Annual bike imports fall to lowest number in at least a decade

WASHINGTON (BRAIN) — The latest import figures show the U.S. imported 8.54 million bikes last year, 21% fewer than in 2024 and the lowest number in at least a decade. 

The imposition of import tariffs, combined with years of over supply following the COVID sales boom, caused the industry to curtail imports sharply. 

The charts on this page show imports of bikes, not including e-bikes, unicycles, handcycles and other kinds of cycles. Some of the charts break out adult bikes from the others, which gives a better sense of the speciality market, because bike sales by unit are heavily dominated by low-cost juvenile bikes sold in the mass market (we define adult as bikes with 26-inch wheels and larger). All the charts are based on figures released by the Census’s USA Trade Online program this month. 

The chart below shows the same data but restricted to adult bikes. 

By import value, the industry dipped below the billion-dollar mark for the first time since 2006.

The industry has been shifting production away from China rapidly. In 2019, the last full year before the pandemic, China provided 80% of the adult bikes imported by the U.S., as shown in the pie chart above. 

By 2025, that figure had dropped to 38%, with Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam picking up much of the new business, shown below. 

The pie charts in the gallery at the bottom of this page show that the shift away from China was a bit less extreme when all sizes of bikes are counted, because the mass market still sourced many kids bikes from China.