U.S. Area Rug Market: Largely imported, the area rug market was highly stressed by tariffs in 2025 – May 2026

By Jessica Chevalier

Last year was by no means an easy one for the area rug industry. The on-again, off-again nature of the Trump administration’s tariffs, which impacted all the flooring categories, was particularly brutal for area rugs, an estimated 80% of which are imported. All told, the industry declined 8.0% to $1.711 billion at mill sell value.

Data shows that carpet and rug imports declined 5.6% in 2025, while consumption declined 4.7%, likely indicating that importers pulled back on buying rugs due to tariffs.

Further, major sources for area rug imports are India and China, two of the countries most heavily tariffed. These challenges follow a host of changes that have left the area rug category almost unrecognizable from what it was a decade and a half ago. 

Historically, the bulk of area rugs were sold through department stores and specialty dealers, including specialty flooring dealers that stocked rugs. Today, the dinosaur of the department store is nearly extinct, and the ranks of specialty dealers have shrunk, with many flooring specialty dealers now opting for custom bound and serged rug programs over stocked traditional rugs. As area rug manufacturers and importers watched the market change, they sought new channels to market, be they through third-party or proprietary ecommerce, discount retailers, big box stores or specialty retailers like furniture stores. 

Some manufacturers sought to expand their offerings beyond rugs to include furniture, home accessories, lighting, bath and scatter, doormats, utility flooring or outdoor products, and, along the way, the market became highly fragmented with different companies pursuing different strategies. And an apples-to-apples comparison of companies became increasingly more difficult. 

Add to this the fact that, with the market evolving so rapidly, rug purveyors who find their niche are often keen to protect it and would prefer to fly under the radar than flaunt their success. 

Along the way, price point and product mix have shifted dramatically downward as consumers no longer view an area rug as art or heirloom but more of a fashion accessory.  Part of this, notes Alex Peykar, president of Nourison, is that over 90% of what’s sold through e-commerce is low-end product.

Mohawk Home senior vice president Bart Hill’s sobering assessment of consumer sentiment around rugs is that, for some buyers today, an area rug isn’t something you move from one home to another, but something you abandon in the dumpster and replace. 

All this is to say that sorting out the top five players in the area rugs industry is a challenging task. Through our research and query of sources, we heard quite a few names that haven’t made this list, including some that have appeared on the list in prior years like Oriental Weavers, Natco and Maples. 

And, given the myriad factors impacting the area rug market, including highly mutable consumer behavior and the success or failure of large-scale partnerships with particular retailers, it could change significantly again in the future. 

“We are really considering what we can do to stimulate growth in the rug category,” says Hill. “There is less space devoted to rugs in brick-and-mortar now than any other time in the history of retail. We want to elevate the purchase again—not just having a rug for one season or 12 months—by adding value. There have to be ways we can tell the story of area rugs to get the price point up and add value. Rugs used to be an heirloom purchase. Today, we might still get $600 from a consumer, but it is three rugs instead of one.” 

THE IMPACT OF “ADVANCEMENT”

Whether or not they have actually been a boon for the area rug industry may be up for debate, but technological advancements have irrevocably changed the market, enabling manufacturers to pack more design and features into lower price-point products. For the consumer, this equates to more style for less money. For manufacturers, it’s something of a both/and scenario in terms of benefit: a means of offering a more appealing product at the (lower) price point the consumer wants as well as a factor that ultimately leads to a lower industry average price point, though also undermining the design value of the better end. 

“The industry of loom products has changed tremendously with results that are absolutely incredible compared to ten years ago, when these looks were only possible in high-quality hand-knotted, and, in some cases, it’s hard to tell whether it the product is handmade, machine-made or machine-loomed,” says Peykar.

“Technology has made it so you can get a good-looking rug at a low price point,” says Brandon Culpepper, senior vice president–mass merchant for Surya. “Everything has compressed into retail prices, and the challenge today is to load all the fashion side into the lower price points. The world we live in is very democratized from a color and style standpoint—everyone is connected online, so fashionable colors show up in all price points and constructions. Today, it’s not that one color is working on the high end and one at the low end—trends are spread across the price points. The business is not as segmented.”

“In the sourcing regions, there is lots of innovation in looks, not as much in construction,” says Hill. Hill believes that finding ways to add value—beyond just style—are key to raising the value of the product itself. 

At the same time, with so much of the rug business sold through ecommerce today, a primary concern becomes how the product photographs for the web, which is a consideration separate from how the product looks and feels in person. 

HEADWINDS

“We all dealt with tariffs last year,” says Hill. “That was the biggest news for the industry. Those hit in March and shifted everything.”

“The big country that we import from is Turkey for machine-woven, and those tariffs went up to 10% to 15%,” says Culpepper. “And then, of course, with China, there was an explosive back-and-forth on tariff rates, and that made us have to study the whole world to find value. In general, it didn’t change our calculus much on where we make what, but we have had to be very conscious of cost.”

“The biggest challenge and most confusing thing that we went through was the tariff on India,” says Peykar. “The U.S.’s relationship with China was never beautiful, so we were always concerned with China. The tariffs have come down some, but they are still a lot more than what they used to be, but we can survive. Currently, we are also going through phases of production cost increases due to the cost of raw materials—anything synthetic related to oil, of course. But even the cost of wool has gone up, and what’s really surprising is that percentage-wise what’s higher than all of them is jute, so we are currently experiencing cost increases across the board.”

Hill points out that while the industry has now virtually “digested the tariff situation,” the addition of challenges this year mean that area rug purveyors will either have to pass cost increases along to consumers or de-engineer product to find cost savings there.  

