Underwear Supplier for São Paulo Buyers: OEM Sourcing from China

Brazil is the most demanding import market on our list by a wide margin, and São Paulo is where that demand is felt: it is the country’s industrial and commercial centre, the home of most apparel brands and retail chains, and the destination for the largest share of containerised imports through the port of Santos. 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 a São Paulo Brief Contains That Other Markets Do Not

A Brazilian brief starts with the label and the sizing, and it does so for a structural reason. Brazil requires textile products sold to consumers to carry a Portuguese-language label giving the fibre composition, the country of origin, the care instructions in the form of the standard symbols, the importer’s identity together with its CNPJ tax number, and the size in the Brazilian system. The CNPJ requirement is the part that catches first-time importers: the label cannot be printed until the importing company is identified, and re-labelling a landed shipment in Brazil is expensive and slow.

Sizing is the second structural difference. Brazil does not use the European or US size scale: underwear sizes run P, M, G and GG, and the measurements behind those letters differ from the European equivalents. A programme built on a European size chart will produce a ratio that sells badly in Brazil, so the size chart has to be set to Brazilian expectations — which means agreeing the grade rules with the buyer at development stage rather than converting at the end.

The third difference is the buyer’s financial mindset. Because the landed cost of an import into Brazil is heavy and the customs process slow, a Brazilian buyer typically places fewer, larger orders and holds more stock than a European one. That makes the reorder pattern different: rather than a small trial followed by a fast top-up, the expectation is a well-planned seasonal buy with the size ratio right the first time.

Xiamen to São Paulo: Santos, and the Longest Transit We Quote

Almost all of Brazil’s containerised apparel imports enter through Santos, with Paranaguá, Itajaí and Rio Grande serving the south and Rio de Janeiro handling a smaller share. Sea transit from Xiamen to Santos runs in the region of thirty to forty days port to port, and it is worth treating the upper end as the planning figure: the Santos approach has congestion, the Brazilian customs process itself is slow, and inland haulage from Santos to São Paulo — roughly 100 kilometres — is the least predictable part of the whole journey. Allow forty-five to sixty days door to door, and keep float beyond that for a customs inspection.

Customs clearance in Brazil is a formal, document-heavy process through the Siscomex electronic system, with the importer registered in the RADAR system and, for many product categories, an import licence applied for before the goods ship. A licensed customs broker is effectively mandatory. Average clearance runs from about five to fifteen business days when the documentation is clean, and considerably longer when it is not — which is why we treat the invoice and packing documentation on a Brazilian shipment as a compliance exercise rather than a formality.

Air freight lands at São Paulo Guarulhos, with Xiamen to Guarulhos normally a one-stop routing of two to four days airport to airport. It is used for samples and for a mid-season top-up on a proven style, and the freight premium is large — but so is the cost of a stock-out on a style that is already selling.

The Brazilian Tax Stack, and Why duty Plus VAT Is the Wrong Model

Brazil does not have a duty-plus-VAT structure, and approaching it as though it does will understate the landed cost by a wide margin. Several taxes apply in sequence, and each is charged on a base that already includes the ones before it. The import tax itself, the Imposto de Importação, is levied on the customs value and for apparel under headings 61 and 62 sits at the top of the Mercosur common external tariff, at thirty-five percent. On top of that, the Imposto sobre Produtos Industrializados is charged on the customs value plus the import tax; the PIS and COFINS social contributions are charged on the customs value at a combined rate of about eleven and three-quarter percent; a merchant marine renewal levy applies to the ocean freight; and the state ICMS is charged last, on a base that legally includes the ICMS itself, so it has to be grossed up rather than multiplied. São Paulo state applies eighteen percent.

The practical effect is that the total tax burden on an apparel import can approach or exceed the value of the goods. Part of it is recoverable by a registered importer — PIS, COFINS and ICMS are creditable for companies within the normal regime — but it is real cash at the border, and it has to be financed. Brazil has no commercial de minimis: the low-value e-commerce regime that exists is a separate programme for registered marketplaces and does not apply to a commercial bulk shipment. The country is also in the early phase of a consumption tax reform, with two new taxes appearing on invoices at token rates in 2026 and fully creditable against the existing ones, so the structure is expected to change materially over the next few years. Build the landed cost model with your Brazilian broker, not from a published percentage.

On the product side, children’s and infant apparel carries its own safety standard in Brazil, covering cord and small-part requirements and flammability, so a kids’ underwear range needs the same treatment as a European one under the equivalent standard, and the test evidence should be held before the first shipment rather than produced on request afterwards.

What We Do, and What We Do Not Do

Unitex is a sourcing and supply-chain management company and owns no production facilities. We develop styles, source fabric and trims, place orders with long-term partner factories in the Xiamen–Quanzhou–Jinjiang corridor, and run production follow-up, AQL 2.5 inline and final inspection and export documentation. Compliance evidence is amfori BSCI at the partner sites and OEKO-TEX Standard 100 for the materials on your order, with certificate numbers shared at quotation.

What we can do for a Brazilian programme specifically is build the product around the market’s requirements rather than around a European template: a Portuguese label with the importer’s CNPJ and a Brazilian size chart, fabric weights appropriate to a tropical climate in the north and a temperate one in the south, and documentation detailed enough for a Siscomex entry. We are a sourcing company rather than a manufacturer: our contribution sits in manufacturing follow-up — writing the specification, placing the order on the partner line that suits it, holding the schedule, and running AQL 2.5 inline and final inspection. What we are not is your importer of record, your RADAR-registered entity or your customs broker in Brazil — those are local obligations, and getting them in place before the first order is the single most useful thing a new Brazilian buyer can do.

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
Business model	Sourcing and trading company — we neither own nor operate factories; every order runs on the long-term partner manufacturing lines in the Fujian knitwear corridor that best fit the fabric, quantity and delivery date
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. On some programmes the balance — or the full value — is collected before shipment, where the payment route, the trade term (for example EXW) or an order value too small to carry a post-shipment balance puts the risk on the supplier rather than on the buyer’s market; the sequence that applies is stated on the quotation.

How to Start a Programme from São Paulo

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 the markets below — each page sets out what that market’s import rules, duty and shipping routes mean for an underwear programme sourced from China.

Europe — London · Paris · Barcelona · Madrid · Rome · Milan · Frankfurt · Hamburg · Amsterdam · Warsaw · Stockholm · Athens · Moscow · St Petersburg · Italy · the Netherlands · the Nordics

The Americas — New York · Los Angeles · Miami · Toronto · Mexico City · Santiago de Chile · Lima · Buenos Aires · Mexico · Canada

Asia-Pacific, Türkiye, the Gulf and Africa — Tokyo · Seoul · Singapore · Sydney · Melbourne · Auckland · Dubai · Istanbul · Johannesburg · the UAE

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.

Last updated: 2026-10-16 · 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.