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India’s apparel exports rose 13.68 per cent in September 2026 to about US$1.13 billion, according to government data analysed by the Confederation of Indian Textile Industry. The jump comes on a weak base, and for the first half of the financial year apparel exports are still 6.19 per cent lower than a year ago. Here is what the numbers say about a year of tariff shocks.

Workers at sewing machines in a garment factory

The September number

Apparel exports in September were worth US$1,133.90 million, up 13.68 per cent year on year, according to the Confederation of Indian Textile Industry’s (CITI) analysis of data released by the Press Information Bureau in mid-October. Textile exports did better, rising 19.87 per cent to US$1,946.93 million. Together, textiles and apparel grew 17.51 per cent to US$3,080.83 million.

The cumulative picture is different. For April–September 2026, apparel exports fell 6.19 per cent to US$7,282.93 million, even as textile exports rose 9.05 per cent. Combined textile and apparel exports were up just 2.38 per cent for the half year.

A low base

September 2025 was a bad month, which flatters this year’s growth rate. CITI’s analysis at the time showed apparel exports fell 10.14 per cent in September 2025, and 14.8 per cent across the July–September quarter, from US$3,636 million to US$3,097 million.

So a 13.68 per cent rise on that base largely makes up lost ground. It does not yet show a sector growing past where it was two years ago.

A year of tariff shocks

The slump followed the United States raising tariffs on Indian goods to 50 per cent in 2025. In Tiruppur, the knitwear hub that accounts for 68 per cent of India’s knitwear exports, the US had taken close to 40 per cent of the cluster’s exports, The Secretariat reported in February. US orders fell 60–70 per cent after the tariff, and M.P. Muthurathinam, president of the Tiruppur Exporters’ and Manufacturers’ Association, said: “About 750 to 1,000 units have closed down, and bank NPA [non-performing assets] have risen.”

Relief came in steps. On 2 February 2026, Reuters reported that the US had cut tariffs on Indian goods to 18 per cent from 50 per cent, after a White House official said a punitive 25 per cent duty linked to India’s Russian oil purchases was being rescinded. Later that month, the US Supreme Court ruled 6–3 that the law the administration had used did not authorise sweeping import duties, and President Trump announced a uniform 10 per cent tariff on imports from all trading partners.

A. Sakthivel, chairman of the Apparel Export Promotion Council, welcomed the shift. “Tariff reduction is positive for India and the world at large,” he said, adding: “US buyers are increasingly turning to India.”

Tiruppur's year

The cluster’s full-year numbers show the damage. Tiruppur’s garment exports were ₹42,544.40 crore in FY26, down 4.91 per cent from ₹44,747 crore the year before, according to the Tiruppur Exporters Association. Its president, K.M. Subramanian, attributed the slowdown mainly to tariff-related uncertainty in the US and to shipping disruptions linked to the West Asia crisis. He has said the cluster could reach ₹1 lakh crore in annual garment exports by 2030.

Some of that production is finding buyers at home. In Flipkart’s Big Billion Days sale in October, sellers from Tiruppur grew 2.1 times over business as usual, Business Standard reported, alongside Panipat at 2.5 times. The Tiruppur Exporters Association has also pointed to free trade agreements and man-made fibre garments as growth routes.

A shrinking slice of exports

Textiles and apparel are also losing share in India’s export basket. In April–September 2026, they made up 6.99 per cent of total merchandise exports, down from 8.09 per cent a year earlier. In September alone, the share was 6.94 per cent, against 7.27 per cent in September 2025. Total merchandise exports rose 18.51 per cent over the same period, so the gap is less about garments shrinking than about other sectors growing much faster.

What to watch

October and November data will show whether September was the start of a recovery or a one-month bounce off a weak base. Growth rates alone can flatter a recovery; the better measure is whether export values climb back to pre-tariff levels, such as the US$3,636 million of apparel India shipped in July–September 2024.

Watch too for the final text of any US–India trade agreement. “Normally, it takes 45-90 days for the execution of an export order,” Kumar Duraiswamy, joint secretary of the Tiruppur Exporters’ Association, said in February, so buyers’ responses to tariff changes reach the export data with a lag of up to a quarter.