Why manufacture clothing in Bangladesh

The industry in numbers, and why they matter to a buyer

Bangladesh is the world’s second-largest clothing exporter after China. In the financial year to June 2026 its garment exports came to US$38.70 billion, 1.64% below the US$39.35 billion of the year before, and still more than 80% of everything the country sells abroad. The European Union took 49.25% of that, US$19.06 billion. Seen from the EU, Bangladesh supplied US$21.9 billion of the US$101.7 billion of clothing the EU imported from outside the EU in 2025, 21.6%, second only to China at 29.5% (UN Comtrade, HS 61 and 62).

For a brand those figures mean three practical things. There are thousands of export factories, so the choice is real and prices are set by competition. Every large European and American retailer already buys here, so the compliance, testing and labelling routines your market requires are established rather than learned on your order. And the supply chain is deep: yarn, knitting, dyeing, trims, washing, printing and embroidery all exist within an hour of Dhaka, which is why a cotton knit programme can run start to finish without waiting on imports.

What it costs, honestly

We publish no prices, because no two specifications cost the same: every style is quoted from your tech pack or a reference garment, with the shipping term stated on the quote. Fabric is the biggest single line, close to half the FOB price of a t-shirt in a published cost analysis of Bangladeshi factories, so the weight, fibre and certification of the cloth move the price more than anything else. Quantity per colour, decoration, packaging and testing move it next.

Labour is the reason the base is low. The legal minimum wage for garment workers is Tk 12,500 a month, set from 1 December 2023 after a 56.25% rise, and since December 2024 workers also receive an annual increment of 9% of basic pay; social audits check payroll against both. What a buyer pays for is a factory that pays it, keeps overtime within the law and passes the audits your retailers ask for; we name that factory to you in writing, with its audit reports, before production starts.

• Order cost estimator: your quantity at the price per piece you enter, with the minimum checked per colour
• Landed cost calculator: FOB price plus freight, insurance, duty and clearance, per piece

Duty access, market by market, with the dates

Bangladesh’s trade preferences rest on its status as a least developed country, which is now scheduled to end on 24 November 2029. In February 2026 Bangladesh asked the UN for three more years, the Committee for Development Policy found an extension appropriate if reforms advance, and on 29 October 2026 the UN General Assembly extended the preparatory period by three years from the original date of 24 November 2026, so the transitions below start from 24 November 2029. What happens next is different in every market, and each of our market guides carries the current position with its source. In short:

• European Union: 0% under Everything But Arms today, and the same terms for a three-year transition after graduation, to about November 2032; after that, the EU’s third-country duty, 12% on most garment codes and 6.5% on bras in TARIC, unless Bangladesh qualifies for GSP+ under the new GSP regulation that applies from 1 January 2027, and even GSP+ is subject to a textile safeguard
• United Kingdom: 0% under the Developing Countries Trading Scheme, unchanged for three years after graduation, to November 2032, then Enhanced Preferences
• Canada: 0% under the Least Developed Country Tariff, with a stated intent to keep it for three years after graduation, to November 2032, then Most-Favoured-Nation rates of 16% to 18% on common garment lines; since 1 January 2025 cutting and sewing in Bangladesh confers origin
• Australia: 0% under the Australian System of Tariff Preferences, with an assurance that duty-free access continues after graduation
• New Zealand: 0% under its preference scheme for least developed countries; New Zealand’s High Commissioner said in May 2026 that duty-free access continues after graduation
• Japan: 0% on most lines under its LDC preferences, kept for up to three years; an economic partnership agreement was signed on 6 February 2026
• South Korea: preferential today; a CEPA concluded in principle on 4 August 2026 gives garments preferential rates once it is signed and takes effect
• United States: no preference since 2013; standard duty of 16.5% on cotton knits and 32% on man-made fibre knits, plus a 10% Section 301 tariff from 24 July 2026

Time: shipping and the calendar

Distance is the cost of Bangladesh’s prices. Sea freight from Chattogram takes about 22 to 30 days to Europe and the UK and 18 to 35 days to the United States depending on routing and transshipment, on a freight forwarder’s published guide, and air freight from Dhaka takes two to five days. Production time is quoted per order, because it depends on whether the fabric is local or imported and on how quickly samples are approved.

Two calendar facts matter more than most buyers expect. Capacity tightens when many buyers need the same ship window, so ask how a factory’s lines are booked for your dates. And Eid closes factories for up to ten days twice a year; the dates move each year, and we put them on every production plan.

• Use air for the first drop and sea for replenishment when a launch date is fixed
• Approve the pre-production sample on time: every day lost in Dhaka is a day lost at sea
• Give us the delivery date first and let us work the plan back from it

The risks, and how we manage them

Factory safety is the risk buyers remember. After Rana Plaza in 2013, the Accord and Alliance inspected every export factory supplying their brands for structural, fire and electrical safety; that work continues under the RMG Sustainability Council, whose quarterly remediation reports run to data as of 30 June 2026. We place orders only in factories with current inspection status and a completed remediation record, and you see that record before production.

Fabric supply is the second risk. Cotton knits are made locally; synthetic and technical fabrics are largely imported, mostly from China, which adds weeks and exchange-rate exposure. We tell you which applies to your style at costing, not after the order. The third is communication: a factory’s sales office is not the production floor. We sit between the two, report at each stage and judge every later inspection against the sealed sample.

Who Bangladesh suits, and who it does not

Bangladesh is built for volume, and that is where it is strongest: cotton knits from t-shirts to heavyweight fleece, denim with modern laser and ozone washing, sweaters in every gauge, woven shirts and trousers, workwear and uniforms. A brand with a core programme of a few thousand pieces per style gets a low base price and duty-free entry to the EU, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, with the compliance paperwork done.

It suits a first order less well when the run is a few hundred pieces, the style changes every few weeks, or the fabric is a technical synthetic that has to be imported for a small quantity. We say so at the enquiry stage rather than quote something the factory will decline. For smaller runs we have a separate route, described on our page for start-ups, and for everything else the honest test is the landed cost calculator: put your real quantity, fabric and market in, and compare.