in Bangladesh or imported? Which mill, in which country?
3. Which countries does the spinner’s lint come from for this order, and can it show the import documents for those lots?
4. Can the mills link lots from bale to yarn to fabric to cut order, and will they share those records?
5. Is the cotton bought through a programme such as Physical BCI Cotton or the Trust Protocol, or certified to GOTS or OCS? Ask for the certificate numbers and check them yourself, as our guide to verifying certificates explains.
6. Will the supplier keep these records after shipment and send them if a customs authority asks? Put that in the purchase order.

How we handle the cotton question

CMB Sourcing Ltd. is a buying house in Narayanganj, Dhaka. We do not run spinning mills or sewing lines ourselves; our sister factory or an audited partner factory makes the garments, and we name the factory making your order in writing before production. The cotton’s origin is decided when the yarn and fabric are booked, so that is the moment to ask. Our fabric and trim sourcing service covers how fabric is chosen, and our sustainable manufacturing page covers certified organic and recycled cotton. Send us a quote request with your product, quantities and destination markets, ask for the fabric mill and its country to be named on the quote, and tell us which records your customs broker needs. We reply within one working day.