This stacking of one challenge on another makes every decision more difficult. While some may have tried to wait out the Iran conflict, which many expected early on wouldn’t exceed two weeks, the fact that it had lasted at least two months, as of press time, forced some of them to move ahead at higher costs for not only the product, but for transportation and other elements, as well. 

Prior to the Iran conflict, Hill believed that 2026 would be the year of turnaround for the area rug market. “For the last four years, we thought, this is going to be our year because the bad news is behind us,” he says. “2026 started strong but is slowing now. Rug companies have been aggressive with pricing, but they can only put up increases for so long. There is still a lot of capacity in the source regions, but while retailers are looking for newness, many importers are sourcing from the same part of world.” 

“Right now, the price of polypropylene has increased 30% due to polypropylene feedstock in the Gulf region, and that increases rug costs a lot, and that has to do with petroleum,” explains Culpepper. “Anything tied into polypropylene has cost and availability problems. It’s also impacting how things are moving with transportation. The situation with oil and refining and all those things impacts byproducts. Polyester is a little different because it has more of an Asian footprint, but there are still increases with transport. Anything moving in that area on the water is more expensive.” 

For manufacturers or importers serving mass merchants, all of this is complicated by the fact that programs and pricing are established far in advance, which means that product impacted by tariffs and increasing raw material costs may not be eligible for mark-up due to these increases. In these cases, says Culpepper, “you have to read the lay of the land as best you can and price accordingly, knowing that if there are increases, we have to absorb them.” 

THE TOP FIVE

Over the last decade, Mohawk Home diversified its business into four categories—area rugs, mats, underlayment and its needlepunch Foss utility products—and also spent several years shifting its sourcing and distribution models. Today, the company’s area rug business remains the largest of its four categories, accounting for one third of business with the bulk of product sourced. U.S. production is now focused on doormats. 

The company reports that moving to a sourced model for area rugs has proved “very beneficial,” allowing the company to focus on adding value in a tough market rather than worrying about its production assets. The negative, Hill points out, is that the company sources, as does the larger rug industry, from areas where political or economic uncertainty abound, so shipping and energy become significant factors. 

While Mohawk Home sources a small amount of product from China, it has largely moved the bulk of its sourcing out of the country, instead favoring Vietnam and Thailand. It also sources from Turkey and India. It buys a small amount from Egypt. 

The company reports that, with its long-standing history in the U.S. flooring market, it performs well in hard times as retailers are keen to do business with companies they know and trust. 

Amid the challenges of tariffs and oil-rate hikes, the company leaned into its varied distribution model—FOB, warehouse pick-up or through its supply chain—to serve customers in whatever way makes the most sense economically. 

The company’s decorative rug business remains soft, while its utility products have been more active. 

Mohawk Home’s area rug business was down an estimated 8.1% in 2025 at $432 million. 

Surya’s area rug business is multi-columned with ecommerce, mass merchant and full-price retail operations. Both the ecommerce and mass merchant arms focus primarily on machine-woven rugs at a value price, with Culpepper noting that, utilizing the most current technology, the company “tries to pour as much design and value in as we can.” The full-price retail business offers high-end design with primarily handmade rugs from India as well as some high-end machine-made products. In addition to rugs, the company offers furniture and accessories. 

Following a year of spectacular growth in 2024, Surya’s 2025 performance was positive but not as explosive. The company grew an estimated 11.9% to $291 million, from 2024’s downwardly revised $260 million. 

Surya was founded in 1977. Its products are produced in Turkey, India and China. It has U.S. headquarters in Cartersville, Georgia. For 2026, the company is expecting performance more akin to 2024, as it has several significant roll-outs and promotions planned, which it believes will pay off. 

Loloi, based in Dallas, Texas, is another rug purveyor that has expanded its offering into other products, such as pillows, wall art and throws. The company was founded in 2004 by Amar Loloi, whose sons Steven and Cyrus have joined him in the business. 

In September 2025, Austin Craley, vice president of sales, retired from Loloi after 14 years with the firm and a career in the rug industry that included working with Momeni, Kas, Amiran, Princeton and Macy’s (where he started as a rug buyer).

Loloi sells direct to the consumer as well as through e-commerce, brick-and-mortar retailers, design firms and mass merchants. The company sources products from both the Middle East and Asia, spanning the high end to the value price points.

Loloi’s sales were down an estimated 6.8% in 2025 to $233 million.

Nourison closed 2025 at an estimated $198 million in area rug revenues, a 4.2% increase from the prior year, but it was not a year that the company glided through. “Historically, we were very strong because of our own manufacturing in China,” says Peykar. “Given the changes that were caused mostly because of the relationship between the U.S. and China, we were compelled to shift production to other sources—a lot in Turkey as well as India. While we still have factories in China, production has gone down a lot by choice, though we kept some qualities there that are unique, not easy to duplicate.”

Nourison serves all channels of the market with rugs, from low mid to very high end. 

The company is based in Saddle Brook, New Jersey. Brothers Paul, Alex and Stephen Peykar founded Nourison in New York City in 1980 as an importer and wholesaler of hand-knotted carpets.

New York City-based Safavieh started in the antique rug business in 1914 but has expanded to offer a broad range of home products, including furniture, lighting, outdoor, bedding and bath, and accessories and décor. 

Safavieh remains under the ownership and leadership of the Yaraghi family. The company is heavily e-commerce-sold. It goes direct to the consumer through its own website as well as through other e-tailers. It also serves large retailers and has its own stores in New York City. 

The company’s rug offering is expansive, from the high end to value, and it has quite a few big-name licensing partnerships. 

The company imports area rugs from a variety of countries. Safavieh’s area rug business closed 2025 flat at an estimated $186 million.