The best shorts manufacturers split into four separate supply chains, not one: knit performance, technical woven and board, denim, and US cut-and-sew. Shorts look like the simplest garment a brand can launch, which is exactly why so many brands get quoted by the wrong factory. Sourcing is also concentrated: five countries, China, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Cambodia, and India, took 63.7% of total US apparel import value in January to February 2025, up from 59.7% a year earlier (Dr. Sheng Lu, University of Delaware, analysis of OTEXA data, 2025).
This directory profiles 10 shorts manufacturers across those four categories. It is an editorial map built from company disclosures and exchange filings, not a roster of factories OneAim owns. If you are still choosing a region before you choose a factory, start with our guide on where to manufacture clothing in 2026.
Heads up: We're OneAim, a group of 100+ documented clothing manufacturers across 15+ countries. The companies below are independent manufacturers listed on public sources, not members of our group. OneAim's role is separate: route your brief to a documented factory in our group built for your product.
Key Takeaways
- Knit and woven shorts are different supply chains. A running short and a chino short rarely come off the same line.
- Shorts sourcing is concentrated. Five countries supplied 63.7% of US apparel import value in early 2025 (Sheng Lu / OTEXA, 2025).
- The knit end is enormous. Shenzhou International, the world's largest vertically integrated knitwear manufacturer, posted FY2025 revenue of CNY 30.99 billion, about US$4.3 billion (StockAnalysis, 2025).
- Nobody here publishes an MOQ. Every minimum below is our own quoting experience, not a factory-stated number.
- The liner and the waistband drive cost, not the shell fabric. Brands underestimate both.
Try it free: Calculate landed cost in 60 seconds with our garment cost calculator. No email required.
Why does knit versus woven decide your shorts factory?
Because it decides the machinery, the fabric supply, and the skill on the line. A knit short, running, training, mesh, brushed-back sweat, is sewn mostly on overlock and coverstitch machines from stretch fabric, and the strongest factories own their knitting mills. A woven short, chino, board, cargo, denim, is built on lockstitch machines with pockets, a fly, a closure, and a structured waistband.
That split explains most of the bad quotes brands receive. A knit activewear group asked to price a chino short quotes defensively. A denim plant asked for a stretch running short with a bonded liner prices in the fact that it must learn your product on your order. So before you shortlist anyone: is your short a knit or a woven?
The two categories also sit in different cost worlds. In a knit short, fabric and liner dominate the quote. In a woven or denim short, the garment behaves like a cut-down pair of trousers, so pocketing, closures, and, for denim, the wash carry the cost.
How did we choose these manufacturers?
Public evidence only. We built this list from company websites, exchange filings, and third-party certification records. Every company below is a real, operating manufacturer with a verifiable public footprint. We excluded the long tail of marketing sites that rank for "shorts manufacturer" but that we could not verify as factories.
We did not rank one to ten, because "best" depends on whether your short is knit, woven, denim, or domestic. And note this: not one of these companies publishes a minimum order quantity. Any MOQ figure here is our own experience from quoting shorts. If you want the underlying method, our factory vetting and audit template sets out the same checks we run before we put a plant in front of a brand.
Who are the leading knit and activewear shorts manufacturers?
Eclat Textile, Shenzhou International, and MAS Holdings are the three vertically integrated groups behind most branded running, training, and sweat shorts. All three own or control their knitting mills, which is the point: in a knit short, the fabric is half the product. The same names recur in our wider directory of the best activewear manufacturers globally.
Eclat Textile Co., Ltd. (New Taipei City, Taiwan)
A vertically integrated performance-knit manufacturer that engineers the fabric and then makes the garment, with mills in Taiwan and Vietnam and garment plants in Vietnam, Cambodia, Lesotho, and Indonesia. Its own company page reports 20,000-plus employees, 19 factories and R&D centres, and US$1.146 billion in 2024 revenue (TWSE: 1476). Eclat names no customers publicly, only "progressive brands"; third-party profiles link it to major sportswear labels, which is outside reporting, not confirmation. Best for: engineered performance knits.
