The country
Which origin is genuinely deep in your product, and what each one pays in duty into the market you sell in.
Your product groupYour destination market
Countries are deep in different products, and the depth is real: it is looms, processing capacity and decades of doing one thing. Sending a specification to a country that does not make that product is how a buyer collects three polite quotes that are all too expensive.
Measured rather than asserted: of the 39 home textile lines we track into the United States in 2025, China held 39.3 per cent, India 25.0 per cent and Pakistan 10.1 per cent. The whole table, twelve countries with what each is growing at, is on the numbers page, and each product group there lists its own suppliers, which is the more useful view: the country that leads in towels is not the country that leads in rugs.
Then read the duty, because it can be larger than the price difference. A 12.00% European rate on bed linen against 3.70% into the Union, or 2.00% into Britain, on a filled quilt, read 1 September 2026, is a bigger number than most of the price gap between two competent mills. Where an origin holds a trade preference into your market, the preference can be worth more than every other factor in this step put together, and whether you qualify turns on paperwork as well as on geography. The fifteen home textile lines with their American, European and British rates are at import duty on home textiles, each stamped with the code it was read at so you can check it yourself.
The six origin countries compared on wages, power, currency and cost of money are at what it costs to make, by country. Every figure there carries its own reference year, because a wage figure without a year is not a figure.
Check it outside, at the source:
- ILOSTAT (opens in a new tab) minimum wages and manufacturing earnings by country, the wage line behind any comparison of two origins
- World Bank Indicators (opens in a new tab) power, exchange rates and logistics by country, each figure stamped with its own year
- EU GSP and preference status (opens in a new tab) whether your origin holds GSP+ or Everything But Arms into the European Union, which on a twelve per cent line is the largest single number in the comparison
Tools for this step
- Import duty on home textiles
Read the American, European and British base rate on fifteen home textile lines, each stamped with the tariff code it was read at, including the split between a filled quilt and the cover that goes over it.
- The twelve supplier countries
See who actually supplies American home textiles, at what share, and which of them is growing, before you decide which country to send your specification to.
- Seven supplier countries, side by side
Compare Pakistan, India, China, Bangladesh and the rest on wages, power reliability, currency, cost of money and the tariff they face, each figure stamped with its own year.
- Country cost indicators Excel
Take the whole origin comparison away as a sheet, with a reference year in its own column against every figure.
Every tool for this guide, grouped by what you are trying to do, is on the tools page.