Clothing manufacturer in Bangladesh for Danish brands

Import duty and 25% import VAT (moms) on clothing from Bangladesh

Denmark applies the EU’s customs rules, so a garment made in Bangladesh enters at 0% duty under Everything But Arms when the exporter’s REX statement on origin is valid. TARIC, the EU’s tariff database, checked for imports from Bangladesh on 25 September 2026, gives 0% under the scheme and a third-country rate of 12% on a women’s knitted cotton sweatshirt or hoodie (6110 20 99 00). How the statement on origin works, the EORI number, and what could change after the transition ends, are on our guide for EU brands.

Duty is charged on the customs value as defined on our EU guide; Toldstyrelsen, the Danish customs agency, puts it as the price you pay plus delivery costs to the EU’s outer border, so Aarhus or Hamburg, whichever the ship reaches first. An invoice in US dollars is converted at the customs exchange rate, fixed on the second-last Wednesday of each month and applied for the following month, so the krone figure on your declaration differs slightly from the day’s market rate.

What Denmark sets is the import VAT on top. Moms is 25% of the taxable amount under section 33 of the Danish VAT Act, with no reduced rate for clothing, children’s clothing included. Skattestyrelsen’s legal guidance builds the base for imports from the customs value, plus duties and other charges that follow from the import, plus forwarding and insurance costs up to the goods’ destination in Denmark when that destination is known at clearance. A VAT-registered company does not pay import VAT at the border: it reports the amount in the box ‘Moms af varekøb i udlandet’ on its VAT return and usually deducts the same amount as input VAT on the same return, so for most brands the 25% is a bookkeeping entry rather than a cash cost.

Before the first shipment, register as an importer at virk.dk; the registration gives you an EORI number, which is your CVR number with DK in front. You also choose how to guarantee any customs duty. Most companies join Toldstyrelsen’s security scheme (Told- og skatteforvaltningens sikkerhedsstillelsesordning), which needs credit approval and lets them pay duty once a month. For goods imported into free circulation the relevant option is the scheme for existing customs debt, which charges 1.1 per mille of the duty on each import on the monthly import specification. The 2-kroner-per-declaration option is the scheme for potential customs debt, open only to companies holding an authorisation for a special procedure or temporary storage, so it is not the ordinary importer’s route. With duty at 0% under Everything But Arms the 1.1 per mille comes to nothing, but the importer registration and the choice of security are still required; confirm the set-up with your customs agent.

Landed cost of a sweatshirt from Bangladesh in Denmark per piece: 0% or 12% duty

Take one women’s knitted cotton sweatshirt, commodity code 6110 20 99 00, landed at Aarhus. The numbers are illustrative, not a quote and not our price: a goods value of US$9.00 a piece, converted into kroner through the European Central Bank’s euro reference rates of 24 September 2026 (US$1.1367 and DKK 7.4756 to the euro, so DKK 6.5766 to the dollar), which gives DKK 59.19, and an assumed DKK 3.00 a piece for sea freight and insurance to Aarhus. Customs uses its own monthly rate, so the krone figures on a real declaration will differ slightly.

On 1,000 pieces, a valid statement on origin saves DKK 7,462.71 of duty. If Bangladesh lost the preference after the transition ends with nothing to replace it, the same order would cost DKK 7,462.71 more at the quay for an importer that deducts its import VAT, and DKK 9,328.38 more for one that cannot.

The table ends on the quay at Aarhus. The customs agent’s fee, terminal handling and the truck to your warehouse come on top, and the forwarding costs to your destination in Denmark also go into the base on which moms is charged. Our landed cost calculator adds freight, insurance, duty and clearance to your own price per piece, leaving import VAT out; ask your customs agent to confirm the final numbers.

Shipping clothing from Bangladesh to Aarhus or Copenhagen

Aarhus is Denmark’s container gateway. The port reports 843,665 TEU lifted over the quay at its container terminal in 2025, nearly 28% more than in 2024 and a Danish record, and says it now handles over 72% of the Danish container market. Statistics Denmark’s figures for international traffic put Aarhus at 10.25 million tonnes in 2025, 6.52 million of them in containers; Copenhagen handled 4.03 million tonnes, 0.97 million in containers. Copenhagen Malmö Port, which runs the Copenhagen terminal, reported 12.8 million tonnes across its Copenhagen and Malmö quays in 2025; its Copenhagen container terminal handled 49,100 TEU in the first five months of 2025, up 32.7% on the same months of 2024. Danish ports as a whole moved 95.1 million tonnes of goods in 2025, 1.4% more than in 2024.

