Shrimp Export Data 2026: Seafood Buyers & Importers

Ecuador shipped a record $7.5 billion of shrimp in 2025, and India's marine-products exports hit an all-time high of $8.46 billion in FY2025-26. The world's appetite for prawns keeps outrunning every tariff thrown at it. For anyone selling into this market, shrimp export data is the fastest way to see who is actually buying, in what volume, and away from which rival supplier. Frozen shrimp and prawns move under HS code 030617; value-added, prepared or preserved shrimp ship under 160521.

Shrimp is now the single most valuable seafood in world trade. The buyer map is being redrawn in real time by US tariffs, a swing in Chinese demand, and Ecuador's relentless volume growth. Here is what the 2026 numbers say, and how the biggest seafood exporters turn them into a live buyer list.

Which countries export the most shrimp?

Ecuador exports the most shrimp, with a record $7.5 billion in 2025. India follows with $5.62 billion of frozen shrimp in FY2025-26, then Vietnam at $4.6 billion and Indonesia near $1.4 billion. These four dominate global farmed-shrimp supply.

Each of the four just posted its own 2025 headline. Ecuador's National Aquaculture Chamber (CNA) reported exports of $7.47 billion, up 23.2% on 3.07 billion pounds, a 15% volume jump that keeps it comfortably at #1. India's Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA) logged record marine exports of $8.46 billion across 1.97 million tonnes in FY2025-26, with frozen shrimp the dominant line at $5.62 billion and 792,647 MT. Vietnam's producers association VASEP booked a record $4.6 billion, up 19%, while Indonesia softened to roughly $1.4 billion through October as US tariffs bit.

Ecuador, India, Vietnam and Indonesia account for the majority of internationally traded farmed shrimp. Everyone else is fighting for the margin.

National totals make good press releases. They do not fill a container. They tell seafood exporters the market is huge and growing, but not which US or EU importer to email on Monday. That is the gap shipment-level shrimp export data fills.

Where shrimp export data says the buyers are

The United States is the largest shrimp buyer on the planet, importing 795,641 MT worth $7.03 billion in 2025, value up 9% even as tariffs slowed the second half, per NOAA and Shrimp Insights. India was the top supplier at 300,051 MT, ahead of Ecuador at 231,804 MT (up 18%), Indonesia at 119,331 MT, and Vietnam at 64,413 MT. China is the other giant. It absorbed nearly half of Ecuador's vannamei volume — 1.52 billion pounds worth $3.27 billion, per CNA figures — and bought $1.23 billion of Vietnamese shrimp, up a striking 61%, per VASEP. The EU (Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands) and Japan round out the demand centres for shrimp importers.

For an Indian exporter, that concentration is the whole opportunity. MPEDA figures put the US at roughly 312,000 MT of India's frozen shrimp and China around 136,000 MT in the prior year. But those are country totals. The named buyers behind them, ranked by how many containers they actually clear, are what let you skip the trade-show queue and open a direct conversation. Exporters who lived through 2025 know the pattern: a US account goes quiet, and three weeks later the same volumes show up on someone else's bills of lading.

Shrimp HS codes: what 030617 and 160521 cover

Two codes carry almost all the money. HS 030617 covers frozen shrimp and prawns other than cold-water species: the vannamei and black tiger block, and the bulk of every big exporter's shipments. HS 160521 covers shrimp prepared or preserved and not in airtight containers — breaded, cooked, and marinated value-added product, where margins are higher and cold chain demands stricter. Demand there is climbing too; peeled frozen alone reached 408,408 MT of US imports, up 6%, per Shrimp Insights. Cold-water shrimp sit separately under 030616. Pull the wrong six digits and your buyer list is noise, so getting the classification right is step one. If you are new to the system, start with how to find and use an HS code.

US tariffs and AD/CVD are redrawing the shrimp map

The single biggest force in 2026 shrimp trade is US policy. On 26 December 2024 the Commerce Department issued countervailing-duty orders on frozen warmwater shrimp from Ecuador, India and Vietnam, plus an antidumping order on Indonesia. On top of that AD/CVD stack, Indian-origin shrimp now carries a 50% IEEPA tariff and a countervailing duty of 5.63–5.87%, while Ecuadorian shrimp faces a 15% IEEPA tariff. In the first ten months of 2025 alone, the US assessed $385.9 million in tariffs on shrimp imports, according to the Southern Shrimp Alliance.

When a 50% tariff lands, the winning suppliers are the ones who already know which buyers are re-routing volume to China and the EU — because the shipment records showed it first.

That reshuffle is visible in shrimp export data before it reaches any press release. Indonesian and Indian exporters are diversifying hard into China and Europe; EU-bound Indonesian volume jumped 55% year to date, per SeafoodSource. And since US bill-of-lading and customs import records are public, you can watch a competitor lose a US account and win a European one in near real time — the exact edge covered in our guide to US import data.

How to turn shrimp export data into a buyer list with ShipScout

ShipScout turns 11B+ shipment records across 240+ countries into ranked buyer and supplier lists. For shrimp, the workflow is four steps:

1. Search by HS code. Enter 030617 for frozen shrimp or 160521 for value-added product, filtered to your target market, to pull every recorded shipment on that line.
2. Rank importers by volume. In the US importer directory, sort shrimp importers by container count so the highest-volume distributors and retailers surface first, not the ones with the biggest marketing budget.
3. Vet the supplier's real trade record. Before you wire a deposit, check a counterparty's actual shipment history and consistency — walk through it in how to verify an international supplier before paying.
4. Reach the decision-makers. Each company profile surfaces trade activity plus contact intelligence where available, so outreach goes to a named buyer, not a generic inbox.

Indian seafood exporters get the same leverage. Using mirrored licensed trade data, ShipScout helps exporters find buyers and grow shipments with data-backed targeting: start from the India company directory and the wider food and agro export playbook to see who is sourcing shrimp, rice and spices from the region. Start a free trial and pull your first shrimp buyer list in minutes.