Shenzhou International Group Holdings Ltd. (Ningbo, China)
The world's largest vertically integrated knitwear manufacturer, with plants in China, Vietnam, and Cambodia. FY2025 revenue reached CNY 30.99 billion, about US$4.3 billion, against CNY 28.66 billion in FY2024, and sportswear was around 69% of 2024 revenue (StockAnalysis, HKEX: 2313). Analyst and press coverage widely reports it as a top supplier to Nike, adidas, Puma, and Uniqlo; that's coverage, not a published customer list. Best for: mesh, knit training, and brushed sweat shorts at volume.
MAS Holdings (Colombo, Sri Lanka)
A performance-wear engineering group that grew out of intimates, which is why it belongs here: bonded seams, laser-cut edges, engineered elastics, and integrated liner construction are its native skill set. MAS says it runs 53 facilities across 17 countries with more than 100,000 employees and owns its fabric and elastic businesses (MAS Holdings). Those figures and its circulated client list are self-reported, and MAS isn't accessible to small brands. Best for: liner engineering.
Citation capsule: Knit shorts, running, training, mesh, and sweat, are dominated by vertically integrated Asian groups that own their knitting mills. Shenzhou International reported FY2025 revenue of CNY 30.99 billion, Eclat Textile US$1.146 billion in 2024, and Makalot Industrial TWD 35,524 million in FY2024. None of them publishes a minimum order quantity.
Who are the leading woven, denim, and board-short manufacturers?
Crystal International, Youngone, Arvind, Saitex, and Delta Galil cover the woven, denim, and board-short end. Woven shorts live in a different building from knits. Here you pay for pockets, fly construction, closures, seam work, and, for denim, a laundry. For denim specifically, the wash house matters more than the sewing line, a point we expand in our directory of the best denim manufacturers globally.
Crystal International Group Limited (Hong Kong)
One of very few groups that can quote knit, woven, and denim shorts under one roof, with plants in Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh, China, and Sri Lanka. Its Lifestyle Wear and Denim divisions cover chino, tailored, and denim shorts; a separate Sportswear and Outdoor division handles performance shorts. Crystal reported 2024 revenue of US$2.47 billion, up 13.4% year on year (HKEX: 2232), a figure confirmed only through secondary coverage. Best for: ranges crossing knit, woven, and denim.
Youngone Corporation (Seoul, South Korea)
A performance and outdoor woven manufacturer founded in 1974, with owned plants in Bangladesh, Vietnam, El Salvador, Ethiopia, and India, Bangladesh accounting for roughly 60% of output. It reports more than 90,000 employees across 17 countries (Youngone). This is the profile for a technical hiking short, a quick-dry woven, or a board short. It publishes no customer list. Best for: technical wovens and board shorts.
Arvind Limited (Ahmedabad, India)
Denim from fabric to finished garment inside one company, the natural route for denim shorts and cut-offs. Arvind reports installed denim capacity of roughly 100 million metres a year and about 15 million pairs of jeans a year (Arvind). Those figures are self-reported, not independently audited. Best for: denim shorts where the mill and the garment factory are the same business.
Saitex (Đồng Nai, Vietnam)
A denim manufacturer and laundry whose real value sits on the wash and finish side, which decides how a denim short actually looks. It reports five facilities and 4,500-plus employees, and opened an integrated spinning, weaving, dyeing, and finishing mill in 2022. It's the first B Corp certified factory in Asia, a bluesign system partner (independently confirmed), and LEED and Fair Trade certified (Saitex). Its "world's most sustainable denim manufacturer" line is marketing, not a finding. Best for: washed denim shorts.
Delta Galil Industries Ltd. (Tel Aviv, Israel)
A private-label specialist in activewear, loungewear, intimates, and denim, manufacturing in Egypt, Bulgaria, Israel, and Asia. It reported full-year 2024 sales of about US$2.05 billion, up 10% on 2023, with private label its largest segment (TASE: DELT). That figure was confirmed only through secondary coverage, so treat it as reported. Best for: retailer private-label sweat shorts and lounge shorts.
