# CaratWatch

> Lab-grown diamond prices, trade and tariffs from U.S., Indian and Chinese government data, updated as each agency publishes. Latest data: U.S. trade Aug 2026, India Aug 2026, China Sep 2026, U.S. spending Sep 2026. Rebuilt Nov 2, 2026 (ET).

Every figure is a customs or agency number (value divided by quantity for prices), not a retail quote. Nothing is estimated or filled in. The site is independent, sells nothing and gives no investment advice.

## Latest numbers

- India exported 1.97M carats of polished lab-grown diamonds in Aug 2026 at an average $67.17 per carat, 9% below Aug 2025.
- India imported 9.97M carats of rough lab-grown diamonds in Aug 2026 at $15.14 per carat.
- China exported 4.92M carats of rough lab-grown diamonds (two customs codes combined) in Sep 2026 at $9.33 per carat.
- China imported 422,230 carats of polished lab-grown diamonds in Sep 2026 at $97.28 per carat.
- The U.S. imported $24.8M of cut lab-grown diamonds in Aug 2026 (1.54M stones), 52% less than in Aug 2025.
- Duty paid on those imports came to 10.0% of their value.

## Quick answers

### What does a polished lab-grown diamond cost per carat at wholesale?

India, which exports more polished lab-grown diamonds than any other country, shipped them at an average of $67.17 per carat in Aug 2026, 9% less than in Aug 2025. That is a customs average across all sizes and qualities, not a retail price.

### How have lab-grown diamond prices changed?

India's average export price for polished lab-grown diamonds was $200.37 per carat in Aug 2023, $73.82 per carat in Aug 2025 and $67.17 in Aug 2026.

### Where are lab-grown diamonds grown and polished?

China's customs recorded exports of 47.62M carats of rough lab-grown diamonds in the 12 months to Sep 2026; in 2025, 95% of the carats went to Hong Kong. India cuts and polishes them: it exported 17.35M carats of polished lab-grown diamonds in the 12 months to Aug 2026, and reported $1.19B of these exports for 2025 to UN Comtrade, more than any other country.

### What U.S. tariff do lab-grown diamonds pay?

In Aug 2026, duty paid on cut lab-grown diamonds entering the U.S. came to 10.0% of their value ($2.5M on $24.8M entered for consumption). The rate depends on the country of origin; the Tariffs page shows it by country.

## Pages

- [Lab-Grown Diamond Prices & Trade, Monthly](https://caratwatch.com/): Lab-grown diamond prices per carat, U.S. imports and tariffs from U.S., Indian and Chinese customs data. India polished: $67.17/ct (Aug 2026).
- [Lab-Grown Diamond Price Charts per Carat](https://caratwatch.com/prices/): Candlestick charts of lab-grown diamond prices: India polished and rough per carat, China rough and polished, U.S. import price per stone, natural diamonds, rupee and jewelry prices.
- [Lab-Grown Diamond Landed Cost: Duty, Freight, Calculator](https://caratwatch.com/sourcing/): What it costs to bring lab-grown diamonds into the U.S.: price per carat, freight, insurance and duty actually paid, a landed-cost calculator, stone size and price decline.
- [Selling Lab-Grown Diamonds: Timing, Margins, Markets](https://caratwatch.com/selling/): When importers stock up on lab-grown diamonds, what public jewelers earn on each sale, how long they hold inventory, and the U.S. metro areas with the most young single adults.
- [U.S. Lab-Grown Diamond Imports by Month & Country](https://caratwatch.com/us-imports/): How many cut lab-grown diamonds the U.S. imports each month, their value, where they come from, ports of entry and importers' states, from Census Bureau data.
- [Tariffs on Lab-Grown Diamonds: Duty Actually Paid](https://caratwatch.com/tariffs/): The duty U.S. importers actually paid on cut lab-grown diamonds, month by month and by country, with the Harmonized Tariff Schedule text behind it.
- [Lab-Grown Diamond Trade Flows: China, India, U.S.](https://caratwatch.com/world/): Where rough lab-grown diamonds go after China, where India buys them, and where India's polished stones are sold, with prices per carat from each country's customs.
- [U.S. Jewelry Demand: Spending, Seasons, Stores by State](https://caratwatch.com/demand/): How much Americans spend on jewelry each month, why December matters, how many jewelry stores there are, and marriage rates by state, from federal data.
- [Natural vs Lab-Grown Diamonds: Output and Share](https://caratwatch.com/natural/): World natural rough diamond production since 2004 and lab-grown diamonds' share of cut diamonds entering the U.S. market.
- [FTC Rules for Describing Lab-Grown Diamonds](https://caratwatch.com/naming-rules/): What the FTC Jewelry Guides (16 CFR 23.12) say about the word 
- [Sources and Methods](https://caratwatch.com/data/): Where every CaratWatch number comes from, how prices and candles are calculated, and the known gaps in the data.

