Manufacturers in India: where textiles, crafts and leather are made

What India makes for US brands

India's pull is its textile base. The government reports textile and apparel exports, including handicrafts, of USD 37.8 billion in 2024-25^[1], and ranks India the 6th largest exporter of textiles and apparel in 2024, with 4.1% of global trade^[1]. For those goods the biggest customer is the USA, India's largest export destination for textiles and apparel, with the European Union second^[2].

Overall, US goods imports from India rose to $103.8 billion in 2025^[3] from $87.3 billion in 2024^[3]. That total covers every kind of good, so the more useful number for a brand is the textile one, and the more useful question is which part of India makes your product.

Match the product to the region

Indian production is organized in clusters, and a supplier based outside the right one may be buying from it. The government's own map:

Knitwear shows how concentrated this gets. The government reports record exports of ₹46,000 crore in FY 2025-26 from Tiruppur, which the government calls India's knitwear capital^[6]. If you make T-shirts or other knit basics, that is the cluster to start from.

Leather is the opposite case in scale. The government says more than 95% of leather and footwear manufacturing units are in the MSME segment^[4]. Expect mostly smaller firms, and plan an inspection before shipment rather than after the goods arrive.

Where India is investing

The government is building new textile capacity through 7 PM MITRA Parks, at Virudhnagar, Warangal, Navsari, Kalaburagi, Dhar, Lucknow and Amravati^[1], and it runs the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme for Textiles, notified in September 2021 for man-made fibre apparel, fabrics and technical textiles, with an approved outlay of Rs. 10,683 crore^[1]. Neither changes what you pay for a first order, but they show where the government is steering new capacity, which matters if you sell performance or synthetic apparel.

Paperwork an Indian exporter should already have

A real exporter holds an Importer-Exporter Code (IEC) from the Directorate General of Foreign Trade, required for exports from India^[7]. It is simple to ask for and easy to check against the rest of the file, because an exporter holds an IEC that, since the introduction of GST, is the same as the firm's PAN^[7]. Ask for both numbers, and check that the exporter's name on the commercial invoice matches the company you negotiated with. When a quote comes from a merchant exporter that buys from workshops, ask which unit will make your goods.

Do not plan around a GSP rate: the record shows the end of India's designation as a Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) beneficiary developing country, effective June 5, 2019^[8]. The tariff schedule also adds a country line on top of each product's normal rate: Products of India: the subheading's duty plus 10% (heading 9903.05.44), apart from products in headings 9903.05.85 to 9903.05.92^[9]. Put that into the landed cost before you compare an Indian quote with one from another country. That line is the product of a recent trade action. USTR ran Section 301 investigations of 60 economies, India among them, opened on March 12, 2026, related to the failure to impose and effectively enforce a ban on imports of goods produced with forced labor^[10]. Its determination for India took into account India's adoption of a forced labor import prohibition after USTR's June 5, 2026 notice^[11], and the investigations ended in a July 28, 2026 notice of actions in all 60 investigations, imposing tariffs on all products of each investigated economy, with certain exemptions^[11], which added a new U.S. note 52 to chapter 99, under which headings 9903.05.20 to 9903.05.84 impose additional duties on all products of the countries they cover^[11], the range that holds India's line.

For shipping, the port authority to know is the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority in Navi Mumbai, which handles around 50% of containerised cargo across India's major ports^[12]. Ask whether the goods ship from there or from a port nearer the factory's cluster, since the answer changes inland transport cost and transit time.

Labor risk is product specific

The US Department of Labor's list of goods produced by child labor or forced labor includes garments and embellished textiles from India, each listed for child labor, forced labor and forced child labor^[13], and footwear, leather goods and accessories, brassware, gems and cotton from India, each listed for child labor, and carpets, listed for child labor and forced labor^[13]. These listings are about goods from a country, not about any particular factory. They do mean a buyer of those products should ask how the supplier controls subcontracting and home-based work, such as embroidery, beading and hand stitching, and should budget for a social compliance audit before a large order.

Getting quotes from India

Tell us the product and the cluster you have in mind, or let the product decide it, and we introduce you to manufacturers in India that fit your specification, each one named; if none fits, we say so. The manufacturers quote you directly. Ask each manufacturer to state its shipping terms on the quote, so you can work out the landed cost and weigh it against other countries.