Which manufacturers make shorts in the USA?
Two in this directory, Royal Apparel in New York and Los Angeles Apparel in California, and both are knit cut-and-sew. Domestic woven and denim capacity is thin, so a US-made chino or denim short is a far harder brief than a US-made sweat short. For the wider domestic landscape, see our directory of apparel manufacturers in the USA.
Royal Apparel (Hauppauge, New York, USA)
A union shop that markets itself on 100% domestic knitting, cutting, and sewing, with custom production runs and finishing for business customers (Royal Apparel). It's a genuine route to a USA-made sweat short or jersey short. Every claim here is from the company's own site, and no minimum is published. Best for: USA-made knit shorts.
Los Angeles Apparel (Los Angeles, California, USA)
US cut-and-sew knits at wholesale scale, carrying sweat shorts across men's, women's, and kids, with a separate wholesale and imprintable channel for private-label work. The company publishes a wage floor on its own site, stating workers are paid no less than $17.25 an hour and up to $25 (Los Angeles Apparel). Its homepage states no manufacturing address and no minimum, so confirm both directly. Best for: US-made knit shorts at volume.
Citation capsule: US-made shorts are realistically knit shorts. Royal Apparel (Hauppauge, New York) markets 100% domestic knitting, cutting, and sewing, and Los Angeles Apparel (Los Angeles, California) produces US-made knits at wholesale scale and publishes a wage floor of no less than $17.25 an hour, up to $25. Both claims come from the companies' own websites. Neither publishes a minimum order quantity, and domestic woven and denim capacity for a chino or cut-off short is far thinner than domestic knit capacity.
Here's how the 10 shorts manufacturers in this directory compare.
| Company | Location | Shorts route | Specialty | MOQ (public) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eclat Textile | Taiwan (plants VN, KH, LS, ID) | Knit | Engineered performance knits | Not published |
| Shenzhou International | Ningbo, China (VN, KH) | Knit | Knit bottoms at scale | Not published |
| MAS Holdings | Colombo, Sri Lanka | Knit | Liners, elastics, bonded seams | Not published |
| Crystal International | Hong Kong (VN, KH, BD, CN, LK) | Knit + woven + denim | Mixed shorts ranges | Not published |
| Youngone | Seoul, South Korea (BD, VN) | Woven | Technical, outdoor, board shorts | Not published |
| Arvind Limited | Ahmedabad, India | Denim | Fabric-to-garment denim | Not published |
| Saitex | Đồng Nai, Vietnam | Denim | Wash, laundry, finishing | Not published |
| Delta Galil | Tel Aviv, Israel (EG, BG, Asia) | Knit + denim | Private-label bottoms | Not published |
| Royal Apparel | Hauppauge, NY, USA | Knit (US) | Domestic knit cut-and-sew | Not published |
| Los Angeles Apparel | Los Angeles, CA, USA | Knit (US) | US knits at wholesale | Not published |
Source: company websites, exchange filings and financial data (HKEX 2313 and 2232, TWSE 1476 and 1477, TASE DELT, KRX 111770, NSE ARVIND), and third-party certification records, 2024 to 2026. No company in this table publishes a minimum order quantity; confirm current details directly.
What do inseam and rise actually decide?
They decide who your short is for, and they're the two specs brands most often leave to the factory. Inseam is the seam from crotch to hem on the inside leg. In athletic shorts, 3 inch, 5 inch, 7 inch, and 9 inch are the conventional steps, and each lands on a different customer: a 3 inch runs, a 5 inch trains, a 7 inch is the safe everyday length, a 9 inch reads basketball. Board shorts are measured by outseam, because the leg is cut long and loose.
Rise, the distance from crotch seam to top of waistband, is what sample rounds actually argue about. A low rise on a woven short pulls at the front and gapes at the back the moment the wearer sits. This is practitioner knowledge from our own production work, not a published standard. So name inseam and rise at a stated base size, and say how they grade.
What kind of liner does your short need?
