Bottom line: extra-EU imports of adipic acid (HS 291712) ran at 89.7 m EUR on 67.5 kt in the twelve months from 2025-08 to 2026-07 — an implied 1,329 EUR/t — and the origin map has flipped. The United States supplied 51.7% of that import value against 36.2% for China, a reversal of the 2025 position (China 74.7%, United States 16.9%). The switch is the visible footprint of the EU anti-dumping case that began with a complaint by Lanxess Deutschland GmbH and Radici Chimica S.p.A. and ended in definitive duties on Chinese material of 29.1% to 42.3%, in force since 6 May 2026. For buyers, the practical consequence is not a shortage but a re-priced supplier list: volumes held up, origin did not, and the delivered unit value rose +13.9% in the 2026 window against the same months of 2025.
Data updated: 2026-09-23. The trend tables further down are annual files through 2025; the sections immediately below extend the picture with Eurostat monthly data through 2026-07 and UN Comtrade monthly data for the United States and India through June 2026.
Latest 12 months: monthly values, volumes and origin
The freshest reading on this molecule is not an annual number. Eurostat’s Comext monthly series for extra-EU trade covers the whole window from 2025-08 to 2026-07, so the table below is the actual monthly record rather than a share-of-year estimate. The latest month available at the time of writing is 2026-07, at 9.43 m EUR and 6.02 kt (1,568 EUR/t).
| Month | Value, m EUR | Volume, kt | Implied EUR/t |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-08 | 4.05 | 3.66 | 1,105 |
| 2025-09 | 4.25 | 3.72 | 1,145 |
| 2025-10 | 3.52 | 2.38 | 1,479 |
| 2025-11 | 2.55 | 1.51 | 1,691 |
| 2025-12 | 4.69 | 4.21 | 1,113 |
| 2026-01 | 8.85 | 6.59 | 1,343 |
| 2026-02 | 10.43 | 8.82 | 1,182 |
| 2026-03 | 13.47 | 11.65 | 1,156 |
| 2026-04 | 9.36 | 6.94 | 1,349 |
| 2026-05 | 5.95 | 4.06 | 1,463 |
| 2026-06 | 13.16 | 7.92 | 1,661 |
| 2026-07 | 9.43 | 6.02 | 1,568 |
| 2025 full year | 107.2 | 89.4 | 1,199 |
| 2026 to July | 70.7 | 52.0 | 1,358 |
Three features matter more than the monthly noise. First, the 2026 window is smaller than the 2025 window on both measures: 70.7 m EUR and 52.0 kt to July, against 88.1 m EUR and 73.9 kt in January–July 2025 — a -19.8% change in value and -29.6% in volume. Second, the value fell faster than the volume, which is the arithmetic of a higher unit value: 1,358 EUR/t in 2026 to July against 1,192 EUR/t a year earlier, a +13.9% move. Third, 2026-03 was the strongest month (13.47 m EUR) and 2026-05 the weakest (5.95 m EUR); a 2.3x spread between two months of the same half-year is a scheduling artefact, not a demand cycle.
The year-on-year decline has to be read with one caveat. The January–July 2025 base is inflated: China-origin arrivals reached 20.34 m EUR in June 2025 and 17.42 m EUR in July 2025, together 37.8 m EUR out of 43.4 m EUR of total extra-EU import value in those two months — a 87.1% share, at an implied 1,026 EUR/t. Measured against a two-month spike, a double-digit decline overstates the underlying contraction.
