Underwear Supplier for New York Buyers: Private-Label OEM from China

New York is the densest apparel-import market in the United States, and it is also the most technical. Between the Federal Trade Commission’s labelling rules, the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s flammability standards, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act and the layered duty stack on Chinese-origin goods, a New York buyer is managing compliance and cost at the same time. Unitex Underwear (Xiamen Unitex Trade Co., Ltd.) is a China-based underwear supplier working through long-term BSCI-audited partner factories in the Fujian knitwear corridor — men’s, women’s and kids’ knitted underwear, MOQ 2,000 pcs per style and colour, FOB Xiamen.

What New York Buyers Are Actually Screening For

The New York buyer base is unusually varied: wholesale importers selling to regional retail, direct-to-consumer brands running their own storefronts, department-store and off-price private-label teams, and showroom operations in the Garment District that place orders for other people’s labels. Each of them screens on the same four points, though in a different order. Can the supplier produce a compliant permanent label and care label? Can the material documentation survive a forced-labour enquiry on cotton? Can the factory pass a social audit the importer’s own customer will accept? And what is the landed cost once duty is stacked, not just the FOB price?

On that last point, a Chinese FOB price quoted without the duty stack is close to meaningless in 2026. For men’s cotton knit underpants under HTS 6107.11.00.10 the general rate is 7.4 percent, Section 301 List 4A adds 7.5 percent, and the 2026 forced-labour tariff measure adds a further 12.5 percent, taking the effective rate to roughly 27.4 percent of customs value before the merchandise processing fee. The merchandise processing fee runs at 0.3464 percent of value with a minimum of about 33.58 US dollars and a maximum of about 651.50 US dollars per formal entry, and the harbour maintenance fee adds 0.125 percent on vessel cargo. Build all of that into the unit cost, then compare quotations.

Xiamen to New York: The All-Water Route and the Land-Bridge Alternative

There is no direct flight between Xiamen and New York. Xiamen Airlines flies Xiamen–Los Angeles three times a week with onward connections, and the same airline operates a Fuzhou–New York JFK service twice weekly out of the same province; most air cargo, however, moves through Shanghai Pudong, Shenzhen or Hong Kong. Airport to airport, expect two to three days of uplift, and five to eight days door to door once ground handling is included.

For volume, the calculation is between two routings. The all-water route through the Panama Canal into New York and New Jersey takes 34 to 39 days port to port from Xiamen and 42 to 49 days door to door. The land-bridge route discharges on the West Coast — 16 to 18 days from Xiamen to Los Angeles or Long Beach — and then moves by rail to the East Coast, which is competitive on total time but adds a domestic rail leg and a second handling point. Which one wins depends on your warehouse location, your inventory carrying cost and how much you value a single handling point over speed.

Two scheduling facts are worth knowing. Panama Canal draft restrictions and transit-slot availability can add two to three days of anchorage in peak season, July through October. And cargo cut-off at the Xiamen terminal falls three to five days before vessel departure, not on departure day, so working backwards from a sailing date means working backwards from the cut-off.

US Labelling, Safety and Cotton Documentation

Labelling in the United States sits with the Federal Trade Commission under the Textile Fiber Products Identification Act, implemented at 16 CFR Part 303. A garment needs three things: the generic fibre names with percentages by weight in order of predominance, the country where the garment was processed or manufactured, and the name of the manufacturer or a registered identification number. An RN is issued only to businesses in the United States, and it is optional — a brand based elsewhere can use its trading name, and for imported goods the importer, wholesaler or, with consent, the retailer may be named. Care instructions fall under a separate rule at 16 CFR Part 423, where the ASTM care symbols may stand in place of words. Country of origin for customs purposes is determined under 19 CFR Part 102.21: for garments cut and sewn from fabric, it is the country where the garment was wholly assembled.

Flammability is where a US programme can fail late and expensively. Clothing textiles must meet the standard at 16 CFR Part 1610, and children’s sleepwear has its own standards at 16 CFR Parts 1615 and 1616, with a Children’s Product Certificate required for children’s products. If you are developing kids’ sleepwear for the US market, raise it at the brief stage — the construction and the fabric choice are constrained by the standard, and a compliant design cannot be retro-fitted onto a garment that was built without it.

