Report: Cigar Imports Remain High Through August

Through the first eight months of the year, the U.S. has imported a record amount of premium cigars.

According to a new report from the Cigar Association of America (CAA)—an industry trade group—the U.S. imported 271.25 million premium cigars from January-August 2024, roughly 3 million more than it did in the same period of 2023 or an increase of around 1.1 percent. Last year, the U.S. imported 467.57 million premium cigars—a record—according to CAA.

While Nicaragua remains the dominant exporter of cigars to the U.S.—about 60 percent according to the CAA—the main growth is from the second largest exporter: the Dominican Republic. As with the CAA’s last import report, the Dominican Republic shows noticeable growth, now up 7.1 percent for the year. By contrast, Nicaragua is up only 1.1 percent—the same as the imports as a whole—and Honduras, the third largest exporter, is down 9.3 percent.

CAA calculates these numbers based on both the import numbers provided by the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. Customs Services and information from cigar companies themselves. The trade group’s numbers are not exact because of reporting differences; it estimates how many “large cigars” were actually “premium cigars.” The difference between the two is that there are some machine-made cigars that meet the U.S. definition of a “large cigar,” though those cigars would not be considered premium cigars by most people.