Report: U.S. Premium Cigar Imports Exceeded 400 Million in 2021

More than 420 million premium cigars were imported to the U.S. during the first 11 months of 2021, far exceeding the imports in 2020.

The data comes from the latest report from the Cigar Association of America (CAA), an industry trade group, and the total number of premium cigars imported to the U.S. from January-November 2021 is estimated at 420.32 million, a 33.5 percent increase compared to the same time period in 2020.

While the overall number is a drastic increase compared to 2020, the two most recent months’ worth of data—October and November 2021—are only slightly higher than the same months in 2020. The CAA estimates that there were 42.76 million premium cigars imported to the U.S. in October, an increase of 3.7 percent compared to 2020, and 39.06 million cigars imported in November, an increase of 7.4 percent. November ended a streak of four consecutive months where the U.S. imported more than 40 million premium cigars according to the Cigar Association of America.

In October, imports from Nicaragua increased from 19.71 million (+18.62 percent) in 2020 to 23.38 million in 2021. However, the next two largest countries decreased compared to 2020: the Dominican Republic exported 12 million (-8.6 percent) to the U.S. and Honduras exported 7.16 million (-14.8 percent). In November, Nicaragua’s exports to the U.S. were estimated at 21.96 million (+24 percent) while the Dominican Republic was at 8.88 million (-21.49 percent) and Honduras increased to 8.09 million (+11.89 percent).

CAA calculates these numbers based on both the import numbers provided by the U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Customs Services and information from the 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 differences between the two are that there are some machine-made cigars that meet the U.S. definition of a “large cigar,” those cigars would not be considered premium cigars by most people.