UK Founder Guide · Written from the factory floor

How to Start a Clothing Brand in the UK

You can start a clothing brand in the UK without a special licence — register with HMRC, follow fibre and care labelling rules, then choose print-on-demand to test or a manufacturer once you need your own fit and fabric. This page covers 2026 costs, print-on-demand versus cut-and-sew, how to find a factory, and what UK labels actually require.

Most guides on this topic stop at “register with HMRC and find a niche”. We are a garment factory, so the parts other guides skip — real per-unit numbers, minimum order quantities, sample rounds, import steps and label law — are the parts covered in depth here.

Last verified: September 2026 · General guidance, not legal, tax or customs advice.

How much does it cost to start a clothing brand in the UK?

Two numbers matter, and they are far apart. Testing a design on print-on-demand can cost under £200. Your first real production run — your own fabric, fit and labels — is usually £2,500 to £6,000 for 300 pieces of a simple garment. Registration and legal admin sit under £400 in total for most new brands, so the garments, not the paperwork, are the budget.

Print-on-demand budget

Print-on-demand means a partner prints your artwork on a blank garment and ships it when a customer orders. You hold no stock. Realistic first-month spend: a domain at roughly £10 a year, a storefront from about £25 a month, one or two self-bought samples at £15–£30 each, and artwork you make yourself or commission for £50–£300.

The trade-off is margin and control. A printed blank hoodie typically costs you £20–£30 landed, which leaves thin margin at a £45 retail price, and you cannot change the fit, the fabric weight, the neck label or the stitching. It is a demand test, not a brand.

First cut-and-sew production run

Cut-and-sew means the garment is made from flat fabric to your pattern: your fit, your fabric weight, your labels. This is where a brand becomes a brand. The budget is driven by three things — garment complexity, fabric weight, and decoration.

A 180–200 gsm jersey tee sits at the bottom of that £2,500–£6,000 band. A 400 gsm brushed-back fleece hoodie with embroidery, a woven label, custom drawcord tips and a garment wash sits at the top, or above it. Our price calculator and garment cost calculator let you model this before you ask anyone for a quote.

Hidden costs founders miss

• Freight, divided per unit. Sea freight on a 300-piece order is a few hundred pounds shared across the whole run, not per garment — but it is real money and it is rarely in a factory's quoted price.
• Import VAT cash flow. VAT is charged at the border and reclaimed later if you are VAT-registered. It is recoverable, but you need the cash before you get it back.
• Sample iteration. Almost nobody approves the first sample. With us, sampling is covered by the 30% deposit with up to 10 free revision rounds, so the cost is courier and calendar time — but many factories bill each round separately. Ask before you start.
• Labels, tags and polybags. Small per unit, invisible in early spreadsheets, and required before anything can be sold.
• Returns and unsold sizes. The tail sizes of your first run are the ones that sit. Weight your size split toward what you actually expect to sell.

Do I need a licence to start a clothing brand in the UK?

No. There is no clothing licence, no permit and no compulsory trade body membership to sell clothing in the UK. You need a registered business, accurate records, and products that meet UK labelling and safety rules. That is the whole list.

What trips new brands up is not licensing, it is the product rules further down this page — fibre composition labelling, general product safety, and the extra flammability requirements on children's nightwear.

Sole trader vs limited company

Registering as a sole trader with HMRC is free and fast, and suits a brand testing an idea. A limited company separates your personal finances from the business, which matters more once you are placing four-figure deposits with suppliers, and it is what most wholesale accounts and some payment providers prefer to deal with.

The cost gap widened in 2026: digital incorporation at Companies House rose from £50 to £100 on 1 February 2026, and the annual confirmation statement from £34 to £50. Still small next to a production run, but worth knowing that guides written in 2025 quote the old figures.

Trademark, VAT, and when EORI is required

• Trade mark. Optional, but check the UK trade mark register before you order neck labels. A UK application is £205 online for the first class from 1 April 2026, plus £60 per additional class. Class 25 covers clothing.
• VAT. Registration is compulsory once taxable turnover passes £90,000 in any rolling 12 months, or when you expect to pass it within 30 days — confirm the current figure on GOV.UK: when to register for VAT, since some older GOV.UK pages still show the previous £85,000 figure. Voluntary registration earlier can be worth it if you are importing, because import VAT becomes reclaimable.
• EORI. You need a UK EORI number to import commercially, and it is free to get. Apply before your first shipment leaves, not while it is sitting at the port — this is the single most common first-import delay we see.

How to start a clothing line in the UK: 7 steps

This is the order that works in practice. Steps 1 to 3 take days. Step 5 is where the calendar actually goes — expect 10 to 16 weeks from approved tech pack to goods in the UK on a first order.

