Garlic export season by country (2026)

Garlic export season by country

China and Argentina's garlic export windows, month by month — and why the Chinese new-crop price sets what everyone else can sell for.

Peak supply June–March from Argentina and China. No origin on this page is at peak in April–May.

Garlic export calendar: which origin ships in which month.
Origin	January	February	March	April	May	June	July	August	September	October	November	December
Argentina November–March peak · April, October shoulder	January: Peak	February: Peak	March: Peak	April: Shoulder	May: Not shipping	June: Not shipping	July: Not shipping	August: Not shipping	September: Not shipping	October: Shoulder	November: Peak	December: Peak
China June–November peak · December–May shoulder	January: Shoulder	February: Shoulder	March: Shoulder	April: Shoulder	May: Shoulder	June: Peak	July: Peak	August: Peak	September: Peak	October: Peak	November: Peak	December: Shoulder

Peak — shipping in volume Shoulder — opening or closing Export windows out of the origin, not arrival weeks. Add the lane's transit.

Last reviewed August 2026. Windows are editorial ranges for a normal year, not a published schedule, and they are export weeks out of the origin rather than arrival weeks in your market.

China is the garlic trade and everything else is priced against it. Jinxiang in Shandong lifts in May and June, ships new-crop garlic from about then, and carries the rest of the year out of cold store. Argentine garlic out of Mendoza is the counterweight: a Southern Hemisphere summer harvest sold into the months when Spanish and Chinese supply is at its oldest. Both windows below are shipping seasons rather than harvests, because garlic cures and then keeps.

It is about as robust as sea freight cargo gets. What it is sensitive to is humidity rather than temperature: garlic that travels damp sprouts and moulds, and that is a container condition problem rather than a transit time one.

Argentina

November–March peak · April, October shoulder Load ports: San Antonio Este, Buenos Aires, and Zárate

Roughly November to March out of Mendoza. Argentina is the largest garlic exporter outside China and this is a storage crop, so the window below is the shipping season rather than the harvest.

Garlic is about as robust as sea freight gets, and what it is sensitive to is humidity rather than temperature. Garlic that travels damp sprouts and moulds — a container condition problem, not a transit time one.

Everything Argentina ships, month by month

China

June–November peak · December–May shoulder Load ports: Qingdao, Shanghai, and Shenzhen

Jinxiang lifts in May and June and new-crop garlic starts shipping almost immediately, which is why the peak below sits in the second half of the year. From about December it is stored garlic, and it keeps shipping until the next harvest — so the shoulder band is every remaining month rather than a few weeks either side.

The number this trade watches is the new-crop price in June, because it sets what Spanish and Argentine garlic can be sold for the following winter. Availability is never the question on this row. What year’s garlic is in the box, and what it cost, is.

Everything China ships, month by month

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