Counterfeit statistics: the sourced numbers, by sector

Counterfeit goods are physical products that infringe a trademark, a design right or a patent. That is the definition the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) use in their joint reports, the standard global reference, taken from the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). Goods that infringe copyright are counted with them as pirated goods.³

Almost every number on counterfeits, including those for counterfeit luxury goods, starts at a border. Customs officers seize what they find, and the figures below either count those seizures or scale them up into estimates. Each one here names its publisher, the period it covers and how it was produced.

The OECD and EUIPO's Mapping Global Trade in Fakes 2025, published on 7 May 2025, estimates that global trade in counterfeit goods was worth approximately $467 billion in 2021, or 2.3% of total global imports. For imports into the European Union, the estimate was $117 billion, or 4.7% of total EU imports. The report says "up to" for both shares: fakes were up to 2.3% of global trade. It also warns that the estimate may be too low, for reasons set out further down this page.³

The value rose slightly from $464 billion in 2019, but its share of world trade fell from 2.5%. World trade grew after the pandemic mostly in raw materials, and counterfeiting is almost entirely a trade in manufactured goods. In 2020 the estimate dropped to just under $320 billion, 2% of global trade, before it rebounded.³

Counterfeiting reaches nearly 50 of the 96 product categories in the customs data, but seizures cluster in a few. In 2020–21, clothing accounted for 21.6% of global customs seizures and footwear for 21.4%, followed by leather goods and electronics, the same four as in 2017–19.³

Measured by value, the picture tilts toward luxury. Counterfeit watches made up 23% of the value of everything seized worldwide in 2020–21, and footwear 15%. In 2017–19 watches led as well, at 25%, followed by articles of leather at 17%.³

The OECD also ranks industries by how prone they are to counterfeiting, weighing both the value of fakes and their share of each trade. For 2020–21, footwear, knitted clothing, leather articles and handbags, and tobacco top that index, with perfumery and cosmetics just behind and jewelry further down. Beverages, the category that holds wine and spirits, rank well below them.³

US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) publishes seizure statistics for each fiscal year, which runs from October to September. CBP made 25,079 intellectual property seizures in fiscal 2025, up from 20,516 the year before. Its seizures cover goods that violate trademark or copyright law.⁵

CBP values what it seizes at the manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP), the price of the genuine article. Its fiscal 2025 report, published on 4 May 2026, puts jewelry first at $3,228 million, then watches at $1,450 million and handbags and wallets at $978 million, all rounded to the nearest million. Further down the top ten, wearing apparel came to $157 million, footwear to $92 million and perfume to $39 million. CBP adds that the total MSRP of its seizures grew by over 122% from fiscal 2021 to fiscal 2025.⁴

The report carries its own warning: the statistics are not official US trade statistics and are not intended for economic analysis. They describe what CBP seized and what the genuine articles retail for.⁴

In the global data, China was the origin of 45% of all reported seizures in 2020–21. By value, 47% of seized goods came from China and 27% from Hong Kong (China), shares that rose for both over the period. Other sources include other Asian countries, Gulf states and some Latin American countries.³

The pattern holds in the national data. In fiscal 2025, seizures from China and Hong Kong made up about 67% of the quantity of goods CBP seized. In the EU's 2025 figures, China remained the main source of counterfeit goods entering the Union, followed by Türkiye and Hong Kong.^4,6

The European Commission and EUIPO report each year on goods detained at the EU border and in the internal market. Their report on 2025, published on 20 October 2026, counts approximately 196 million counterfeit goods with an estimated value of €6.3 billion, the highest value recorded.⁶

At the border alone, detained articles rose from almost 20 million in 2024 to more than 42 million in 2025, and their value from €1.5 billion to almost €2 billion. One detention of 16 million tobacco items drove much of the jump; without it, the rise was 30%. For 2024 as a whole, border and internal market together, the Commission had reported 112 million items worth €3.8 billion.^6,7

Seizures count fakes; lost-sales studies estimate their cost to the genuine industry. EUIPO's 2020 Status Report on IPR (intellectual property rights) Infringement brings its sector studies together: across 11 sectors, it estimates direct lost sales of €50 billion a year in the EU, and €83 billion once knock-on effects on other sectors are added, as averages for 2013 to 2017.⁸