Step 1 — Niche and first product

Pick one garment for one group of people who already buy it. A boxy 220 gsm tee for a music scene beats a six-piece capsule nobody has validated. One style also means one pattern, one fabric and one sample round, which is the cheapest way to learn how production works.

Step 2 — Brand name and trademark check

Check the name across the UK trade mark register, Companies House, the domain and the social handles on the same afternoon. Do it before artwork, before labels, and definitely before an order of 300 woven neck labels carrying a name you have to abandon.

Step 3 — Register the business

Sole trader with HMRC, or a limited company at Companies House for £100 digitally. Open a business bank account at the same time — suppliers overseas will ask for a company bank account, not a personal one, and mismatched names delay payments.

Step 4 — Choose POD, UK CMT, or overseas OEM

Three routes, three different businesses. Print-on-demand tests demand with no stock risk. A UK cut-and-sew workshop makes 50 to 150 pieces quickly and locally. An overseas full-package factory takes over fabric sourcing and everything after it, and is where per-unit cost drops. The comparison table further down puts real numbers against each.

Step 5 — Sample, then bulk

Never skip the pre-production sample. A proto sample takes roughly 10 to 14 days, and most brands need two or three rounds before the fit is right — we include up to 10 free revision rounds, so iterate until it is right rather than settling. Bulk cutting should not start until you have held and approved the final sample. Our sample cost guide explains what you should and should not be charged for.

Step 6 — UK fibre, care and safety labels

Fibre composition labelling is legally required in the UK. Care symbols are not strictly mandatory but are commercially expected and reduce returns. Specify all of it in the tech pack, because labels are made during production, not afterwards. Full detail in the labelling section below.

Step 7 — Launch and reorder

Track sell-through by size and colourway, not just total revenue. Your reorder should be built against the same approved pattern, fabric spec and dye recipe — a factory that keeps those on file gives you a matching second run rather than an approximation.

Print on demand vs manufacturing UK

Print-on-demand and manufacturing are not competitors, they are stages. Most UK brands that last use both: print-on-demand to find out which design sells, a factory to make that design properly once it does.

When POD is the right first move

You have no sales data, your first drop is 30 to 80 pieces, you need stock live in two weeks, or your design is graphic-led and the blank's fit is good enough. In all four cases, print-on-demand is the correct answer and a factory is the wrong one. We will tell you the same thing on a call.

When a factory is cheaper per unit

The crossover usually lands between 150 and 300 units per style. Below it, print-on-demand and UK workshops win on flexibility and speed. Above it, per-unit cost from a certified factory typically comes in 50 to 70 percent below a printed blank — and you get your own fabric weight, fit and branding, which is what lets you price above blank-tee territory.

Moving from POD to your own garments

Take your best-selling print-on-demand style and have it rebuilt as a cut-and-sew garment: send the blank you have been using as a reference sample, specify the changes you want in fit and weight, and keep the artwork identical so your existing customers recognise it. That is the lowest-risk first production run there is, because the demand is already proven.

What 300 pieces actually costs landed in the UK

Almost every UK startup guide quotes a factory-gate price and stops. That number is not what your garment costs you. Here is the same garment — an oversized 220 gsm cotton tee, 300 pieces, one colourway, four sizes — costed three ways.

Two things this table makes obvious. First, the duty line is the quiet difference between sourcing origins: Bangladesh currently enters the UK duty-free for the large majority of garments under the Developing Countries Trading Scheme, while the same tee from China generally carries around 12 percent. Second, 50 pieces made locally costs you two to three times as much per garment — which is fine for a first drop, and difficult once you are trying to hold a retail margin.

Bangladesh is due to graduate from Least Developed Country status, which changes the basis of that duty-free access over a transition period rather than overnight. We explain what is confirmed and what is not on our page for UK brands. Check the current rate for your own commodity code with the UK Trade Tariff before you commit to an order.

How to find a clothing manufacturer UK

Start with trade directories and founder referrals rather than a marketplace search. UK Fashion and Textile Association members, the Make it British directory and local trade bodies list real workshops. For overseas production, approach export factories directly and verify them yourself — our clothing manufacturers guide lists routes for both.

UK factory vs overseas factory

A UK workshop gives you 50-piece minimums, a floor you can visit, and no customs paperwork. An overseas full-package factory gives you fabric sourcing, in-house wash and decoration, audited social compliance and a unit price that makes retail margin work at volume. Neither is better in the abstract — the deciding factor is how many units per style you are ready to commit to.

Questions to ask before you pay a deposit

• Are you the factory, or an agent placing this order somewhere else? Both are legitimate; only one is transparent about it.
• Which certificates do you hold, and what are the numbers? Check them on the certifier's own database, not a PDF they email you.
• Can we do a live video walk of the floor this week, rather than a photo set?
• What is the payment structure, and what triggers the balance payment?
• Who pays if the pre-production sample is rejected twice?
• What is your defect standard on final inspection, and do you use AQL 2.5?

