Swimwear Manufacturer for Australian Brands

UPF ratings on Australian swimwear: what AS/NZS 4399:2020 allows

Last verified: 5 November 2026, against ARPANSA's guidance on the standard. The full standard is published by Standards Australia; read it before you label.

AS/NZS 4399:2020, Sun protective clothing: evaluation and classification, sets how a material's ultraviolet protection factor is measured and how it may be shown to buyers. It has three classifications across four ratings: UPF 15 is minimum protection, UPF 30 is good protection, and UPF 50 and 50+ are excellent protection. ARPANSA, which runs a NATA-accredited UPF testing laboratory, puts the practical advice plainly: for any outdoor activity, wear clothing made from materials rated UPF 50.

The 2020 edition matters for swim in three ways. It excludes low-coverage clothing from any sun protection claim, whatever the rating of the material, and ARPANSA names bikini swimwear, bikini tops, crop and halter tops, briefs and G-strings among the excluded items. It removed the earlier exemption for women's swimwear, so a one-piece may be promoted as sun protective only if it meets the body coverage requirements. And it sets label wording: for clothing, a statement that the rating applies only to the area of skin covered and that protection may be reduced if the material is wet, stretched, or affected by normal wear or chemicals. On a garment worn wet and stretched by design, that sentence is not fine print.

A rating describes the cloth that was tested, and ARPANSA's test reports rate the material without assessing a garment's design or coverage. So a claim rests on two checks: the cut against the coverage rules, which we work through with you at tech pack stage, and the fabric in a laboratory. ARPANSA's explanatory notes add that many materials show significant batch-to-batch variation, so the material tested should be the production material.

How we arrange it. During sampling we can send a cut of the mill's sample fabric for an early reading, so a weak result changes the fabric before bulk cloth is ordered. When your production fabric arrives, we cut a test length from it and courier it to an accredited laboratory. ARPANSA's testing service, for example, takes fabric samples (it prefers one metre by half a metre), lists charges for companies outside Australia, and returns results in 10 business days, often less, which fits inside a 40–50 day production window. You can also submit the sample yourself and hold the report in your brand's name. Either way, no UPF rating goes on a label or swing tag until a report covers your fabric.

Pool, surf or both: fabric for Australian water

Ask where your customer swims, then ask again, because in Australia the honest answer is often both. A suit bought for the beach ends up in the local pool through winter, and a training suit goes to the beach in January. Standard elastane is the weak point in chlorine, so when a range will see regular pool use we specify PBT polyester or a chlorine-resistant elastane, with chlorine-resistant elastic at the leg and neck to match. For surf and resort ranges, nylon/elastane gives the softer hand most swim buyers expect.

Salt and sun are the other two stresses. Sea water and pool water are tested by separate methods, ISO 105-E02 and ISO 105-E03, because a colour that survives one can still bleed in the other, and strong sun fades bright shades. If a range leans on saturated colour, a polyester shell holds colour better under UV than nylon, and an all-over print sublimated onto polyester sits inside the fibre rather than on top of it.

Whatever you choose, write the use into the tech pack and the tests into the spec, then make the marketing match. A “chlorine resistant” line on a swing tag is a claim about the fabric, and like any claim to Australian buyers it has to be accurate under the Australian Consumer Law, so ask for the test report on your production lot before you print it.

Care and origin labels on swimwear sold in Australia

Last verified: 5 November 2026, against the instrument on the Federal Register of Legislation.

Swimwear is clothing, so it falls under the Consumer Goods (Care Labelling) Information Standard 2023, the information standard made under the Australian Consumer Law and enforced by the ACCC. Swimwear is not on the standard's short list of goods, such as hosiery, gloves and reversible garments, that may carry care instructions on a removable ticket or the packaging instead, so a swimsuit needs a permanent label. It can follow AS/NZS 1957:1998 as the standard varies it, which works in words, or the ISO 3758:2012 care symbols, or carry both, and any wording must be in English and clearly legible.