## Sources

- U.S. Census Bureau, International Trade API: U.S. imports and exports by 10-digit HTS code, country, port and state, monthly since 2013 (monthly)
- India Ministry of Commerce, DGCI&S TRADESTAT: India's exports and imports by 8-digit code, value and carats, monthly since 2018 and by country each fiscal year (monthly)
- General Administration of Customs of China: China's lab-grown diamond exports and imports by country, value and grams, monthly since 2022 (quarterly)
- UN Comtrade: Every country's reported exports of lab-grown diamonds (yearly)
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Consumer prices for jewelry, import price indexes, jewelry retail margins (monthly)
- U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis: Personal spending on jewelry, monthly since 1959 (monthly)
- Federal Reserve (FRED): Exchange rates; jewelry store sales 1992-2021 (daily / monthly)
- U.S. Census Bureau, ARTS, CBP, Nonemployer Statistics, ACS: Jewelry store sales and counts; marriages and income by state (yearly)
- Kimberley Process: World production of natural rough diamonds (yearly)
- U.S. International Trade Commission: Harmonized Tariff Schedule text and rates (as published)
- Electronic Code of Federal Regulations: FTC Guides for the Jewelry, Precious Metals, and Pewter Industries (16 CFR Part 23) (as amended)

## Things to know before using the numbers

- U.S. Customs counts cut lab-grown diamonds by the stone, not by the carat. U.S. figures give a price per stone; per-carat prices come from India and China.
- Before 2022, lab-grown diamonds shared a customs code with other synthetic stones in the U.S. and most countries, so lab-grown series start in 2022 (India's from 2018 under its own code).
- India changed its codes in April 2022 and again in April 2023; series are joined across the changes, and April 2023 is unusually low.
- Before April 2022 India recorded rough lab-grown imports in kilograms, so no per-carat rough price exists for those months.
- Quarterly and yearly candles are built from monthly averages: open is the first month, close the last, high and low the highest and lowest months. They are not trading prices. Periods still in progress are drawn with a dashed outline.
- Two countries' records of the same trade rarely match (valuation, timing, transit). We show each country's own figures and do not merge them.
- Values marked 'not published' were withheld by the agency to protect confidentiality. They are not zero.
- China's code for polished lab-grown stones (71049190) includes some shipments declared at under $2 per carat. They are charted as reported, and the notes under the two China polished charts name the months and countries.
- Until mid-2024 China's exporters declared most rough lab-grown diamonds under code 7104.91.10 ('industrial, otherwise worked'), and after that under 7104.21 (rough). CaratWatch adds the two codes together for China's rough series and shows each code separately.
- China records imports by country of origin and exports by country of final destination, so China's and India's records of the same stones can differ, especially when the stones pass through Hong Kong.
- Average stone size divides India's record of carats shipped to the U.S. by the U.S. record of stones received from India; the two records do not always match, so treat it as an estimate.
- Freight and insurance is the difference between the CIF value and the customs value U.S. importers declare. It fell sharply in 2026; the records do not explain why.
- Public jewelers' figures come from their annual 10-K filings. Fiscal years end in different months (Signet: late January or early February; Brilliant Earth: December; Charles & Colvard: June since 2019).