Premium Cigar Imports Down Slightly In First Quarter
The Cigar Association of America has just released three months of data on handmade, premium cigar imports, and according to their findings, shipments are not only down slightly, but Honduras has moved into the No. 2 spot. The CAA says it’s the first time that Honduras has shipped more premium cigars than the Dominican Republic.
In the first quarter, the United States imported 90.9 million premium cigars, a modest decline of three percent compared to the first quarter of 2025. But the more surprising finding was the growth of Honduras, which was the sole country showing a gain. It shipped 17.2 million premium, handmade cigars to the United States in the first quarter, up 12 percent from the 15.3 million shipped in the first quarter of last year.
Q1 Cigar Imports For 2026
Premium imports, in millions of cigars
| Nicaragua | 56.8 |
| Honduras | 17.2 |
| Dom. Rep. | 15.6 |
| Other | 1.3 |
| Total | 90.9 |
Source: Cigar Association of America, numbers may not add up due to rounding.
The Dominican Republic, now in the No. 3 spot according to the CAA, shipped 15.6 million cigars, down 8 percent from the 17 million shipped in the first quarter of 2025.
The drop in Dominican production is directly attributable to the changes at Tabacalera de Garcia Ltd., the massive cigar factory that has long made Montecristo, Romeo y Julieta, H. Upmann and many other brands. That factory had been unable to ship cigars to the U.S. market during the first quarter of the year, and the majority of its production has been shifted to Nicaragua and Honduras, specifically Plasencia and A.J. Fernandez. That situation has been described as a temporary one, but it clearly has had a negative impact on the number of premium cigars coming from the Dominican Republic.
Nicaragua maintained its considerable lead as the No. 1 producer. Even though it shipped 5 percent fewer cigars in the first quarter of this year, it makes more cigars than all other producers combined. Nicaragua sent 56.8 million premium cigars to the United States for the first quarter of 2026, accounting for 62.5 percent of all shipments.
Those three producers make nearly all of the premium cigars smoked in the United States. Smaller producers such as Costa Rica, the Philippines and Mexico account for 1.5 percent of cigar imports.
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