Our guides on avoiding manufacturer scams and AQL inspection cover what the answers should sound like.

MOQ, sampling and lead time in plain numbers

Here are ours, so you have at least one honest reference point to compare other quotes against. Full-package production, where we source the fabric, starts at 300 pieces per style with a flexible size and colour split. Cut, make and trim (CMT), where you supply the fabric yourself, has a higher minimum of 5,000 pieces per style, because we are then cutting fabric we did not source or inspect ourselves. For a first order, full-package at 300 pieces is the route almost every new brand should take. Samples take about 10 to 14 days, and bulk production runs roughly 30 to 45 days after sample approval, plus 25 to 35 days of sea freight to Felixstowe or London Gateway.

If a factory quotes you a 50-piece minimum on full-package production with sourced fabric, ask what happens to the fabric minimum — mills sell yarn-dyed and custom-dyed fabric in rolls, and somebody is absorbing the remainder. Use our MOQ calculator and lead time calculator to sanity-check any quote you receive.

UK clothing labelling for a new brand

This is the section most UK startup guides reduce to a single line, and it is the one that gets stock held or pulled. The short version: fibre content is a legal requirement, care instructions are not legally required but are expected, and children's nightwear has its own rules.

Fibre content and care labels

Under the Textile Products (Labelling and Fibre Composition) Regulations 2012, textile products placed on the UK market must carry a label showing fibre composition, using only the fibre names permitted in the regulations. Terms like “100%”, “pure” or “all” may only be used where the product is genuinely made of a single fibre. If a garment has components with different compositions, each has to be shown.

Care labelling is where guides get it wrong in both directions. It is not a legal requirement in Great Britain — the underlying regulation leaves it to the voluntary EN ISO 3758 symbol standard. In practice every retailer and marketplace expects it, and correct wash symbols measurably reduce returns, so specify them anyway. Our wash care label generator builds the symbol set, and the label placement guide covers what goes where on the garment.

GPSR in the UK vs the EU

This confuses almost everyone, including some legal blogs. There are two different GPSRs. Great Britain still operates under the General Product Safety Regulations 2005. The EU's newer General Product Safety Regulation (EU) 2023/988 applied from 13 December 2024 across EU member states and, under the Windsor Framework, in Northern Ireland — it did not replace the 2005 rules in England, Scotland or Wales.

Practical consequence for a new brand: selling only into Great Britain, you work to the 2005 regulations, which require products to be safe and expect manufacturer identification and batch traceability. Selling into the EU or Northern Ireland, the 2023 regulation adds obligations including a responsible economic operator established in the EU or NI. If your launch plan includes EU customers, read our EU clothing regulations guide and run the EU readiness checker before you print packaging.

Children's clothing extra rules

If your range includes nightwear, the Nightwear (Safety) Regulations 1985 apply. Most children's nightwear must meet the flammability performance of BS 5722, while pyjamas, babies' garments, towelling bath robes and adult nightwear must instead carry a flammability label — “KEEP AWAY FROM FIRE” in red where the garment does not meet BS 5722, or the corresponding low-flammability wording where it does. Children's garments also raise drawcord and small-parts considerations. Tell your factory at the tech pack stage, not at final inspection. See our kids and baby clothing manufacturing page for how this affects construction.

Importing from overseas: the 7 steps nobody lists

1. Get a UK EORI number. Free, needed before the shipment arrives, and the most common cause of a first-import hold-up.
2. Confirm your commodity code. The code decides your duty rate. Our HS code tool narrows it down; your broker confirms it.
3. Agree Incoterms in writing. FOB, CIF and DDP split cost and risk very differently — see Incoterms explained.
4. Get the paperwork right at origin. Commercial invoice, packing list and the preferential origin documentation that supports a duty-free claim. A missing origin document turns 0% into the full tariff rate.
5. Appoint a customs broker or forwarder. For a first import this is not optional in practice. They file the declaration and tell you what the port needs.
6. Plan for import VAT. Charged at the border, reclaimable if you are VAT-registered, and a cash-flow event either way. Postponed VAT accounting is worth asking your accountant about.
7. Check the goods before they ship, not after. A final inspection at the factory is far cheaper than discovering a fit problem after 25 days at sea. See our production process for where inspection sits.

When you should not manufacture overseas

We are a factory, and this is still the honest answer: overseas production is the wrong choice for a meaningful number of new UK brands, at least at the start.

Frequently asked questions

Last verified: September 2026. Figures for company, trade mark, VAT and duty come from UK government sources and change without much notice — confirm on GOV.UK or with your accountant or customs broker before you commit money. This guide is general information, not legal, tax or customs advice.

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