As a share of each sector's own EU sales, cosmetics and personal care lose the most, at 14%. Jewelry and watches lose 11.5%, handbags and luggage 6.4%, and spirits and wine 5.3%. The figures are model estimates, not counts, and they are years old.⁸

Fakes increasingly travel one parcel at a time. In 2020–21, shipments of fewer than ten items were 79% of all global seizures, up from 61% in 2017–19. Postal services carried almost 60% of seizures but only 18% of the value seized. Road transport rose from 4% of seized value in 2017–19 to 18% in 2020–21.³

Counterfeiters also ship the branding separately and assemble fakes near the market. In the global data, 20% of seizures involved packaging, labels and other authentication components, such as holograms or QR codes. The EU's 2025 report describes the same tactic: cheap packaging shipped apart from the unbranded goods, then assembled inside the EU.^3,6

Routes shift with the rules. In fiscal 2025, 62% of CBP's seizures were in commercial vessels, a shift CBP says is likely due to the suspension of the US de minimis exemption for shipments from China and Hong Kong in May 2025, widened to all countries in August 2025. In the EU in 2025, most articles were detained in road transport for the first time.^4,6

Three kinds of number sit behind most counterfeit statistics. Seizure counts are what customs and police actually detained. Trade estimates scale seizure patterns up to all trade: the OECD calibrates its model on one fixed point, an interview-based estimate that about 27% of footwear shipments from China are counterfeit. Lost-sales estimates model what the genuine industry loses.³

Each has limits the sources state themselves. Seizures reflect where enforcement looks, and the OECD notes that agencies now prioritize fakes that threaten health and safety. Its estimate leaves out online piracy, and it may be biased downward because some countries leave intellectual property unenforced at their borders. The OECD values trade at landed customs value, while CBP values seizures at the genuine article's retail price.^3,4

Online marketplaces hold another set of numbers: the listings they scan, the complaints they receive and the sellers they remove. What reaches the public is mostly enforcement totals, not how common fakes are on the site. Amazon's latest report says it seized more than 15 million counterfeit products in 2025 and that its controls blocked more than 99.9% of suspected infringing listings before a brand had to report them. Neither figure says what share of its listings or sales are fake. Outside checks are small: in a report released in 2018, the US Government Accountability Office bought 47 items from third-party sellers on popular sites, and the products' rights holders found 20 of them counterfeit.^1,2

A counterfeit statistic is often several years old by the time anyone quotes it. The OECD's $467 billion describes 2021 and was published in May 2025, more than three years after the year closed. EUIPO's sector losses average 2013 to 2017 and were published in June 2020. Customs counts arrive faster: CBP's fiscal 2025 report came out in May 2026, and the EU's 2025 report in October 2026.^3,8,4,6

• What period does it describe, and when was it published? A figure for 2021 published in 2025 is the current global estimate, and it is still a figure for 2021.
• Is it counted, estimated or modeled? A seizure count, a trade estimate and a lost-sales model answer different questions.
• Whose border, and whose year? US figures run on a fiscal year from October; EU and OECD figures run on calendar years.
• Valued at what price? A fake valued at the genuine article's retail price is a different number from one valued at customs value.
• A share of what? Up to 2.3% of world imports, 4.7% of EU imports and 14% of a sector's sales are three different denominators.
• Is the source primary? A number from a blog or a vendor deck should lead back to a regulator, a customs agency or the study itself.

Most figures above are counted at a border or modeled from what borders catch. A brand can also measure counterfeiting on its own products, item by item. Vera Tags are bound to products before the box ships, and each tap computes a fresh code with a key that cannot be read off the tag. A copied link or a replayed tap is recorded as an invalid scan and shown to the brand and to whoever is holding the item, and a tag Vera did not provision fails verification.

The Vera Platform plots scans by country, with each country's invalid-scan and repeat-scan rate, so a product turning up where it was never sold is visible in the data. For planning, Vera's upside calculator starts its counterfeit exposure at the OECD's 2.3% and lets each brand set its own rate.