The rule that bites on swim is that the instructions must take account of every element of the garment, and the standard lists dyes, finishes, fasteners, padding, trims and linings among them. A one-piece with removable cups, a tricot lining and metal sliders needs care advice that damages none of those parts. Swim instructions typically deal with rinsing out chlorine or salt, washing by hand and drying out of direct sun; your fabric and trims decide what yours say, and we check the wording against the mill's care guidance before the labels are made.

Origin is a separate rule. Under the Commerce (Trade Descriptions) Regulation 2016, imported clothing must carry a true trade description that includes the country where it was made, so ours read Made in Bangladesh. Fibre content is not required by the care standard, but if you state it, it must be accurate. Agree the label position and material in the tech pack, because a stiff label is felt far more on wet skin. Our guide to care labels and wash symbols shows the symbols, and our Australia page sets out the standard in full.

Australian swim sizing: AU 6 to 20, and cups

Last verified: 5 November 2026.

Australian women's swimwear is sold in AU numeric sizes, and fuller-bust styles add a cup. That is a convention rather than a rule: each brand sets its own sizing, and the measurements behind a size differ between labels. One established Australian swim label's published chart, below, runs from AU 6 (XXS) to AU 20 (XXXL), sets the numeric size from the underbust and the cup from the bust, and offers D to G cups on its fuller-bust styles.

For your own range, decide early whether tops are sold by numeric size alone or by size and cup, because a cup-sized top means more pattern grades and more fit sampling. Then send finished-garment measurements, laid flat, for every size, with the stretch you expect at bust, waist and hip. Swim is cut smaller than the body so the suit holds close when wet, which is why a body chart like the one below is a reference for your customer, not the measurements we cut to. Men's knit swim shorts are graded from your chart too, by letter or waist size as your brand prefers. Our guide on how to build a size chart covers measurements and tolerances.

When to send a swim tech pack for an Australian season

A planning guide, not a promise: we confirm the dates for your order when we quote.

Australia's spring runs from September to November (Bureau of Meteorology), with summer from December, so swim stock is sampled while the northern hemisphere is in its summer. The table counts back from four on-sale dates, on the same assumptions as the calendar on our Australia page. Sampling takes about 10 days, plus a few days for you to sign the sample off. Production runs 40–50 days from approval, and we count 50. Freight is about 5–8 days by air or about four to six weeks by sea, door to door, and we count the long end of each. Then we leave two weeks of buffer and land the stock in your warehouse four weeks before it goes on sale.

Swim adds one risk the arithmetic does not show: fit. A new swim style is checked wet as well as dry and often needs a second sample round, so for a new block add about 10 days and send the tech pack earlier still. A split shipment suits swim well: the first share by air to open spring, the balance by sea to restock for summer, both quoted DDP. Bangladesh's two Eid holidays move earlier each year, and we tell you at quote stage if your window crosses one. The launch date calculator runs the same sum for any date.

Duty, GST and DDP on swimwear from Bangladesh

Last verified: 5 November 2026, against the official sources listed under Sources below.

Swimwear follows the same origin rule as any garment we make. Under section 153NA of the Customs Act 1901, goods are the manufacture of a Least Developed Country if the last process in their manufacture was performed there and their allowable factory cost is at least 50% of their total factory cost, and LDC goods take the LDC rate, Free, under the Customs Tariff Act 1995. The swim shell and lining come from partner mills; the cutting, sewing, printing and finishing that make the garment happen on our floor in Narayanganj, and we document the cost split so the preference can be claimed.

GST is separate. The ATO sets it at 10% of the value of the taxable importation, which adds any duty and the cost of international transport and insurance to the customs value, and a GST-registered business may be able to claim it back as a GST credit. On a DDP order, freight, the customs entry and any duty sit inside one landed price, and how GST is handled is confirmed in your quote.

Bangladesh is scheduled to graduate from LDC status on 24 November 2029 (UN LDC portal). Australia's foreign ministry states that products from Bangladesh will continue to enter Australia duty-free and quota-free after graduation (DFAT country brief, read 5 November 2026). That is stated policy rather than a tariff rule, so we confirm the live rate for each order. Your contact for all of it in Australian hours is Janelle Rawlins, founder of Mindful Merch in Noosa, Queensland: send your brief through our contact form and say you are in Australia.