| Period | Total, m EUR | kt | EUR/t | China, m EUR | China share | China EUR/t | US, m EUR | US share | US EUR/t | Others share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 full year | 107.21 | 89.4 | 1,199 | 80.09 | 74.7% | 1,072 | 18.13 | 16.9% | 1,926 | 8.4% |
| Jan–Jul 2025 | 88.15 | 73.9 | 1,192 | 72.47 | 82.2% | 1,073 | 9.64 | 10.9% | 3,039 | 6.8% |
| 2026 Jan–Jul | 70.65 | 52.0 | 1,358 | 24.89 | 35.2% | 1,176 | 37.91 | 53.7% | 1,440 | 11.1% |
| Latest 12 months (2025-08 – 2026-07) | 89.71 | 67.5 | 1,329 | 32.50 | 36.2% | 1,146 | 46.41 | 51.7% | 1,425 | 12.0% |
| Latest month (2026-07) | 9.43 | 6.0 | 1,568 | 4.16 | 44.1% | 1,311 | 3.50 | 37.1% | 1,822 | 18.7% |
The duty did not cut the volume — it moved the barrels
The composition change is the story. China was still the largest single origin in 2025 as a whole (74.7% of import value, 80.1 m EUR), and it is not any more: in the 2026 window it accounted for 35.2% (24.9 m EUR) while the United States moved to 53.7% (37.9 m EUR). The twelve-month view smooths the transition (China 36.2%, United States 51.7%) but the direction is unambiguous, and it is visible in the single latest month: 2026-07 brought 4.16 m EUR of Chinese material at an implied 1,311 EUR/t against 3.50 m EUR of US material at 1,822 EUR/t. That roughly 500 EUR/t spread between the two origins in the same month is the clearest price signal in this data set, and it is consistent with a duty landing on one origin and not the other rather than with a change in the underlying molecule.
The monthly path around the measures is worth following. Chinese arrivals collapsed from 17.42 m EUR in July 2025 to 2.38 m EUR in August, 1.09 m EUR in October and 0.96 m EUR in November, then recovered to a stable low single-digit-million monthly level through the first seven months of 2026. The US line moved in the opposite direction and peaked at 7.88 m EUR in 2026-03. Analysis (not a price assessment): the shape is consistent with a two-stage adjustment — an early retreat by Chinese suppliers while the investigation was live, followed by substitution into duty-free origins once the definitive rate was known. The important operational point is that the substitution happened inside the same total volume envelope: this is a supplier-list problem, not a supply-availability problem. EU exports, meanwhile, held their ground at 33.7 m EUR over the twelve months, so European converters kept shipping downstream product while their own feedstock origin changed.
What the Commission’s own numbers show, 2021–2024
The official file gives a longer baseline than any trade database, because the Commission published the import quantities and prices it relied on. In Table 2 of Regulation (EU) 2025/2287, imports from China into the Union ran 77,321 t in 2021, 66,171 t in 2022, 94,816 t in 2023 and 103,075 t in the investigation period (2024), lifting China’s share of the free Union market from 19.4% to 35.6%. Table 3 of the same regulation puts the weighted average price of those imports at 1,514 EUR/t in 2021, 1,848 EUR/t in 2022 and 1,251 EUR/t in 2023 and 2024. Read those two tables together and the case writes itself: volume up 33% over the period considered at a price that had fallen back below its 2021 level.
The measure itself arrived in three steps. Imports were made subject to registration by Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1041 of 27 May 2025, published on 28 May 2025 and in force the following day, with the registration window running nine months; the complaint behind the case had been lodged on 28 January 2025 by Lanxess Deutschland GmbH and Radici Chimica S.p.A. Provisional duties followed in Regulation (EU) 2025/2287 of 12 November 2025. The definitive regulation, (EU) 2026/913 of 4 May 2026, sets duties on the net, free-at-Union-frontier price of 29.1% for Chongqing Huafon Chemical Co., Ltd (TARIC additional code 89ZW), 42.3% for Tangshan Zhonghao Chemical Co., Ltd (89ZX), 31.5% for other cooperating companies listed in the annex, and 42.3% for all other imports originating in the People’s Republic of China. The underselling margins found in the same table ran higher than the dumping margins — 47.1% to 48.7% — so the duty was set at the dumping margin, not at the injury-elimination level.