Three broad choices, and each changes which factory you should be talking to. An unlined short is the simplest and cheapest build, and it's what a chino, denim, or sweat short usually is. A brief liner, a light knit mesh brief sewn into the waistband, is the classic running-short build. A compression liner, a longer knit leg inside the shell, is the modern training-short build and the most demanding of the three.
Liners are where cost quietly climbs, because a lined short is two garments joined at one waistband, with its own fabric, pattern, and grading. So ask honestly: does your customer want a liner, or are you adding one because competitors have one?
How is a shorts waistband built?
Four common builds, and your choice sets both cost and look. Elastic in a casing, enclosed in a folded channel of shell fabric, is the standard sweat-short and running-short waistband. Exposed jacquard elastic, where a branded band is the waistband itself, is the athletic and streetwear look and carries a trim minimum of its own. A drawcord with eyelets adds adjustability and a hardware line to the bill of materials. A flat woven waistband with a button, hook, or fly closure is the chino and denim build.
This is also where knit and woven part company. Jacquard elastic needs a trim supplier and a line comfortable with elastic feed. A flat woven waistband with a fly needs pattern engineering, interlining, and an operator who builds bottoms daily.
What actually drives the cost of a pair of shorts?
Four line items, in this order: fabric, liner, waistband and trims, and labour minutes. Brands almost always argue about the shell fabric, which is the one item they can see. They almost never interrogate the three that quietly decide the quote.
Fabric leads because a short is a small garment with a poor cutting yield once you add a lined leg. The liner is the item brands forget entirely: a compression-lined training short is two garments joined at one waistband, so it carries a second fabric, a second pattern, a second grade rule, and a second set of sewing operations. Waistband and trims come next, because branded jacquard elastic, drawcords, eyelets, and closures each carry their own supplier minimum, independent of your garment minimum. Labour minutes come last, and they are the only line where a woven short reliably beats a knit short on complexity. Pockets, a fly, and a structured waistband add operations that a coverstitched knit short never has.
The practical consequence, in our own quoting experience, is that two shorts cut from the identical shell fabric can come back at very different unit prices purely on the strength of the liner and the waistband. That is why we ask brands to lock those two decisions before the first quote goes out, not after. Our per-garment breakdowns for activewear manufacturing cost and denim manufacturing cost use the same structure.
What is the MOQ reality for shorts?
Higher than brands expect at the top, lower than they fear at the bottom. Not one company in this directory publishes a minimum order quantity, so anyone quoting you a specific factory MOQ from a public source is guessing. What follows is our own experience from quoting shorts, not a surveyed dataset.
A small US or European cut-and-sew factory opens in the tens to low hundreds of units per style, per colourway. An Asian woven or denim factory usually wants several hundred, because the fabric roll and the wash batch, not the sewing line, set the floor. A Tier 1 vertical group of the Eclat, Shenzhou, or MAS type quotes in the thousands, and often won't quote a small brand at all.
How do you brief a shorts factory properly?
Lead with the four specs that carry the risk: inseam, rise, liner type, and waistband build. Everything else, fabric weight, pocket count, hem finish, stitch type, follows from those. Give measurements at a named base size with a grade rule, not a vague "athletic length."
Then set commercial terms. Confirm whether the minimum applies per style or per colourway, because on shorts that's often the whole conversation. A three-colour launch at a 500-unit minimum is a 1,500-unit order. Confirm trim minimums separately, since branded elastic and custom hardware carry their own floors. Then buy a paid pre-production sample and wear-test it, following the sequence in our clothing sample rounds playbook. A fitting-room look tells you nothing that ten minutes of movement won't overturn.
Citation capsule: No major shorts manufacturer publishes a minimum order quantity. OneAim's own quoting experience puts US and EU small-batch cut-and-sew at roughly 50 to 200 units per style per colourway, Asian woven and denim factories at 500 to 1,000, and Tier 1 vertical activewear groups such as Eclat, Shenzhou, and MAS Holdings at 3,000 or more.
