T-shirt manufacturers: cut and sew, blanks and what customs calls a tee

Blank maker, print shop, private label or cut and sew

Four kinds of offer turn up when you search for a T-shirt manufacturer, and each gives you a different amount of control over the shirt.

• Blank makers knit or buy jersey and sew stock tees in fixed colors and sizes, usually sold through wholesalers. You pick from their range.
• Print shops and print-on-demand services decorate those blanks. They are printers: they cannot change the fabric, the fit or the collar, so a custom T-shirt from them is a stock shirt with your artwork.
• Private label factories sew their own tee pattern in the fabric and color you choose, with your label. This is the route private label clothing manufacturers offer: quicker to develop than your own pattern, but the base style is not exclusive to you.
• Cut and sew factories make the tee from your own pattern and fabric specification. Your own fit, weight and colors come from here, and so do more sampling rounds and minimums per style and color.

Maker or reseller: questions for a T-shirt factory

A company that calls itself a T-shirt manufacturer may be a decorator or a trading company. These questions sort them quickly:

• Is the jersey knitted in your own building, or bought, and from which mill?
• Are the shirts cut and sewn on your own lines? Can you send a live video of necks being set and cover-stitched this week?
• Which steps, such as dyeing, printing or washing, go to other plants?
• Will you share the weight and shrinkage test on the bulk fabric before cutting starts?

A company appears on this page when its own website says it makes T-shirts. The listing does not show whether it knits or sews in-house, so put these questions to every listed company.

What sets a T-shirt quote

A plain tee has few parts, so small specification changes show up in the price. Name each of these before asking for numbers.

Put these in a tech pack with a measurement chart and tolerances. Before cutting, ask for two tests on the bulk fabric. Weight is measured under ASTM D3776/D3776M, the standard test methods for mass per unit area (weight) of fabric^[1]. An underweight jersey is thinner and more see-through than the sample. Shrinkage is measured under AATCC TM135, the test method for length and width changes of fabrics after home laundering^[2]. A high-shrink jersey makes the bulk tee fit smaller than the approved sample. Write the result you will accept for each test into the tech pack.

If a spec sheet gives the jersey weight in ounces per square yard, multiply by about 33.9 to get grams per square meter.

Converting a jersey weight in ounces to grams

Stated weight	Grams per square meter
4.5 oz per square yard	about 153
5.3 oz per square yard	about 180
5.9 oz per square yard	about 200, right on the line
6.5 oz per square yard	about 220

A jersey sold as 6 oz per square yard is about 203 grams per square meter, just past the 200 gram line in CBP's T-shirt definition. Mill tolerances move a jersey near the line to either side, so if you want the T-shirt heading, set the finished-weight tolerance below 200 grams.

Illustrative figures, not a quote. Real prices depend on the spec, quantity and factory.

Where customs draws the line on a T-shirt

A knit tee normally falls under heading 6109, T-shirts, singlets, tank tops and similar garments, knitted or crocheted^[3]. The definition is narrow. It describes a T-shirt in CBP's apparel guide: lightweight, plain jersey or interlock knit of not over 200 grams per square meter, with short hemmed sleeves and a hemmed bottom^[4]. One more limit: under HTS chapter 61 note 5, heading 6109 does not cover garments with a drawstring, ribbed waistband or other means of tightening at the bottom^[5].

Heavier or more decorated tees can cross that line. CBP's apparel terminology guide places a T-shirt type garment with even one conspicuous non-T-shirt feature in the provisions for pullovers in heading 6110^[4]. Its lists work like this:

• fabric features CBP treats as conspicuous in a T-shirt: any fabric that is not plain jersey or interlock knit, heavyweight fabric over 200 grams per square meter, or double-layer fabric^[4]
• decoration CBP treats as conspicuous in a T-shirt: a large applique, a large label, a large heat transfer or a large amount of embroidery^[4]
• cut features CBP treats as conspicuous in a T-shirt: a mock turtleneck or high-crew neckline, pieced construction, a wide, loose-fitting body or sleeves, or no sleeves^[4]
• in CBP's T-shirt guidance, one or two small features, such as small embroidery or side slits, keep a tee in heading 6109; more than two make it a pullover^[4]

An extreme case shows the direction. CBP ruling N315831 (December 2020) classified a crew-neck, short-sleeve knit top weighing 535.5 grams per square meter as a pullover in heading 6110, not a T-shirt^[6]. That ruling covers only the top it describes. A CBP ruling letter states CBP's official position on the particular transaction it describes and binds CBP personnel until it is modified or revoked^[7]. So a ruling on another company's shirt does not settle how yours is classified, and a broker's opinion does not bind CBP.

