Trade fairs for sourcing

A lot of good factories never show up in a search, and a fair is often the only place they go looking for you. This page lists sourcing fairs one by one, each with its next edition first, so you can pick the trip that's worth the flight.

One honest caveat - we only cover India so far, because that's where our research is deep. Other countries get added when we've done the same work on them, not before.

Why Fairs Still Matter

The factories you most want are often the hardest to find online. An Indian B2B manufacturer put it plainly on a forum in 2023: "Now we mostly acquire new customers through trade shows, or references" (r/india, 2023 (opens in a new tab)). If that's how a maker finds buyers then a directory search will miss it, and a fair won't.

A fair puts a few hundred exporters in one hall for a few days. You hold the product, compare finishes across stands in an hour, and meet the person who will answer your emails. Hosted-buyer programmes go further, because the organiser pays for part of your trip and books meetings before you land. For a first trip to a country, that usually beats walking a big general fair alone.

What A Fair Won't Tell You

A stand doesn't prove the exhibitor makes what's on it. Export-council fairs admit registered exporters with a track record, and those members include merchant exporters who buy from makers. That's a normal way to trade, and plenty of big retailers buy that way. It just means the question at every stand is the same - who makes this, and who answers for its quality?

A fair also isn't a shortcut past the checks. Names you collect in the aisles go through the same checks as names from anywhere else, and the method is in what "verified" means. Some events that call themselves trade fairs are public shows or domestic industry days, so each fair page says plainly which it is.

How We List Fairs

We show a date only once the organiser has published it on its own site. Until then the page says "dates not yet announced" rather than repeat last year or copy a listing site. We don't publish ticket, stand or registration prices either, because they change edition to edition, so check the current fee with the organiser.

Organisers may pay to be listed. Where that's the case, the fair carries one quiet line, "Listing provided by the organiser". Payment never changes a fair's order, its prominence or the label on its dates.

Fairs By Country

India is the first country on the list, with 22 fairs and recurring events plus the government-backed Reverse Buyer-Seller Meets. Start with India's trade fairs for overseas buyers, which sets out who pays for what and which fairs are really export-sourcing fairs.

You can filter by country, by sector (carpets, home and gifts, textiles and apparel, gems and jewellery, leather and footwear, sports goods, engineering, automotive, food, organic food, seafood, rice, spices, pharma, toys, fashion jewellery, handloom and multi-product) and by month.

If you'd rather someone set up the meetings, pre-screened the exhibitors and ran the visits for you, SourcingSync (opens in a new tab) does that at any fair listed here.

