Leather and Footwear
- Updated
Twelve times between 2021 and September 2026, an EU country pulled an Indian leather product off the market for the same reason. The products had nothing else in common - wallets, shoes, sandals, slippers, work gloves, baby shoes, a dog lead and a child's outfit. The reason was chromium VI, and every one of the 11 measured items came in between 5.0 and 20.5 mg/kg, against an EU limit of 3 (EU Safety Gate (opens in a new tab), our count, Verified).
That's the thing about leather. The risk sits in the tannery, not in the product, so it follows the hide into whatever gets made from it. This page holds the facts every leather order shares, from tanning chemistry to forest rules to duty, so the product pages don't have to repeat them. It's country-agnostic, India-led, because India is where our data is. The view of India's leather sector as a whole, with its council and fairs, is on India's export industries.
One Hide, Three Industries
Leather splits into three families that share raw material and very little else.
Footwear has its own HS chapter (64), its own lasts and moulds, and the biggest factories. It's where India has momentum in the US numbers above. Start at leather footwear.
Bags and travel goods sit in chapter 42 with wallets, belts and small leather goods. India is the EU's second-largest supplier of the chapter at 10.2% in 2025, a long way behind China at 55.5%, and fourth in the UK at 7.7% (our analysis of UN Comtrade and Eurostat (opens in a new tab), Verified). Start at leather bags.
Saddlery and harness is the quiet specialism. Among the top 20 US shippers out of Kanpur, 9 list saddlery and harness among their main lines and 5 list footwear (archived US shipping-record district page, 2025, Indicative). If you sell equestrian or pet goods, Kanpur belongs on your list.
There's a fourth thing you might be buying, which is the hide itself. Buyers who handled Indian hides say to expect goat, sheep and buffalo more than cowhide, and that buffalo varies a lot in thickness and stretch, so sample it and name the tannery before bulk (r/Leathercraft, 2026 (opens in a new tab)).
Where It's Made
India's official export-town list names only three leather towns: Kanpur and Agra in Uttar Pradesh, and Ambur in Tamil Nadu (DGFT Appendix 1B, 2023 (opens in a new tab), Verified). The leather council's map is wider. In Tamil Nadu it runs Chennai, Ranipet, Vellore, Ambur, Vaniyambadi and Pernambut, with Trichy, Dindigul and Erode further south, and outside it names Kolkata, Noida, Saharanpur, Mumbai, Jalandhar, Bengaluru and Hyderabad (Council for Leather Exports (opens in a new tab), the council's own list).
In practice that's three belts, and each has a cluster page:
- the Tamil Nadu leather belt, for shoes, uppers and finished leather, close to Chennai's port
- Kanpur, for saddlery, footwear and heavier leathers
- Agra, for footwear
Kolkata is the one to watch for. It's a real leather base for bags and small goods, and 4 of the 8 largest named US shippers of chapter 42 bags were Kolkata exporters, though two of those were jute houses (US shipping records, our count). An Indian exporter warned that many "merchant exporter says they are manufacturering but when you meet them they say they have their factory in Kolkata or somewhere far" (r/IndiaBusiness, 2025 (opens in a new tab)). That's a normal set-up, and plenty of good leather reaches buyers through merchant exporters. Just ask for the factory address and check it, which how to check an Indian supplier walks through.
What Every Leather Order Gets Tested For
This list is the same whatever you make from the hide. The test plan by product is on destination lab tests.
| Test | The rule | Why it bites |
|---|---|---|
| Chromium VI | EU and UK ban skin-contact leather at or above 3 mg/kg, tested to EN ISO 17075 (Regulation 301/2014 (opens in a new tab)) | Chrome tanning is the norm, and Cr VI can form later if the tannery's process control slips. Test each colour and hide lot |
| Azo dyes | Banned above 30 mg/kg of listed amines in skin-contact leather and textiles (Regulation 552/2009 (opens in a new tab)) | Cheap dyes are the usual source, so name the dye supplier in the spec |
| Phthalates | Restricted in plastic parts such as PVC trims and soles | Two EU alerts on Indian goods were DEHP in a wallet and in shoes, one at 22% by weight (Safety Gate, our count) |
The EU and UK limits are the strictest common bar, so most exporters who sell to Europe already know them. If you buy for Australia, New Zealand or the US, the law may ask less, but your retail customers often won't. Testing to the EU bar costs you no more and opens more doors.
One rule is new and specific to leather. The EU deforestation regulation lists cattle leather among the goods it covers, from 30 December 2026 for large and medium operators and 30 June 2027 for small ones, and India is classed as low risk, which means lighter due diligence (European Commission (opens in a new tab), Verified). The Commission updated the product scope on 13 July 2026, so check your exact line against the current annex with your customs broker. Goat, sheep and buffalo leather are a separate question from cattle, and that matters in India, where much of the leather isn't cattle.
Duty By Border
Positions as of 5 October 2026. Each is dated and each can change.
| Border | Leather footwear | Leather bags |
|---|---|---|
| Australia | 0% with an ECTA certificate of origin | 0% with an ECTA certificate of origin |
| New Zealand | 10% on adult leather footwear until the FTA starts on 20 Oct 2026 | Check the NZ tariff for your line |
| United Kingdom | 0% under the CETA since 15 Jul 2026, against 8% normal | 0% under the CETA, against 2% normal |
| European Union | GSP still applies to footwear | GSP still applies to leather goods |
| United States | Normal rate plus a 10% Section 301 duty | Normal rate plus a 10% Section 301 duty |
Sources: UK Trade Tariff (opens in a new tab) (sampled lines, Verified), Regulation (EU) 2025/1909 (opens in a new tab) (leather goods and footwear sections are not suspended for India), and our gaps research for NZ, AU and the US. The UK detail is worth a second look. India lost the UK's developing-country preference on handbags in 2023, so before July 2026 Indian bags paid the 2% normal rate rather than the 0% preference rate. That gap has now closed. Confirm your 10-digit code with your customs broker before you price, and see the destination pages for the UK, the EU and the US.
Three Things Buyers Ask
Is Indian leather any good? The range is wide, and that's the honest answer. Some Western craft buyers avoid Indian chrome-tanned leather on principle, and others push back hard (r/Leathercraft, 2024 (opens in a new tab)). What the evidence supports is narrower: the tannery decides it. Name the tannery, the species, the thickness and the tannage in the order, and test.
Why does my small order get worse leather than a big brand's? Because, as leather workers put it, the good hides go out "in bulk to large companies" and small buyers get what's left (r/Leathercraft, 2025 (opens in a new tab)), and tannery minimums are far above a small order. You can close part of the gap by specifying grade with a defect allowance, and by buying through a maker who buys hides in bulk for other customers too.
Who actually made my shoes? Check. The shipping records showed logistics companies and forwarders as the named shipper on a large share of Indian footwear, so the name on a bill of lading isn't proof of a factory. If you need someone to visit the unit and witness the chromium test sampling, SourcingSync (opens in a new tab) can do it.
Back To The Twelve Alerts
None of those twelve products failed because of who sewed them. They failed at the tannery, months before. That's why this page exists separately from the product pages. Whatever you're buying in leather, the first question is the same: which tannery, and what does its test report say?