Before you design a heavyweight, boxy or big-print tee, ask your broker whether its weight, fit and print keep it a T-shirt for customs. For a style you will reorder, you can ask CBP for a ruling before the first shipment. CBP accepts written ruling requests from importers on prospective transactions, meaning goods not yet arrived or entered; oral advice from CBP staff is not binding^[8].

Entering a heavyweight tee as a T-shirt when it belongs with pullovers puts the wrong heading on the entry. Whether the duty rate differs depends on the fiber and the country of origin. Price the style from its heading with the import duty guide.

Cotton tees and forced-labor rules

A cotton T-shirt falls in two enforcement priorities at once. CBP's importer guidance names apparel, and cotton and cotton products, each a high-priority sector for enforcement listed in the UFLPA Strategy^[9]. Per CBP, goods with any input from Xinjiang, or from a company on the UFLPA Entity List, are barred from U.S. commerce unless the importer meets the law's exacting requirements^[10]. That follows the cotton, not the sewing: a tee sewn in another country is covered if its yarn used Xinjiang cotton.

Under the law, the importer must show clear and convincing evidence that the goods were not made wholly or in part by forced labor to overcome the UFLPA presumption^[11]. CBP expects the importer to use due diligence on its supply chain and to answer CBP requests for information completely and substantively^[11]. If your brand is the importer of record, that burden is yours, not the factory's. For cotton goods, CBP's guidance describes supply chain records for cotton goods, from the origin of the cotton at the bale level to the final production of the finished product^[9].

Paperwork is not the only check. The same guidance explains that isotopic testing reads a fingerprint in cotton fiber set by the conditions the plant grew in, not by where the seed came from^[9]. The result is compared with reference samples from known growing areas. CBP does not endorse any testing facility, process or company, and says isotopic testing does not work as an origin method for all products^[9]. Agree in writing who arranges and pays for any test before you order.

Before you order cotton tees, ask the maker:

• Which spinner made the yarn, and where was its cotton grown?
• Which mill knitted and dyed the jersey?
• Can you supply purchase orders, invoices and payment records for each stage with every order, not a one-time letter?
• Will you allow an isotopic test on production fabric?

A maker that cannot name its yarn source is not a safe choice for cotton, however good the sample looks.

Labels on tagless and packed tees

The tech pack guide covers what a clothing label must say. Two FTC points bite on tees. First, the FTC allows care instructions printed directly on the product if they meet the Care Labeling Rule's requirements of permanence and legibility^[12]. That is the basis for a printed tagless care label, so wash-test the print before you approve it.

Second, tees sold in sealed packs, such as retail multipacks, can hide the label from the shopper. For those, the FTC says to put care information on the outside of the package or on a hang-tag when packaging hides the label at the point of sale^[12]. This matters when packed tees go to retail or to wholesale buyers for stores. Youth tees are usually children's products: they need a tracking label, and third-party testing where a children's product safety rule applies, which the clothing brand guide and the tech pack guide cover.

Book a quality inspection at an agreed AQL before you pay the balance. Have it check the labels, the print, the measurements and how the neck recovers after a wash.

Questions buyers ask

How do I start my own T-shirt brand?

Pick a customer and a few designs, and sell them on printed blanks first to learn which ones move. Then have the best sellers made by a private label or cut and sew factory, with your fabric, fit and label. The clothing brand guide covers labels, sampling and a first production run.

Where can I get my own T-shirts made?

For a small batch of decorated shirts, use a print shop or a print-on-demand service. For your own fabric, fit and label, use a private label or cut and sew T-shirt factory, in the US or overseas. Put the maker-or-reseller questions above to any company that calls itself a manufacturer.

How much does it cost to manufacture a T-shirt?

The specification sets the unit price: yarn and knit, fabric weight, a tubular or side-seamed body, and the print. Screen setup grows with the ink colors in each design, and a custom color adds a dye-lot minimum. Minimums and lead times are set per manufacturer; where a listed company publishes its minimum, this page shows it with the date it was checked. The customs heading changes the duty line, so settle it before you compare landed costs. For an illustrative first order on blanks and on cut and sew, see the worked example in the clothing brand guide.

Getting matched with T-shirt manufacturers

Tell us in one request what the tee is: knit and yarn, fabric weight, fit, collar and body construction, colors, print, label type and quantities per color. Add a tech pack or a reference shirt, and ask that each quote names where its cotton was grown. We read your request for fabric, quantity and fit, and introduce you to named T-shirt manufacturers that fit it. Once we offer it, manufacturers can pay for a Featured placement, labelled as paid. Paying for placement does not change who we shortlist, though a Featured manufacturer may receive your details sooner if you agree to share them, as how it works explains.