Two further details in the file matter for anyone modelling this market. The Commission declined to collect the provisional duty retroactively, finding no further substantial rise in imports beyond the level that had already caused injury; retroactive collection would have applied to the registered volumes, and the fact that it did not is itself information about how the Commission read the post-registration import pattern. And on the supply side, the same file records that the Union industry’s producer count fell from four to three, and that one producer cut its adipic acid capacity by around 100,000 t in 2022. The exit is not hypothetical: BASF announced on 29 August 2024 that it would end adipic acid production at Ludwigshafen in the course of 2025, affecting roughly 180 employees, while continuing to produce the molecule at Onsan in South Korea and through its joint venture at Chalampé in France.
Analysis (outlook). Put the two sides together and the EU market is now shorter on domestic capacity and longer on import dependence, with the import mix rotated toward duty-free origins the Commission itself named in the provisional file as available alternatives (the United States and Brazil). That combination argues for continued premium on non-Chinese barrels rather than for a return to the 2023–2024 price structure, and it puts the risk in the counterparty rather than in the molecule. Buyers holding Chinese-origin contracts through an intermediary should verify TARIC additional codes and invoice declarations, since the individual rates are conditional on a compliant commercial invoice and default to 42.3% without one.
Table 3 — the global annual picture through 2025
The annual panel below is the wider frame: the same 30 reporting economies queried every year through UN Comtrade, then reduced to a fixed core — only the reporters that filed HS 291712 in all six years — so that year-on-year change is not an artefact of coverage. The 2025 column is first-reported and subject to revision; 22 economies had filed 2025 export data and 24 had filed import data at the time of writing, against 23 and 26 for 2024.
| Flow | Year | Value, m USD | Volume, kt | Implied USD/t | Reporters in core |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| X | 2020 | 358 | 244.1 | 1,466 | 19 |
| X | 2021 | 563 | 300.6 | 1,874 | 19 |
| X | 2022 | 616 | 268.2 | 2,298 | 19 |
| X | 2023 | 536 | 255.9 | 2,094 | 19 |
| X | 2024 | 523 | 263.1 | 1,986 | 19 |
| X | 2025 | 436 | 225.7 | 1,932 | 19 |
| M | 2020 | 811 | 198.5 | 4,086 | 24 |
| M | 2021 | 1,454 | 292.4 | 4,974 | 24 |
| M | 2022 | 1,674 | 279.3 | 5,993 | 24 |
| M | 2023 | 1,212 | 250.8 | 4,834 | 24 |
| M | 2024 | 1,188 | 258.9 | 4,589 | 24 |
| M | 2025 | 959 | 189.6 | 5,061 | 24 |
The export core is the cleaner series: 19 reporters filed all six years and 16 also filed net weight throughout, so the tonnage column is consistent across the window. The import core is broader (24) but thinner on weight (9), so its unit-value column is indicative only — and visibly so, since those reported import averages sit far above both the export core and the EU’s own published import prices, which is what a nine-reporter weight core looks like when it is dominated by the highest-value filers. Read the EU price from the provisional regulation instead, tabulated above. Note also what the panel does not contain: China’s own 2025 annual data had not appeared in the Comtrade preview at the time of writing, so the Chinese side of the global balance is visible only through its trading partners — which is why the Eurostat origin detail above carries the argument here.
Outside the EU: what the US and India shipped and bought in 2026
Two national monthly series extend the picture beyond Europe and are worth watching against the EU substitution story.
- United States exports (HS 291712, monthly, 2026-01 to 2026-06): value ranged 12.31–22.04 m USD per month on 7,011–12,874 t; implied unit value 1,525–1,998 USD/t (net weight reported in 6 of 6 months).
- United States imports (HS 291712, monthly, 2026-01 to 2026-06): value ranged 1.91–2.98 m USD per month on 866–1,327 t; implied unit value 1,927–2,394 USD/t (net weight reported in 5 of 6 months).
- India exports (HS 291712, monthly, 2026-01 to 2026-06): value ranged 0.07–0.29 m USD per month on 37–128 t; implied unit value 1,604–2,938 USD/t (net weight reported in 6 of 6 months).
- India imports (HS 291712, monthly, 2026-01 to 2026-06): value ranged 4.74–9.15 m USD per month on 4,673–7,278 t; implied unit value 929–1,414 USD/t (net weight reported in 6 of 6 months).
