The BLS import price index for footwear reached 125.9 in September 2026, the highest reading in a series that begins in December 1984. Even so, its 2025 annual average was just 21.2% above the 2000 level, a slow climb for 25 years. This page covers what the three footwear import indexes measure, how they have moved, and how they line up against the prices you see in stores.
The three series
The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes import price indexes through its International Price Program. We read three of them for shoes:
- EIUIR40040, imported footwear. A broad index for footwear in the end-use classification, which groups goods by their main use. It is based at 2000 = 100 and has data from December 1984.
- EIUIP6403, leather-upper footwear. An index for goods in Harmonized System heading 6403, footwear with leather uppers. Also based at 2000 = 100, with data from December 1992.
- EIUCOCHNZ3162, footwear from China. An index for footwear by locality of origin, based at June 2012 = 100.
The base periods follow a BLS rule stated in the Handbook of Methods: indexes published continuously since 2000 use 2000 = 100, and indexes introduced later start at 100 in their first month of publication. An index level is not a price in dollars. It only shows how prices changed relative to the base period.
What an import price index measures
According to the Handbook, these indexes track “the average change in the price level over time for a representative trade basket” of U.S. imports. Three features shape what they can tell you about shoes.
The price is taken at the foreign port. For imports, the Handbook says the most commonly reported basis is “f.o.b. factory”, and customs records report imports f.o.b. as well, a value set abroad with nothing added for shipping, insurance or U.S. charges. Ocean freight, insurance, U.S. tariffs, warehouse costs and the margins of wholesalers and stores are all outside the index.
Weights come from trade data. The Handbook says the index uses trade weights reported by the Census Bureau, applied with a two-year lag and refreshed with each January release. A product that makes up more import value counts more.
Many prices now come from customs records. In 2025 BLS replaced a large portion of the prices it had collected through its survey with administrative trade data from the Census Bureau. For those items, a unit value, described as “an average transaction price of a large aggregate quantity of same or similar items”, is treated as the item’s price.
How the indexes have moved
| Series | 2000 to 2025 | 2019 to 2025 | 12 months to Sept. 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Imported footwear | +21.2% | +3.2% | +1.9% |
| Leather-upper imports | +29.2% | +4.4% | +1.2% |
| Footwear from China | not available | +2.8% | +4.0% |
| CPI, all footwear | +17.7% | +6.6% | +3.4% |
Period changes use annual averages; the last column compares September 2026 with September 2025.
The imported footwear index has had long flat stretches. Its annual average stayed between 99.3 and 101.6 from 1995 through 2007, then climbed from 104.4 in 2008 to 115.0 in 2012. It hovered between 117 and 119 from 2014 through 2021, rose 2.5% in 2022 to 121.6, and dipped 0.7% in 2025 to 121.2. Every monthly reading since 1984 is in the import index chart.
Leather-upper imports have risen a little faster than the broad index. The series reached its record, 134.3, in August 2026 and was at 133.0 in September 2026. Its 2025 average rose 1.8% from 2024, while the broad footwear index fell. See the HS 6403 series for each month.
The China index has barely moved since it started. Its low was 99.7 in September 2017, its 2025 average was 1.6% below 2024, and it set its high of 109.1 in September 2026. Over 14 years, that is a rise of about 9% from its June 2012 base. Its whole run since 2012 is plotted here.
Import prices versus shelf prices
The table shows two different patterns. From 2000 to 2025, import prices for footwear rose a bit more than consumer prices (21.2% against 17.7%). From 2019 to 2025 it was the other way round: the consumer index for all footwear rose 6.6%, about twice the 3.2% rise in import prices. Over the latest 12 months, shelf prices again rose faster, 3.4% against 1.9%.
Several things sit between the two numbers, and the data alone cannot split the gap among them:
- Duties and freight. Neither is in the import index. A change in U.S. tariffs or shipping rates raises an importer’s landed cost without moving this index at all.
- Domestic costs. Warehouse wages, store rent and marketing are paid in the United States and enter only the consumer price.
- Different baskets. The import index weights shoes by their import value. The CPI weights them by what households spend and also includes shoes made in the United States.
- Store margins. The BLS follows the gap between what shoe retailers pay and charge in a separate producer price index, which we chart monthly.
For a shopper, the practical reading is that foreign selling prices for shoes have been fairly stable for two decades, so recent increases on the shelf cannot be traced to what foreign sellers charge alone. The consumer side of that comparison is the CPI for all footwear.
The October 2025 gap that skipped footwear
The lapse in federal appropriations in the fall of 2025 hit the import price program as well. In a notice last modified January 15, 2026, BLS said it “could not completely collect October 2025 reference period survey data”. The details:
- Of 1,625 regularly published import and export indexes, 761 were published for October 2025 and 864 were suppressed.
- Indexes that need survey data were suppressed. Indexes built from nonsurvey data were published, because BLS was able to obtain that data retroactively.
- Missing October prices were estimated, and October indexes were later recalculated by linear interpolation once November prices came in. Those estimates keep the series continuous but are not published, so one-month changes for October and November, and the 12-month change for October, are unavailable for the affected indexes.
- Release of September 2025 data moved from October 17 to December 3, 2025, and November collection began on November 17.
A companion notice, last modified January 14, 2026, lists all 864 suppressed indexes. The list includes broad groups that contain footwear, such as the end-use group for apparel, footwear and household goods, and a leather products group for imports from China. None of our three footwear series is on it. In the BLS data we read on October 23, 2026, each of them has an October 2025 value: 122.2 for imported footwear, 134.1 for leather-upper footwear and 106.6 for footwear from China. That fits the notice’s description of nonsurvey indexes, though the notice does not name footwear directly.
The consumer side is different. The CPI shoe indexes have no October 2025 value, so our 2025 annual averages for those series use 11 months, while the import series use all 12.