Cigar Market Continues To Grow: Imports Rise 4.6 Percent For Third Quarter
Handmade cigars continue to come into the United States at impressive quantities, and the latest import figures from the Cigar Association of America (CAA) show that the market is still growing. Imports for the first three quarters of 2025, released just a few hours ago, show a 4.6 percent increase, to 318.6 million cigars.
Three countries account for more than 99 percent of those imports. The leader, Nicaragua, had a 2.1 percent increase over Q3 of 2024, to 190.4 million cigars. Shipments from the Dominican Republic grew even faster, by 3.8 percent, to 69.9 million, and Honduras, the No. 3 producer, had an impressive 14.8 percent gain, to 55.5 million cigars.
The sharpest increase for 2025 came in March, which resulted in a 29 percent increase in the number of handmade cigars imported by the United States compared to the same month the previous year. That surge followed the announcement of the Trump administration’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, which affected all cigar-producing countries.
In 2024, the United States imported 430 million handmade, premium cigars, a small increase (up 0.9 percent) over 2023. Should the current trends remain when the final numbers are tallied, 2025 will end up as the fifth consecutive year where imports exceed 400 million cigars.
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