The two lines point in opposite directions and both are consistent with the EU shift. Rising US export values alongside a unit value that climbed to the top of its six-month range describe an exporter that has found a better-paying destination mix, while India’s rising import unit value — on monthly import values of USD 4.7 m or more throughout — describes a buyer absorbing material at the same time as the EU began turning away from one origin.
Related PetroApex product pages
Adipic acid sits in a short, tightly-linked chain, and the commercial logic of this article only makes sense with the neighbours in view:
- Adipic acid — the page we track for reported price series, substitutes and the named producer map, including the current EU trade-measure status.
- Hexamethylenediamine — the co-monomer for nylon-6,6, and the other half of the demand equation for adipic acid.
- Cyclohexane and adiponitrile — the upstream and the alternative route to the same nylon-6,6 chain, which is what determines whether adipic acid demand survives an upstream cost shock.
- Polyether polyol and 1,4-butanediol — the polyester polyol and polyurethane outlets where adipic acid competes directly with other diacids, and where the EU users that opposed these duties sit.
Need the full adipic acid picture, including capacity and grades?
This article covers trade flows. It does not cover the capacity stack by producer and site, the grade-level price series, the nylon-6,6 demand model or the landed-cost comparison for a port pair. If you want a sample chapter, the full table of contents, or a bespoke cut — Chinese-origin volumes by month through the registration window, say, or a duty-adjusted landed-cost model for a named origin-to-plant lane — request a sample report or a custom research scope and we will come back with the scope, the data dictionary and the price.
Data sources and method
All figures above are computed from the raw responses of the public APIs listed below and are not copied from any secondary summary. Each number can be traced to a query that was actually opened and verified on 2026-09-23.
- Eurostat Comext, dataset DS-045409 (EU27 extra-EU trade, monthly), retrieved 2026-09-23 — adipic acid (HS 291712):
- extra-EU imports, value (monthly series from 2025-01): query
- extra-EU imports, quantity (monthly series from 2025-01): query
- extra-EU exports, value (monthly series from 2025-01): query
- extra-EU exports, quantity (monthly series from 2025-01): query
- imports by origin, value, 2026-07: query — partner detail for the latest month
- imports by origin, quantity, 2026-07: query
- imports by origin, value, 2026-03: query
- imports by origin, value, 2025-07: query
- UN Comtrade public preview API (annual, 2020–2025):
- UN Comtrade public preview API (monthly, 2026):
- United States exports, monthly 2026-01 to 2026-06: 202601 · 202602 · 202603 · 202604 · 202605 · 202606
- United States imports, monthly 2026-01 to 2026-06: 202601 · 202602 · 202603 · 202604 · 202605 · 202606
- India exports, monthly 2026-01 to 2026-06: 202601 · 202602 · 202603 · 202604 · 202605 · 202606
- India imports, monthly 2026-01 to 2026-06: 202601 · 202602 · 202603 · 202604 · 202605 · 202606
- Publications of the European Union (EUR-Lex), Official Journal L series: Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1041 (registration of imports, 27 May 2025); Regulation (EU) 2025/2287 (provisional duty, 12 November 2025, Tables 2 and 3); Regulation (EU) 2026/913 (definitive duty, 4 May 2026).
- BASF SE, news release P-24-269, 29 August 2024 (adipic acid production at Ludwigshafen).
Method notes. Eurostat Comext quantity is reported in units of 100 kg and has been converted to tonnes; “implied EUR/t” is reported value divided by reported quantity for the same month and the same partner, and is a customs average across all grades and contract terms inside the six-digit code, not a market price assessment. For UN Comtrade, rows with a second partner code or a mode-of-transport breakdown were excluded, and where a reporter filed several customs procedures the all-procedures total (C00) was used. Annual aggregates are computed on a fixed core panel of reporters present in every year, so coverage changes cannot masquerade as growth; 2025 annual data is first-reported and subject to revision. Where a reporter filed value without net weight, no unit value is shown. Nothing in this article is a forecast, and nothing in it is derived by interpolating or extrapolating a price series.