India vs Vietnam for Manufacturing: Which Categories Each Country Wins

In July 2019, before the EU-Vietnam trade deal took effect, Vietnam's own press explained why its garment makers couldn't use it yet. "Most of them have just engaged in cutting and sewing steps while not producing fabric and yarn," the report said, and the fabric they used came from mainland China and Taiwan, which have no deal with the EU (Viet Nam News, 15 Jul 2019 (opens in a new tab)). That sentence is the best short description of Vietnamese manufacturing we know. It's a world-class assembler that imports most of what it assembles.

This page is for the buyer who is leaving China, or adding a second country, and has India and Vietnam on the shortlist. We compare them on what each country is actually good at, what they pay in duty, and where their inputs come from. We don't declare a winner, and we're upfront about a limit. SourcingFrom has built its operator knowledge around India, so for Vietnam we rely on trade data and official sources, and the list of what we haven't found is longer than we'd like. If a section would only repeat what any other site says, we've cut it.

1. Category By Category: Where Each Country Has Depth

The fastest way to see how different the two countries are is to look at who the US actually buys from. The US is the best test because it's the largest importer of both and it reports clearly. These are shares of US import value in 2025, importer-recorded.

Source: UN Comtrade, US as reporter, 2025, our analysis. Verified arithmetic. The UK tells the same story in the lines we checked, with Vietnam at 29.2% of footwear and India at 4.8%, and India at 15.7% of castings and 11.5% of bed linen against 0.1% for Vietnam.

What should you take from it? Three things. First, the two countries are strong in different places. If your product is shoes, furniture or fast-turnover apparel, Vietnam already has the depth and India doesn't. If it's cast metal, gears, home textiles or rugs, India has it and Vietnam barely shows. Second, the overlap is narrow. Apparel and electronics are the two groups where both countries sell in volume, and in both Vietnam is ahead in the US today. Third, the table shows where each country is, not where it's going. India's share of US electronics was 0.6% in 2019, so the trend matters as much as the snapshot, and India's side of that story is on why source from India.

One honest caveat on all of it. These are importer-recorded shares for one market. They show what has been proven at scale, not what a supplier could do for you tomorrow. If your product sits where the table says the other country leads, that's a prompt to test, not a ban.

2. Inputs: Who Imports What They Make From

Return to that 2019 sentence. Vietnam's strength is finishing, and its raw materials are largely imported. A January 2026 industry overview put domestic fabric output at about 2.3 billion metres a year, "satisfying 25 to 30 percent of the domestic demand", and said Vietnam consumes around 400,000 tonnes of cotton but sources only 3,000 tonnes at home (Vietnam Briefing, 7 Jan 2026 (opens in a new tab), Reported). The same piece says most fibre materials come from India, China and the US.

Customs data backs that up, and adds something we didn't expect. Of the roughly US$218 million of cotton yarn Vietnam reported importing in 2023, India supplied 42.9% and China 38.6% (UN Comtrade, Viet Nam as reporter, our pull). India's own 2025 export record shows US$125 million of cotton yarn going to Vietnam, 3.9% of India's cotton yarn exports (UN Comtrade, India as reporter). So if you buy a Vietnamese cotton garment, there's a fair chance some of its yarn was spun in India.

India grows cotton and spins it, so it can make the whole chain at home. That has two effects for you. For traceability, India's chain is shorter, and the cotton traceability guide shows how to check it. For duty, whether the fabric is local decides whether a trade agreement applies at all, and that brings us to the next section.

3. Duty By Destination

Duty is where the two countries have moved most in the last year, and the picture differs by market. As of 5 October 2026:

United States. From 24 July 2026 India pays 10% and Vietnam 12.5% on top of the normal rate, under the Section 301 forced-labour action. Bangladesh, Pakistan, Mexico and others sit in the 10% group with India, and China is at 12.5% with Vietnam (91 FR 47318 (opens in a new tab)). It's a small edge for India, 2.5 points, and the rate is open-ended. Our US page has the full stack and the dates.

United Kingdom. Vietnam left the UK's developing-country scheme for its own free trade agreement in January 2023 (GOV.UK (opens in a new tab)). India now has 0% under CETA since 15 July 2026 with a valid origin proof, as set out on our UK page. So both can reach zero in the UK. The difference is the paperwork and the origin test.

