US Diamond Trade Data

Last updated: September 20, 2026

The US diamond trade has been reshaped three times since 2015, first by the introduction of lab-grown diamonds, then in 2022 by sanctions on Russian-origin diamonds, and again by tariffs that briefly cut trade with India, its largest supplier, by more than half.

This dashboard tracks the shifts using Census Bureau trade data spanning 1989 through 2025, covering every country that has shipped rough or polished natural diamonds into or out of the United States.

India’s Rise, and Where Russian Diamonds Really Go

India overtook Israel as the top source of polished diamonds sold into the US around 2016–2017 and now supplies over 40% of US diamond imports in a typical year, though Israel’s fall wasn’t a collapse, just a shift to thinner, higher-volume margins under Indian cutting.

Russian diamonds, banned from direct US entry since 2022, didn’t disappear from the pipeline so much as go underground: an estimated 40% of the rough India polishes still originates with Alrosa, and G7 traceability rules meant to catch that at the border have been repeatedly delayed.

US Tariffs on India: 50% Down to 18%, Maybe

2025 tariffs on Indian goods spiked as high as 50%, and a February 2026 US–India framework proposed cutting that to 18% generally and to zero specifically for loose natural diamonds, relief that, as of this writing, still hasn’t been finalized.

A Concentrated Market the US Barely Touches

Import-side concentration, measured by the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, has stayed above the US “highly concentrated” threshold for two decades, with India and Israel alone regularly accounting for 65–75% of import value. And despite handling the bulk of the world’s diamond trade, the US barely cuts or polishes a rough diamond itself anymore, decades of offshoring to Surat and Antwerp have left domestic labor costs too high and the skilled workforce largely gone.

Explore the full interactive breakdown below: filter by rough vs. polished, compare individual countries head-to-head, and see how market concentration has moved year by year.

Common Questions

Are Russian diamonds still entering the US market?
Yes, indirectly. Direct imports from Russia are banned, but an estimated 40% of the rough diamonds India polishes still comes from Russia’s Alrosa, and the G7 traceability rules meant to catch that at the border have been repeatedly delayed, so Russian-origin stones continue reaching the US inside India’s polished exports.

Will US tariffs on Indian diamonds be removed?
Possibly, but it isn’t settled yet. A February 2026 US–India framework proposed dropping tariffs to zero specifically on loose natural diamonds and gemstones, but that relief remained unfinalized as of this writing, and a separate Russia-sanctions bill could push tariffs back up.

Why doesn’t the US polish its own diamonds?
Mainly cost and lost expertise. Domestic labor costs are far higher than in India’s Surat or Belgium’s Antwerp, and decades of offshoring have left the US without the skilled cutting workforce it would need to compete, so it imports diamonds already polished instead.

Go beyond US diamond trade data with global diamond statistics on the Diamond Statistics page.