Next dates not confirmed
AAHAR
Bharat Mandapam, India
AAHAR is India's big food and hospitality show, run by ITPO at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi. The name means "food", so importers assume it's the place to buy Indian food. It mostly isn't. It's a domestic show for hotels, restaurants and caterers, and about half the floor is kitchen and hotel equipment.
Next dates not confirmed
BFLEX Bharat Footwear & Leather Expo
Bharat Mandapam, India
"We do a lot of leather goods in India which rarely has quality issues." That line came from an Amazon seller comparing sourcing countries (r/FulfillmentByAmazon, 2019), and it matches what we hear more widely. Leather and soft goods are where foreign buyers report their better India results. BFLEX is the leather export council's show for exactly that trade.
Next dates not confirmed
Bharat International Rice Conference
Bharat Mandapam, India
The Bharat International Rice Conference (BIRC) is the Indian Rice Exporters Federation's conference for the rice trade, run with APEDA, now in its second year. If you import basmati or non-basmati rice then it puts a big slice of India's exporters in one building for three days.
Next dates not confirmed
Bharat Mobility
Bharat Mandapam (components show at Yashobhoomi, 4 to 7 Feb), India
An Indian castings and fasteners maker shipped his first three export containers to a buyer in Dubai on payment against delivery, because "no one was ready to pay advance" (r/IndiaBusiness, 2025). That's the other side of the table at Bharat Mobility. Plenty of the component makers in these halls want export orders badly, and a buyer who turns up prepared has more leverage than the guides suggest.
Next dates not confirmed
Bharat Tex
Unknown, India
Bharat Tex is India's whole-chain textile fair, from fibre and yarn through fabric to finished garments, home textiles and technical textiles, run by a consortium of the textile export councils. The 2027 dates aren't announced yet, so this page tells you what the 2026 edition offered buyers and what to do before the call opens.
Next dates not confirmed
BIOFACH India
Delhi-NCR (hall not yet named), India
BIOFACH India is the Indian edition of the big Nuremberg organic fair, run by NuernbergMesse India with Natural Expo India and Millets India alongside. If you import certified organic food, natural products or millets then it's the one Indian show built around your category.
Next dates not confirmed
HEPC handloom and home-textile fairs
Unknown, India
A buyer planning a trip to Karur, one of India's home-textile towns, wrote this in January 2026 - "I tried enquiring online and through email's but unfortunately only few of the many manufacturers/Factories have responded" (r/Karur, 2026). The locals' advice was to tell owners ahead of time and walk in. That's the problem council fairs solve. The weavers and exporters who don't answer cold emai…
Next dates not confirmed
IFJAS (India Fashion Jewellery and Accessories Show)
Unknown, India
"I don't wanna order something that has lead or something." That's a buyer abroad asking about Indian costume jewellery (r/ABCDesis, 2021), and another in the same vein said flatly "there's no fashion jewelry that doesn't have lead probably" (forum reply, 2025). The worry is fair, and it is also fixable. IFJAS is where you can put that question to a hall full of exporters face to face.
Next dates not confirmed
IHGF Delhi Fair
India Expo Centre & Mart, India
IHGF is India's biggest handicrafts, home and lifestyle sourcing fair, with brassware, furniture, textiles, gifts and fashion accessories from India's craft clusters under one roof. It runs twice a year at Greater Noida, just outside Delhi. It suits buyers who want to see many categories in one trip, and it rewards the ones who shortlist before they fly.
Next dates not confirmed
IIJS (Signature, Tritiya, Premiere)
Jio World Convention Centre and Bombay Exhibition Centre (Mumbai); BIEC (Bengaluru, Tritiya), India
IIJS is the gem and jewellery export council's show, held three times a year under three names, and it's the trade's front door to Indian jewellery makers. Exhibitors are council members only and there are no counter sales. It's a show for buyers with a jewellery business, not a place to pick up a few pieces.
Next dates not confirmed
India Carpet Expo
Carpet Expo Mart, India
The India Carpet Expo is the carpet export council's own fair for hand-knotted, hand-woven and tufted carpets and floor coverings. It sits in Bhadohi, inside the carpet belt itself, so you see the product a short drive from where it's woven. It has the most generous hosted-buyer package we've found at any Indian fair.
Next dates not confirmed
India Engineering Sourcing Show (IESS)
Unknown, India
A US machine shop owner once described his Indian parts in one line - "super crooked drill holes, every single threaded hole needs to be retapped by us" (r/Machinists, 2021). Precision work is where foreign buyers report their worst India results, and it is also where the good Indian plants are very good. IESS is the one fair built to help you tell the two apart.
Next dates not confirmed
India International Footwear Fair (IIFF)
Bharat Mandapam, India
IIFF is ITPO's footwear fair at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi, showing finished footwear, components and machinery. If you buy shoes from India then it's one of two Delhi footwear shows to weigh up. The other is BFLEX, the leather council's buyer-seller meet.
Next dates not confirmed
India International Leather Fair (IILF)
Unknown, India
IILF is Chennai's leather fair, on the doorstep of the Tamil Nadu tanning and footwear belt around Ambur, Ranipet and Vellore. ITPO hasn't announced the 2027 dates yet, so we don't show the ones circulating on third-party sites.
Next dates not confirmed
India International Trade Fair (IITF)
Bharat Mandapam, India
An Indian B2B manufacturer put it simply on a forum - "Now we mostly acquire new customers through trade shows, or references" (r/India, 2023). A UK importer in another thread agreed from the buying side, saying most real makers are hardly online at all (r/smallbusinessuk, 2026). So fairs matter in India. The catch is picking the right one, and IITF is the one buyers search for most and should…
Next dates not confirmed
India Sporting Goods Fair
Yashobhoomi (IICC), India
An Australian club player ordered a cricket bat straight from a maker in Meerut. The seller quoted 1,127 g, and when it landed in Australia it weighed 1,232 g (r/Cricket, 2025). That's about 9% over, on the one spec a player feels first. It's also the kind of thing you can settle in person, holding the product and putting the tolerance in writing, which is what this fair is for.
Next dates not confirmed
Indusfood
India Expo Centre & Mart (main edition); BIEC (Bengaluru); Helipad Exhibition Centre (Gandhinagar), India
Indusfood is the Indian food fair built for people like you, the importers. It's a closed-door show run by the Trade Promotion Council of India (TPCI), and only pre-approved buyers get in. When food importers ask us about AAHAR, this is where we send them instead.
Next dates not confirmed
iPHEX
Bharat Mandapam, India
iPHEX is Pharmexcil's export fair for medicines, APIs, healthcare products, AYUSH and nutraceuticals. It flies in overseas delegates, sets up meetings and runs factory visits. It's for regulated buyers - importers, distributors and procurement bodies with the licences to bring these goods in.
Next dates not confirmed
Seafood Expo Bharat
Unknown, India
Seafood Expo Bharat is the seafood fair run by MPEDA, India's marine products export authority. It's the one Indian show built entirely around seafood exporters, so if you import shrimp, fish or processed seafood then it's the fair to watch.
Next dates not confirmed
Toy Biz International
Bharat Mandapam, India
We pulled every EU Safety Gate alert on goods of Indian origin from January 2021 to September 2026, and toys showed up with a clear pattern. Six alerts were for N-nitrosamines in rubber and foam parts such as plastic tyres, and two more were for phthalates. The UK's product safety office logged four phthalate reports on Indian face stickers, a cricket set and hockey sticks in the same period (o…
Next dates not confirmed
World Food India
Bharat Mandapam, India
World Food India is the Ministry of Food Processing Industries' show at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi. It's a government event built to pull investment into Indian food processing, with a big exhibition attached. You can buy there, but that's not what it's designed around.
Next dates not confirmed
World Spice Congress
Unknown, India
The World Spice Congress is the Spices Board of India's meeting for the global spice trade. It's a congress with an exhibition on the side, not a sourcing fair with a thousand stands. The board, the big exporters and the regulators all sit in one place, which makes it the best room we know for learning how Indian spice actually gets tested.