European Union. Vietnam has its own free trade agreement with the EU. The 2019 reporting described a phase-out of apparel duty from the normal 12% to zero over three to seven years, which would put the last lines at zero around 2027 (Viet Nam News, 2019, Reported, and we haven't confirmed the current schedule). The catch for apparel was the origin rule. Fabric had to originate in Vietnam or the EU, which is why the press said most garment makers couldn't use it at first. India has the lower GSP rate on knitwear and woven apparel today, and its FTA is concluded but not in force (EU page).

Australia. India is at 0% under ECTA with a certificate of origin (Australia page). We haven't read Vietnam's current Australian treatment, so we won't describe it.

The honest summary is that on duty the two countries are close to level in the UK, close in the US, and Vietnam has the older agreement in the EU. For any single product the answer is a lookup, not a country rule, and how to work out import duty shows how to do it.

4. Price: India Is Cheaper Per Piece, But The Mix Differs

On cotton T-shirts, India's declared value per piece is 30% to 50% below Vietnam's in every market we checked in 2025. The US shows India 30% below, the UK 43%, Australia 47% and the EU 50% (Eurostat, HMRC, UN Comtrade, 2025, our arithmetic on customs values). On sweatshirts the gap is smaller and less consistent, from 3% below in Australia to 50% below in the EU for the men's version.

Don't read that as "India is half the price". Customs values mix products. Vietnam's EU sweatshirt exports are declared at about twice the value of India's, which fits a mix of higher-spec, branded or technical garments, and we can't separate that from price in the data. For a buyer making a plain tee, India's number is a fair signal. For a buyer making performance wear, it isn't a like-for-like comparison. Run your own spec through the landed cost calculator rather than trusting any country-level average.

5. Scale And Factory Evidence

Brand disclosures give the only factory-level comparison we have, and the samples are small. Primark's file lists 16 Vietnamese factories averaging about 815 workers, against 105 Indian ones averaging about 700 (Primark Global Sourcing Map, Nov 2025, counts only). H&M's supplier list has 90 Vietnamese factories against 220 Indian ones (H&M Group public supplier list, Aug 2026, our count). We'd read the first as "similar average size", but that's Indicative at best, because brand lists show who brands use, not who exists, and 16 factories is a thin sample.

On certification, India holds 27.8% of the world's GOTS-certified facilities and Vietnam 0.9% (GOTS Annual Report 2025 (opens in a new tab)). That fits the input story. India grows the organic cotton, so certified supply sits close to its mills. The ILO's Better Work programme runs in Vietnam and not in India (Better Work (opens in a new tab), read 25 Sep 2026), which matters if your retail customer asks for it.

6. How Buyers Actually Move

The forums describe the China+1 shift as partial and messy. In April 2025 a US Amazon seller wrote that "the professionalism and on time performance is unmatched on the Chinese end. In the meanwhile, we've shifted to Indian suppliers for some of our goods" (r/FulfillmentByAmazon, Apr 2025 (opens in a new tab)). A year later another wrote that they had "moved to mostly Vietnam and Cambodia" (r/FulfillmentByAmazon, Apr 2026 (opens in a new tab)). Both are single voices, and some read as promotional, so they're Reported at best. What they agree on is that nobody moved everything. The pattern in our guide is some products to India, some to Vietnam, and China kept for the rest (China+1 guide).

That matches the table in section 1. Buyers of shoes and furniture have gone to Vietnam because the factories exist. Buyers of castings, home textiles and rugs have gone to India for the same reason. The ones struggling are in the middle, buying apparel or electronics where both countries sell, and for them the test order matters more than any comparison page.

7. Which Country For Which Product

Here's how we'd decide, as of today.

Lean to Vietnam if your product is footwear, furniture or high-turnover apparel with technical fabrics, and you want a supplier base that's already used to Western brand audits. Check the origin of the fabric before you assume a trade agreement applies.

Lean to India if your product is cast or forged metal, gears, bed and bath linen, rugs, or cotton basics where certified or organic fibre is part of your story, and especially if you sell into the UK or Australia where duty is now zero. India's manufacturing clusters show which town makes what.

Test both if your product is apparel or electronics. Order small, from one factory in each country, with the same spec and Incoterm, and compare landed cost and quality. If you want a second pair of eyes on either side, SourcingSync (opens in a new tab) can check factories and manage the pilot.

Which brings us back to that 2019 sentence. Vietnam cuts and sews, and imports much of its cotton yarn, including from India. India grows, spins, weaves and finishes at home. Neither is a copy of China. Pick the one whose gaps are the ones your product can live with. For the other big comparison, see India vs China, and for the Bangladesh question in garments, India vs Bangladesh.