Overview:
Congress has retroactively prolonged the Haiti HOPE and HELP commerce choice packages by means of Dec. 31, 2026, restoring duty-free entry for Haitian attire exports to the US and offering important assist to the nation’s textile sector.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The US Congress has retroactively prolonged the Haiti HOPE and HELP commerce choice packages, securing duty-free entry for Haitian attire exports by means of Dec. 31, 2026.
The packages, initially set to run out on Sept. 30, 2025, are important to Haiti’s textile and attire sector, which accounted for over 90% of the nation’s export earnings as of 2020, according to the U.S. State Department. The retroactive extension additionally ensures that duties paid because the packages lapsed shall be refunded to importers.
Extension Date
Dec 31, 2028
Worth Threshold
60%
Retroactive Clause: Covers entries made after Sept 30, 2025. Refunds should be requested inside 180 days of enactment.
View Eligible Attire Classes
Per Part 2, the next qualify for duty-free standing:
- Attire assembled in Haiti from U.S. materials/yarns.
- Knit attire assembled in Haiti (topic to 1.25% cap).
- Articles with 60% Haitian/U.S. value-added content material.
- Brassieres and sure “Worth-Added” textile articles.
Observe: The 1.25% cap relies on whole U.S. attire imports from the final 12 months.
The HOPE (Hemispheric Alternative by means of Partnership Encouragement) and HELP (Haiti Financial Elevate Program) Acts, enacted in 2006 and 2010, grant Haitian producers preferential entry to the U.S. attire market, serving to stabilize the sector and positioning Haiti as a co-production accomplice for American companies. In response to the American Attire and Footwear Affiliation (AAFA), the packages have been “instrumental to the event of Haiti’s attire sector” and have supported each U.S. and Haitian textile industries.
The extension comes as a part of a broader $1.2 trillion appropriations invoice, alongside the same retroactive renewal of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which supplies duty-free entry for eligible sub-Saharan African nations by means of Dec. 31, 2026. Duties paid through the lapse of AGOA may also be refunded.
Haiti’s attire trade has lengthy operated beneath fragile circumstances. A ten% tariff introduced on Caribbean imports, imposed in April 2025 by the Trump administration, threatened to destabilize one of many nation’s few functioning financial sectors. Garment exports to the U.S. generated $844 million in 2023, making Haiti extremely depending on American demand, whereas imports of refined petroleum, rice, and cotton materials highlighted the nation’s commerce imbalance and deep reliance on U.S. markets. With out HOPE and HELP, specialists warned, the attire sector and the tens of hundreds of jobs it helps might collapse.
Business teams welcomed the retroactive extension however emphasised the necessity for proactive, long-term renewal. “Whereas the retroactive passage helps the trade on time misplaced,” the AAFA stated in a statement, “ proactive and long-term renewal is what is required for predictability, funding, and financial viability to assist the U.S. jobs anchored by these packages.”
Now restored, the extension supplies a restricted window for significant reform earlier than the packages’ subsequent expiration in December 2026. Policymakers and commerce associations underscore that securing a longer-term answer shall be important to keep up funding and guarantee continued stability in Haiti’s attire sector.