Sourcing branded and embroidered workwear from China

12% on workwear, 0% on scrubs

Read from the UK Trade Tariff on 28 September 2026, the tariff has its own industrial and occupational lines for jackets, trousers, overalls and other workwear, and they carried 12% on goods from China, as did knitted polo shirts. None carried an anti-dumping measure. The one exception is women's cotton occupational clothing under 6211 42 10 00: scrub tops and scrub bottoms of tightly woven cotton or cotton blend over 50% cotton, without coating, of the kind used by hospital staff, are suspended to 0% until 31 December 2028.

The table lists the common workwear lines rather than every clothing line; knitted jackets, fleeces and T-shirts sit elsewhere in chapter 61, generally also at 12%. Confirm the commodity code for each garment, and see our hoodies and sweatshirts guide for branded hoodies.

Hi-vis is PPE, and labels apply to everything

High-visibility clothing sold to protect the wearer is personal protective equipment under retained Regulation (EU) 2016/425, so it needs the conformity assessment, declaration of conformity and marking for its category, and the performance is tested to ISO 20471, the standard for high-visibility clothing. Printing or embroidering a logo onto the fluorescent or reflective area can reduce it, so agree logo size and position with the certificate in mind.

Every garment needs a fibre composition label under the Textile Products (Labelling and Fibre Composition) Regulations 2012, and a care label your staff can follow at the wash temperatures workwear actually sees.

Specifying branded workwear

Specify the fabric and weight, fibre split, colour references, the size chart with tolerances and whether it runs to extended sizes, reinforcement at pockets and knees, zips and poppers, the logo artwork digitised for embroidery with stitch count, thread colours and position on each garment, and whether names or roles are added per garment.

Uniform orders are usually spread across many sizes, so agree the size breakdown before the factory cuts, and hold a small stock of each size for new starters. Our sample comparison service can put several makers' garments side by side before you choose.

Worked duty example

An invented example rather than a quote: 1,000 embroidered cotton polo shirts under 6105 10 00 00 at £6,000 free on board and 500 cotton work trousers under 6203 42 11 00 at £5,000, with £800 of freight and insurance for the shipment. The customs value is £11,800 and duty at 12% is £1,416. Import VAT at 20% of £13,216 is £2,643.20, which a VAT-registered business normally reclaims. Spread by value, the polos carry about 77p of duty each. Embroidery done in China is part of the price paid, so it sits inside the 12% duty base; embroidering blank garments in the UK keeps it out of the duty but costs UK labour, so compare both on landed cost. See calculating UK import duty and VAT for the method.

Inspection checklist

Embroidery: check stitch density, thread colours against the approved sample, puckering around the logo, backing removed cleanly and the logo position on each size.

Fit and fabric: measure garments from each size against the size chart, wash-test shrinkage and colour fastness to washing to ISO 105-C06 at the wash temperature in the care label, and check seams and bar tacks at stress points.

Hi-vis: check the certificate covers the exact garment and colour, and that logos sit outside the areas the certificate relies on. See our quality inspection guide.

What goes wrong

Workwear orders fail on sizing, shrinkage and branding. Sizes run small against the UK chart, garments shrink at industrial wash temperatures, embroidered logos pucker or come out in the wrong thread colour, and hi-vis garments lose their certification because a logo covers too much of the fluorescent area.

Cambridge China Bridge sources branded and embroidered workwear and uniforms for UK businesses, from a first run of a few hundred garments; see small orders.