HS codes for clothing and apparel: a Shopify seller's guide

If you sell apparel and ship internationally, every garment in your catalog needs an HS code — and clothing has a reputation for being confusing to classify. It's actually one of the more logical categories once you know the system's first question. Nearly everything you sell will land in Chapter 61 or Chapter 62, and which one depends on a single property of the fabric.

The first question: knitted or woven?

The HS splits all garments by construction, before it ever asks what the garment is. Chapter 61 covers knitted or crocheted apparel; Chapter 62 covers woven (not-knitted) apparel. T-shirt jersey, sweatshirt fleece, polo piqué, and anything with natural stretch are knits → Chapter 61. Denim, poplin, twill, chino cloth, and most structured fabrics are woven → Chapter 62. The quick tell: knit fabric is made of interlocking loops and stretches on its own; woven fabric is threads crossed at right angles and only stretches if elastane is added.

This is why two products that look alike can classify differently: a knit cardigan is 6110, while a denim jacket is 6201/6202 — different chapters, because different construction.

Then: the garment type sets the 4-digit heading

Within each chapter, garments group into 4-digit headings. These are the ones that cover most of a typical Shopify apparel store:

Two patterns worth noticing: many headings split men's/boys' from women's/girls' (unisex garments are classified as women's under the HS rules when they can't be identified as men's or boys'), and babies' garments — for young children up to about 86 cm — get their own headings regardless of type.

Six digits: fiber decides the subheading

The last two digits of the international code usually come from fiber composition, under a chief-weight rule: the fiber that predominates by weight governs. A 55% cotton / 45% polyester tee classifies as cotton — 6109.10. A 100% polyester version of the same shirt is "of man-made fibres" — 6109.90 territory. Hoodies follow the same logic under 6110: 6110.20 cotton, 6110.30 man-made fibers. For blends hovering near 50/50, small recipe changes can flip the classification — that's a case for a broker, not a guess.

A worked example: the classic cotton tee

Chapter 61 (it's knit) → heading 6109 (it's a t-shirt) → subheading 6109.10 (chief weight is cotton). That 6-digit code is valid on customs paperwork everywhere. For US imports, the HTS extends it to ten digits on the base 6109.10.00, with the final digits splitting men's, women's, boys' and girls' — look the current lines up at hts.usitc.gov if you want the full extension. In Shopify, entering 610910 satisfies the field; a correct 6-digit code beats a borrowed 10-digit one.

Accessories are a different chapter

A common mistake is stretching a garment code across everything in an apparel store. The HS disagrees: hats and caps are Chapter 65 (knit beanies typically 6505), scarves are 6117 knitted or 6214 woven, gloves are 6116 knitted or 6216 woven, leather belts are 4203 in the leather chapter, and bags live in Chapter 42 (4202) entirely. If your store mixes garments and accessories, expect two or three chapters in your catalog — that's normal and correct.

Check the code before you commit

For US imports use the USITC's tariff search at hts.usitc.gov; for US exports, the Census Bureau's Schedule B tool; for the UK, the Trade Tariff on GOV.UK; for the EU, Access2Markets. When a product sits between two plausible codes, US CBP's CROSS database of past rulings is the tiebreaker professionals use — apparel edge cases like leggings (knit trousers under 6104, or tights under 6115?) have been ruled on many times.

Applying codes across a Shopify catalog

Here's the practical upside of how apparel classifies: your catalog probably needs a handful of codes, not hundreds. Every colorway and size of a garment shares one classification, and most stores' products cluster into a few construction-and-fiber groups — all the cotton knit tops, all the woven cotton bottoms, and so on.

The friction is Shopify itself: the HS code lives on each variant's inventory item, and while the bulk editor will let you type codes down a grid, nothing native tells you which variants are missing one. Origova closes that gap — it scans your catalog, lists every variant missing a code (or carrying one outside the 6–10 digit format), and lets you select a whole group and apply its code in one reversible batch. Classify once per group, apply in bulk, and the long tail of "which products did I miss?" disappears — the scan is the audit.

Frequently asked questions

Related: What is an HS code? The Harmonized System, explained · How to add HS codes to Shopify products in bulk · HS codes for jewelry