Our shipping page covers the Chattogram to Europe sailing times and the handling at each end that stretches them. Goods for Denmark often land at Hamburg, Bremerhaven or Rotterdam and move on by feeder, road or rail. Nothing changes in the duty, but the customs value ends at that first port, as the EU guide explains, and if the goods are cleared there rather than in Denmark the import VAT follows that country’s rules and the EU’s trade statistics count them as that country’s import. Agree the port and the place of clearance with your forwarder before the first booking, and ask for the Aarhus and Hamburg routings side by side.

Bangladesh’s share of Denmark’s clothing imports: 16.7% in 2025, second after China

Denmark imported €5.21 billion of clothing (HS chapters 61 and 62) in 2025, according to Eurostat’s Comext database, 6.9% more than in 2024. China supplied €1.16 billion, 22.2% of the total, and Bangladesh €872 million, 16.7%, 0.6% less than in 2024. Türkiye, India and Pakistan followed, far behind. Counting only imports from outside the EU, which Eurostat records by country of origin, Bangladesh’s share was 28.2%.

About 41% of Denmark’s clothing imports came from other EU member states. Eurostat records those by the country they were sent from, not where they were made, so that share includes clothing made in Bangladesh and cleared in Germany, the Netherlands or Sweden before it crossed into Denmark. Seen from Bangladesh, Denmark bought US$940.35 million of clothing in FY2025–26 (July 2025 to June 2026), 9.98% less than the year before, on Export Promotion Bureau figures published by BGMEA. Eurostat and the EPB count different months in different currencies at different points in the chain, so the totals will not reconcile: the euro figures for calendar 2025 are flat, the dollar figures for the year to June 2026 are down.

Packaging producer responsibility in Denmark since 1 October 2025

Denmark’s extended producer responsibility for packaging took effect on 1 October 2025: from that date the companies that place packaged goods on the Danish market, rather than the municipalities, pay for collecting and treating the packaging waste. A producer is the company that has packaging made under its own name or trademark, or that imports packaged goods from another EU country or from outside the EU, so a Danish brand importing clothing from Bangladesh is the producer of the polybags, hang tags, cartons and mailing bags the order arrives in. A micro-enterprise, with fewer than 10 employees and no more than €2 million of turnover or balance sheet, is responsible only for the packaging it imports or makes itself, so an importer is in scope whatever its size.

The obligations are to register with Dansk Producentansvar (DPA) no later than 14 days before you first make the packaging available, to join a collective scheme, and to report each year, by material, the packaging you placed on the market in the previous year, in the reporting window from 1 January to 31 May; a collective scheme reports on behalf of its members. A company placing less than 8 tonnes a year may use simplified reporting, but it is not exempt. DPA charges a one-off registration fee and an annual fee, and the collective scheme’s fees depend on the material and weight of each packaging component.

Since 12 August 2026 the EU packaging regulation has applied alongside the Danish rules and changed how ‘own name or trademark’ is read: what now matters is who ordered the packaging and set its specification, not whether the brand is printed on it. Our EU guide covers the regulation itself. For Denmark the practical step is to put the weight and material of every packaging component per style on the packing specification agreed at sampling, because the register and the scheme fees run on those figures. We can quote mono-material polybags and lighter cartons at sampling.

Textile producer responsibility in Denmark: where it stands on 25 September 2026

Denmark does not yet have a textile producer responsibility scheme, and it had not published a draft executive order when we checked on 25 September 2026: Miljøstyrelsen’s page on producer responsibility for textiles said only that more information would follow, and we found no textile consultation on the government’s consultation portal. Directive (EU) 2025/1892 sets the deadline, with schemes running in every member state by April 2028; our EU guide explains it. What Denmark has done is fund the groundwork: the 2025 Finance Act gave the secretariat of the national action plan for textiles DKK 40 million to run initiatives until 31 December 2028, and preparing the basis for the Danish implementation of extended producer responsibility for textiles is one of the six elements the Finance Act asked the plan to cover.

The directive requires producers to register, to finance collection and recycling and to report what they place on the market, and Denmark’s packaging scheme shows the administrative shape that is likely: a register at Dansk Producentansvar, a collective scheme and an annual return. The preparation that costs nothing now is data: fibre composition and garment weight per style on every packing list, and single-fibre constructions with separable trims where they do not compromise the product, because eco-modulated fees reward garments that are easier to reuse and recycle. Danish trade bodies have published expected dates for a consultation and a bill; treat those as forecasts until the ministry publishes its draft.

