Bicycles and Bicycle Parts From Ludhiana, India

Why were India's bicycle exports shrinking? In June 2024 Jagdish Rai Singhal, founder of Ludhiana's Eastman group, gave The Tribune a plain answer. Trucking a bike from Punjab to the Gujarat ports added 10% to 15% to its cost, Europe charged Indian bikes 10.5% duty, and rivals in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, the Philippines and Cambodia paid less. Add it all up, he said, and an Indian bicycle came out about 25% dearer in Europe (The Tribune, 13 Jun 2024 (opens in a new tab), Reported). Exports had fallen from 557,523 bicycles in 2022-23 to 436,720 in 2023-24, by the manufacturers' association's count in the same report.

Two years on, half of his complaint is fixed and the other half has got worse. The UK now charges Indian bicycles nothing, while the EU charges them more.

This page is for you if you're deciding whether Ludhiana can build to your standard. We cover what India sells abroad today, the duty in each market, the China anti-dumping duty that makes a non-Chinese bike interesting and the safety tests that have actually caught an Indian bicycle. We don't publish prices.

What India Is Good For, Honestly

The numbers change the question, so start there. India builds bicycles by the million for its own roads, but its finished-bike exports are small - under half a million units in 2023-24 by the industry's count. In the four markets we checked, India supplied between 1.5% and 4.1% of imported bicycles in 2025 (Comtrade, Verified).

So don't expect a shelf of export-ready European city bikes waiting in Ludhiana. What you'll find is big domestic makers with export desks and a much larger base of parts makers behind them.

That parts base is the real asset, in our opinion. Ludhiana is said to make 92% of India's bicycle parts (The Tribune, 2024 (opens in a new tab)), which means frames, forks, rims, hubs, chains, freewheels, saddles and tubes. Our reading (Indicative) is that three kinds of buyer do best here -

• a brand that wants a simple, sturdy steel bike, city, utility, kids' or cargo, built to its spec
• an assembler outside India buying parts
• a buyer who wants a non-Chinese source of steel components in a market with a China duty

A high-end buyer is a weaker fit. Carbon frames, hydraulic disc systems and electronic shifting are mostly imported into India's own supply chain too, so an Indian quote for them is often a Chinese or Taiwanese part with Indian assembly on top. Nothing wrong with that, but it does change the origin question below.

Duty, Market by Market

We read the UK, US and Australian lines on 7 October 2026.

Sources: UK Trade Tariff (opens in a new tab), EU Regulation 2025/2146 (opens in a new tab), USITC (opens in a new tab), DFAT (opens in a new tab), and our UK, EU and US pages.

The UK row is the news. Most imported bicycles pay 14% there, and the UK keeps its 48.5% anti-dumping duty on Chinese bikes and on bikes consigned through Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Cambodia, Pakistan and the Philippines. An Indian bicycle with valid origin pays nothing at all.

That's exactly the gap Mr Singhal asked for in 2024, and it arrived in one market only.

The EU row runs the other way. The 10.5% he quoted was the GSP rate, and the EU suspended India's GSP for the vehicles section from 1 January 2026 to 31 December 2028, so Indian bikes now pay the full conventional duty while Bangladesh, on the EU's least-developed-country terms, generally pays nothing. Run your own CN code in TARIC before you price. If anything Chinese is in the bike then run it past your customs broker too.

The Origin Question You Have to Ask

Here's where the anti-dumping duty bites back. A bicycle doesn't become Indian just because someone bolted it together in Ludhiana. If the frame, fork and wheels came from China then UK or EU customs may ask whether the bike is really Chinese, and the 48.5% follows their answer rather than your label. That's why both duties already reach bikes sent through third countries.

So put three questions in the RFQ. Where is the frame made, where is the fork made and where are the wheels built? Then get the maker's origin calculation checked against your market's rule before the first container leaves. The UK rule, the proof you'll need and how to claim CETA are on rules of origin and India to the UK.

For a mixed-origin bike, settle this with your customs broker before you sign. After a customs query is a bad time to start.

The Safety Tests That Decide the Order

US

Bicycles are regulated under 16 CFR Part 1512, which covers braking, steering, frame and fork strength, wheels, chain guards and reflectors. The definition reaches pedal-assist bikes with a motor under 750 watts, and a bike with a seat height of 635 mm or less counts as a "sidewalk bicycle" with its own requirements (eCFR, 16 CFR 1512 (opens in a new tab)). A bike for children is also a children's product, so it needs third-party testing and a Children's Product Certificate.

EU and UK

There's no single bicycle law. Bikes are sold under the general product safety rules and tested to the ISO standards: ISO 4210 for adult bicycles and ISO 8098 for children's bicycles. The one Indian bicycle in our five-year pull of EU Safety Gate alerts is the children's bike Croatia banned in 2025 because the rear brake's force was too weak (Safety Gate, SR/00600/25 (opens in a new tab)). A brake test costs little, and a ban costs a lot more.

Australia

Bicycles sold in Australia must meet a mandatory safety standard, and the importer carries the responsibility. We didn't re-read it for this page, so confirm the current version with your test lab.

In practice that means one thing - test production-line bikes to your market standard at a lab you pick, brakes and frames first. India's domestic bikes are built for Indian roads and Indian riders, which often means coaster or rod brakes and heavier steel. That's a perfectly good product, but it may not be yours, so write the brake type and the test standard into the spec before sampling.

Getting Bikes Out of Punjab

Ludhiana sits about 1,093 km in a straight line from Mundra (our calculation, great-circle distance), and that's the inland freight Mr Singhal was grumbling about. The town has a working export container depot, ICD Dhandarikalan run by CONCOR, and rail runs to Mundra, Pipavav and Nhava Sheva (CONCOR and ICEGATE lists, read 23 Sep 2026, Verified for the depot, Indicative for the routing). We'd quote FCA at the Ludhiana depot rather than FOB at the port, so the rail leg is priced and controlled in writing. FCA explains why, and the Mundra port page covers the gateway.

Bikes aren't the town's only trade. Its knitwear side is on Ludhiana knitwear cluster, and for hand tools and sports goods nearby see Jalandhar.

Back to Mr Singhal's Arithmetic

In 2024 the case against Indian bikes in Europe was freight plus 10.5% duty. In 2026 a UK buyer can strike the duty line out completely, while an EU buyer has to add a few points to it.

The freight hasn't moved, and neither has the work that wins an order - a spec written for your market's test, a straight answer on where the frame comes from and someone checking the brakes before the box is sealed.

Run your own numbers in the landed cost calculator. If bikes aren't the only thing on your list, the other India product guides are a click away.