Frequently Asked Questions About Shorts Manufacturers
Who are the biggest shorts manufacturers?
Shenzhou International is the world's largest vertically integrated knitwear manufacturer, with FY2025 revenue of CNY 30.99 billion, about US$4.3 billion. Crystal International reported US$2.47 billion in 2024, Delta Galil about US$2.05 billion, and Eclat Textile US$1.146 billion. None is a shorts-only factory.
What is the minimum order for custom shorts?
No manufacturer in this directory publishes one, so treat any specific number you find online with suspicion. From our own quoting, small US and EU cut-and-sew factories start around 50 to 200 units per style, per colourway, Asian woven and denim factories at several hundred, and Tier 1 vertical groups in the thousands.
Are knit and woven shorts made in the same factory?
Usually not. Knit shorts come from stretch-knit lines, often inside vertically integrated groups that own their knitting mills. Woven shorts, chino, board, cargo, and denim, come from bottoms and denim plants with lockstitch machines, pocket and fly construction, and, for denim, a laundry. Crystal International is one of the rare groups covering both.
Where are most shorts manufactured?
Overwhelmingly in Asia. The top five supplier countries, China, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Cambodia, and India, accounted for 63.7% of US apparel import value in January to February 2025, and Asia supplied 71.5% of US apparel import value that February, with China alone at 18.4% of value (Sheng Lu / OTEXA, 2025).
Can shorts be made in the USA?
Yes, but mostly knit shorts. Royal Apparel in New York markets 100% domestic knitting, cutting, and sewing. Los Angeles Apparel produces US-made knits at wholesale scale, publishing a wage floor of no less than $17.25 an hour. Both claims come from the companies' own sites; domestic woven and denim capacity is far thinner.
What drives the cost of a pair of shorts?
Fabric, liner, waistband and trims, and labour minutes, roughly in that order. The two brands most often underestimate are the liner, because a lined short is effectively two garments joined at one waistband, and branded trims such as jacquard elastic, which carry supplier minimums of their own. This is our own quoting experience, not a published cost standard.
Who makes denim shorts?
Denim shorts come from vertically integrated denim mills and their laundries. Arvind reports roughly 100 million metres a year of installed denim capacity and about 15 million pairs of jeans annually, both self-reported. Saitex in Vietnam runs the wash side and holds B Corp, bluesign, LEED, and Fair Trade certifications.
We're a group of 100+ documented clothing manufacturers across 15+ countries. Tell us your product, volume, and timeline. We'll route your brief to the factory in our group built for it, usually within 24 hours. You produce directly with the factory. Flat fees, no markups, no pitch.
Get in contact Download the directory ($39)Need a tech pack? Get a factory-ready single-style tech pack for $79. See what's included.
Sources used in this article
- Dr. Sheng Lu, University of Delaware, US apparel sourcing and imports, from OTEXA data, April 2025.
- Shenzhou International Group Holdings (HKEX: 2313), financials via StockAnalysis, FY2024 to FY2025.
- Eclat Textile, Company page and TWSE: 1476 financials, 2024 to 2025.
- Makalot Industrial, company profile (TWSE: 1477) and financials, 2024 to 2025.
- Crystal International Group (HKEX: 2232), profile and financials, 2024. Revenue confirmed via secondary coverage.
- Youngone Corporation, What We Do, 2024 to 2026.
- MAS Holdings, Products, 2025. Scale figures and client references self-reported.
- Delta Galil Industries, FY2024 results release and profile, 2024 to 2025. Sales figure reported, not primary-verified.
- Arvind Limited, Textile and Apparel business, 2023 to 2026. Capacity figures self-reported.
- Saitex, Vietnam operations, 2024 to 2026. Certifications third-party verifiable; the superlative is the company's own claim.
- Royal Apparel, about the company, 2024 to 2026. Self-reported.
- Los Angeles Apparel, company site, 2024 to 2026. Self-reported.
- OneAim Apparel internal sourcing and quoting data, 2024 to 2026 (MOQ bands, inseam, rise, liner and waistband construction).
.jpeg)
