Clothing manufacturer in Bangladesh for Bahraini brands

Duty: 5% of CIF, whatever the origin

Bahrain has applied the GCC unified customs tariff since January 2003, and for clothing it is 5% of the CIF value: the price of the goods plus freight and insurance to Bahrain. The WTO’s 2026 tariff profile shows an applied average of 5.0% on clothing, a maximum of 5% and no duty-free clothing lines. Two groups pay nothing: goods of GCC origin, and qualifying US-made goods under the US–Bahrain Free Trade Agreement, in force since August 2006. Bangladesh has no agreement with Bahrain or the GCC, so its garments pay the full 5%, and its graduation from LDC status on 24 November 2026 changes nothing here.

Two points matter for costing. Because duty is charged on CIF, the emergency freight surcharges of 2026 raise the duty as well as the freight. And the competition is moving: the GCC opened free trade negotiations with India, Bahrain’s second-largest clothing supplier, on 24 February 2026. Brands that sell direct to consumers should also know that since 19 May 2026 Bahrain Customs Affairs charges duty and 10% VAT on personal parcels worth BHD 100 or more.

VAT: 10% on the duty-paid value

Bahrain’s standard VAT rate rose from 5% to 10% on 1 January 2022 under Law 33 of 2021, and PwC’s tax summary, reviewed in July 2026, still gives 10%. The National Bureau for Revenue administers it. On an import, VAT is charged on the customs value, which already includes freight and insurance, plus the customs duty, and it is due at clearance together with the duty. A VAT-registered importer can ask the bureau for authorisation to defer import VAT to its return instead of paying it at the border, and recovers it as input tax under the normal rules. Excise tax covers tobacco, energy drinks and soft drinks, not clothing.

Conformity: no certificate for garments

Bahrain’s Standards and Metrology Directorate, part of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, keeps an office in the customs area of Khalifa Bin Salman Port that checks regulated products before they enter. The published list is tyres, car batteries, vehicle spare parts, cement, asbestos, toys, plastic bags, tissue paper, electrical appliances, air conditioners, cosmetics, nutrition products, and weighing and measuring equipment. Clothing and textiles are not on it, and the directorate’s own summary is that most imported products enter the market freely. For garments that means no pre-shipment certificate, no product registration and no laboratory report as a condition of entry.

Bahrain adopts Gulf standards rather than writing its own where a GCC standard exists, and makes a standard mandatory by ministerial order published in the Official Gazette. The US government’s summary of Bahraini standards was last updated in May 2024, so ask your importer or clearing agent to confirm before the first shipment that no newer textile regulation applies to your product, and keep that answer in your import file.

Labelling: Arabic, and sewn in

Labels must be in Arabic, or in Arabic and English; English-only labels are accepted only case by case for small quantities sent for test marketing, which is no basis for a launch. For textiles, the US Office of Textiles and Apparel lists four items the label carries: country of origin, fibre composition, care instructions and size. It adds that stickers are not accepted, so the information belongs on a sewn-in or printed label, not on a tag stuck over the English. The GCC standard for textile labels is GSO 863:1997, identification labels for textile products. We put the Arabic text on the label artwork at sampling, you approve it on the pre-production sample, and the invoice and certificate of origin carry the same origin wording.

Documents and the importer of record

Bahrain Customs clears goods against an import declaration lodged by the importer or its agent. The published list for a commercial consignment is the shipping line’s delivery order made out to a consignee with a valid commercial registration; three copies of the original invoice addressed to the importer; two packing lists with weights, packing and a classification for each item; an original certificate of origin from a chamber of commerce in the country of origin; a copy of the insurance policy; the original bill of lading; and a statistical declaration where the final destination is another GCC state.

The importer of record is therefore a Bahrain-registered business. Commercial registrations are issued through Sijilat, the Ministry of Industry and Commerce’s online portal since May 2016, and the US government advises using a licensed clearing agent. Consular legalisation is not on Bahrain Customs’ published list, and Bahrain has no embassy in Dhaka: its embassy in New Delhi is accredited to Bangladesh. Ask your importer before the first shipment whether its agent wants the invoice and certificate of origin legalised, because arranging that through New Delhi adds time to the plan.

The market: US$306 million of imported clothing for 1.6 million people

Bahrain imported US$306 million of clothing in 2024 on UN Comtrade figures, US$156 million knitted and US$150 million woven, up 3% on 2023. China supplied US$109 million, India US$47 million, Italy US$27 million and Bangladesh US$26.5 million, just ahead of Türkiye at US$23 million. The largest single line was women’s woven suits, dresses, skirts and trousers at US$64 million, followed by t-shirts at US$36 million and women’s knitted suits and dresses at US$29 million. With a population of 1.60 million in 2025, that is about US$190 of imported clothing per person.