Cotton is the other area to handle early. Under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, goods made wholly or in part in Xinjiang, or by listed entities, are presumed to be made with forced labour, and cotton is a high-risk input. We source cotton through documented supply chains and can provide the mill and lot documentation your compliance team asks for. Ask for it at quotation stage, because assembling it retroactively after the container has sailed is the single most common cause of a held entry.

What We Do, and What We Do Not Do

Unitex is a sourcing and supply-chain management company, not a factory owner. We develop styles, source fabric and trims, place orders with long-term partner factories in the Fujian knitwear corridor, and follow up production, AQL 2.5 inline and final inspection, and export documentation. Our compliance evidence is narrow and checkable: amfori BSCI audits at the partner sites, and OEKO-TEX Standard 100 certification for the materials on your order, with certificate numbers shared at quotation so your team can verify them.

We do not hold stock in New Jersey, we are not a US importer of record, and we do not act as your customs broker. Goods ship from Xiamen Port on FOB terms, or CIF, CNF or DDP if you prefer. Some buyers ask us to be the importer of record or to hold inventory in a US third-party warehouse; that is not what we do, and we would rather say so at the start than after you have built a programme around it.

Sourcing Specifications at a Glance

Company	Xiamen Unitex Trade Co., Ltd. (厦门甲冠麒贸易有限公司) — sourcing and supply-chain management company, incorporated 2013; in the underwear trade since 2009
Location	Xiamen, Fujian Province, China — Jimei District, Xinglinwan Business Operation Center
Production base	Long-term partner factories across the Xiamen–Quanzhou–Jinjiang knitwear corridor; our own liaison office inside the Jinjiang factory district since 2013
Categories	Men’s / women’s / kids’ knitted underwear, plus size to 5XL, thermal and baselayers, pajamas and sleepwear, sport bras
MOQ	2,000 pcs per style and colour (trial orders from 1,000 pcs on selected styles)
Sampling	7–10 days for counter samples; 12–18 days for fully custom development
Bulk lead	45–60 days after pre-production sample approval
Compliance	BSCI-audited partner factories; OEKO-TEX® Standard 100 certified materials; certificate numbers for the production sites on your order shared at quotation
QC	AQL 2.5 inline and final inspection on every order; shrinkage and spirality tested before bulk cutting; third-party inspection (SGS, Intertek, TÜV) welcome
Port & terms	Xiamen Port — FOB Xiamen standard (EXW Xiamen for Russia/CIS); CIF, CNF or DDP on request
Payment	30% T/T deposit, 70% against copy of B/L; L/C at sight for larger programmes

How to Start a Programme from New York

1. Send your design brief, spec sheet or reference sample — we review and respond within 48 hours
2. Receive fabric swatches, waistband options and a quotation within 3–5 business days
3. Approve counter samples (7–10 days) or full custom development samples (12–18 days)
4. Pre-production sample locks the measurement chart, then bulk runs 45–60 days with AQL 2.5 inline and final inspection
5. Shipment from Xiamen Port on your chosen term, with export documentation handled by our team

Contact us for a free quotation →

Prefer a third-party reference before you write? Our company profile and product showroom are public on Made-in-China.com, and our export shipping records are independently listed on Panjiva. Contact: [email protected] · WhatsApp +86 186 5081 3853.

Other Markets We Cover

This guide is one of a series written for buyers in different markets. The others cover London · Paris · Barcelona · Rome · Frankfurt · Amsterdam · Stockholm · Athens · Moscow · St Petersburg · Santiago de Chile · Lima · Mexico City · Sydney · Melbourne · Italy · the Netherlands · the Nordics · Mexico · the UAE · Canada — each page sets out what that market’s import rules, duty and shipping routes mean for an underwear programme sourced from China.

If you are still weighing up whether to buy through a sourcing company at all, start with the China underwear supplier hub, which sets out how a sourcing company differs from a single factory and what that changes for your programme. Buyers already based in China — Shenzhen, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Hong Kong, Ningbo, Yiwu or Xiamen — are covered by a separate set of city guides linked from the hub.

Published: 2026-10-04 · Xiamen Unitex Trade Co., Ltd. — OEM & ODM underwear sourcing partner

Unitex Underwear (Xiamen Unitex Trade Co., Ltd.) — OEM/ODM underwear sourcing and supply-chain partner in Xiamen, China; in the trade since 2009, incorporated in 2013. Based in the Xiamen–Quanzhou–Jinjiang knitwear cluster, Fujian Province, south-east China.