Clothing labels for Denmark: fibre composition in Danish

Since 1 July 2021 the labelling of textile products and footwear in Denmark has come under the Act on products and market surveillance, and a Danish executive order on marking footwear and labelling textile products (BEK nr 1046 of 28 May 2021) sets the language requirement: textile products sold in Denmark must be labelled in Danish, with the fibre names and rules taken from the EU textile regulation. Sikkerhedsstyrelsen, part of Erhvervsstyrelsen since January 2026, checks labels in shops and in online sales, and a company that fails to label its textile products correctly in Danish can be fined.

The label carries the fibre composition in Danish using the EU fibre names and, under the EU rules on our EU guide, the name and contact details of the responsible economic operator in the EU and a batch or style identifier. Care symbols and EU sizing follow your retailer’s manual. If Denmark is one of several Nordic markets, put the Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish fibre names on one label from the start. Sign the Danish wording off on the pre-production sample; the bulk fabric test against your approved swatch then backs the composition it declares.

Green claims in Denmark: the Consumer Ombudsman’s recommendations from 27 September 2026

Denmark enforces the EU’s new rules on environmental claims through its Marketing Practices Act, and Forbrugerombudsmanden, the Consumer Ombudsman, published revised recommendations on companies’ environmental marketing on 4 September 2026, applying from 27 September 2026; they update its 2024 recommendations, which had already replaced its 2021 quick guide. The banned practices are listed on our EU guide; in Danish marketing that means no ‘miljøvenlig’ or ‘klimavenlig’ without recognised excellent environmental performance, and no self-made sustainability badge. For a Danish swing tag or product page, name the fibre, its percentage and the certificate number, and nothing more.

Household textile waste has been collected separately in Denmark since 1 July 2023

Denmark moved earlier than the EU on collection. Under the Danish waste order, which carries out the political agreement on a climate plan for a green waste sector and circular economy, every municipality had to start collecting textile waste separately from households by 1 July 2023, a year and a half before the EU’s 1 January 2025 deadline. Textile waste means worn, torn or stained clothing and textiles that cannot be used again; clothing that can still be worn must go to reuse, not the textile bin.

For a brand the point is that Denmark already has a sorted stream of end-of-life clothing, and the producer responsibility scheme will decide who pays for it.

For start-ups and small brands in Denmark: minimums and the first order

Our own orders start at 500 pieces per style and colour, which is also the minimum for T-shirts and hoodies. Denim, jackets, woven shirts, workwear and uniforms start at 2,000; underwear at 5,000 pieces and socks at 5,000 pairs; for every other category the exact minimum is confirmed on your quote. Orders below 500 pieces go through the small-run route on our low MOQ page, which is our sister company’s programme, not ours.

The Danish side is light for a small importer. Duty is 0% under Everything But Arms with a REX statement on origin, and the 25% moms is reported and deducted on the same VAT return once you are VAT-registered, so for most brands it is a bookkeeping entry, not a cash cost. Before the first shipment you register as an importer at virk.dk, which also gives you your EORI number, and with Dansk Producentansvar at least 14 days before you first put packaged goods on the market. A first order needs a tech pack or a reference garment, a target quantity per style and colour, your market and the Danish label wording. The quote states the shipping term (FOB, CIF or DDP) and your category minimum in writing, you approve a sample before bulk, and the factory that will make your order is named to you before production, with its address, certificates and audit reports.

Working with us from Denmark

Bangladesh is four hours ahead of Denmark in summer and five in winter; we reply within one working day. Bangladesh is Denmark’s second-largest clothing supplier, so Bangladeshi factories make to Danish retailers’ specifications every day and a Danish fibre label or a Danish packaging specification is routine. We quote in US dollars, and the krone is pegged to the euro in ERM II at 7.46038 kroner per euro within a band of 2.25% either side, so your exposure on a US dollar quote is the dollar against the euro, not the krone. We quote FOB, CIF or DDP from Chattogram sea port or Dhaka airport.

• Factory named before production, with its address, certificates and audit reports
• Danish fibre-composition label and EU importer details approved on the pre-production sample
• Fibre composition, garment weight and packaging weights per style: ask for them on the packing list for the packaging report now and the textile scheme later
• Quality checks on the line and the AQL final inspection report, then invoice, packing list, transport document and origin statement