Two malls show the scale of organised retail. City Centre Bahrain, run by Majid Al Futtaim, has more than 340 brands and 14.6 million visitors a year. The Avenues – Bahrain, developed by Kuwait’s Mabanee and opened in 2017, doubled its leasable area to 84,000 square metres in 2025, with space for 248 stores and restaurants. Alshaya runs H&M in Seef Mall. Franchise groups buy through their brand owners; independent and modest-fashion labels, uniform programmes and value retailers buy direct, and those are the buyers this page is written for.

Trade with Bangladesh

Bahrain’s imports of Bangladeshi apparel were US$26.5 million in 2024, US$17.1 million knitted and US$9.4 million woven, 4% less than the US$27.7 million of 2023. The largest lines were t-shirts at US$4.8 million, men’s knitted suits and trousers at US$3.9 million, men’s woven suits and trousers at US$3.0 million and sweaters at US$2.2 million. Bangladesh’s own figures, published by its embassy in Manama, show only about US$10 million of exports to Bahrain in FY2022–23; goods that travel through a Gulf hub are easily recorded against the hub, so Bahrain’s origin-based import figure is the better measure of what is sold there.

Bangladesh’s embassy puts the Bangladeshi community at around 130,000, one of the largest expatriate groups in Bahrain. The two countries signed a double taxation agreement in 2015 and held their first foreign office consultations in Manama in November 2022, and the embassy estimates two-way trade at about US$40 million. There is no trade agreement, so the 5% rate is the rate.

Shipping: the normal route, the route now, and air

In normal conditions Bahrain is a transhipment lane. Khalifa Bin Salman Port at Hidd, run by APM Terminals since 2009, is the country’s only general commercial port and handles all its containers, with an initial capacity of one million TEU. Cargo from Chattogram changed ship to reach Jebel Ali in about 19 to 20 days on Fluent Cargo’s schedule data, with two transfers, and a feeder then covered Jebel Ali to Bahrain in about two days. With connections, three to four weeks port to port was the planning figure.

That lane has not worked in 2026. The Strait of Hormuz has been effectively closed to container shipping since 28 February, apart from brief reopenings that did not last. Maersk’s update of 23 September 2026 lands Bahrain cargo at Salalah or Khor Fakkan, moves it by road to Sharjah and finishes on an intra-Gulf feeder, with an emergency surcharge of US$1,800 per 20-foot and US$3,000 per 40-foot dry container, plus US$1,000 per container on any vessel through Hormuz. Hapag-Lloyd’s routing is similar, with about five days of bonded trucking and feeders on no fixed schedule, and Bahrain’s Gulf Daily News reported in June that rerouting adds 10 to 14 days.

Bahrain also has a Saudi option. Since March 2026 MSC’s Gulf Shuttle has linked Dammam with Khalifa Bin Salman Port, with capacity of up to 3,000 TEU, and the 25-kilometre King Fahd Causeway, open since 1986, carries trucks from Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province. Air avoids all of it: Gulf Air flies Dhaka to Bahrain non-stop in about five and a half hours and restarted the route after Bahrain reopened its airspace on 8 April. The airspace was still open in September, but check routing and flights in the week you book.

What sells in Bahrain, and what that means for production

The import figures point to three groups. Women’s woven dresses, skirts and trousers are the largest line, and the one that covers most modest day wear; t-shirts and women’s jersey dresses come next; and men’s trousers and sweaters are where Bangladesh already sells most. Our minimums are per style and colour: 500 pieces for most products, 1,000 for t-shirts and 2,000 for denim, jackets, woven shirts, workwear and uniforms. A small market does not lower them, but one Arabic label works across the Gulf, so a brand selling in several GCC states can combine its quantities in a single run.

Abayas need one extra step in planning. Nida, crepe and chiffon are bought from mills outside Bangladesh, each with its own minimum per quality and colour, so the fabric, not the sewing, often sets the real minimum and the lead time; cotton, viscose and jersey made in Bangladesh are simpler. Each abaya style is quoted with its fabric named, because fabric, lining and embroidery move the price more than anything else.

Working with us from Bahrain

Bahrain is three hours behind Bangladesh, and we reply within one working day. We quote FOB Chattogram, CIF or DDP to your importer’s warehouse, in US dollars; ask for the 5% duty, the 10% VAT and any legalisation as their own lines, and for the routing, via Salalah, Khor Fakkan or Dammam, to be named on the quote while the Strait of Hormuz stays closed.

• Factory named before production, with its address and audit report
• Arabic, or Arabic and English, sewn-in label with origin, fibre content, care symbols and size, approved on the pre-production sample
• Three invoices, two packing lists and an original chamber certificate of origin, made out to your importer’s commercial registration
• Your importer’s confirmation that no Bahraini technical regulation or certificate applies to the product
• Quality checks on the line and the AQL final inspection report, then invoice, packing list, transport document and origin documents