What Tires Are Not Made in the USA?

Short answer: Every major brand sold in America imports some of its tires, including Goodyear, Michelin, Bridgestone, and BFGoodrich. Meanwhile, several "foreign" brands build tires in Tennessee, Georgia, and South Carolina. Brands with no U.S. tire plant at all in 2026 include Falken, Nexen, Kenda, Maxxis, Federal, Westlake, Sailun, and Linglong. But the brand is the wrong place to look. Tire companies assign production size by size, so one model can come from Ohio in a 17-inch size and from Mexico or Thailand in a 20-inch. The plant code molded into your specific tire is the only answer that holds.

Most lists stop at "it depends on the size." That's where the useful part starts. I spend my days on fitment at Performance Plus Tire, and the origin question always comes back to one thing: which factory got the mold for your size. Below is how that works, how to read it off the sidewall in under a minute, and why the code changed format in April 2025.

Start with what you're buying. Category and size predict where a tire is built far better than the brand name does.

What You're Buying	Where It's Usually Built	Does the Brand Tell You?	What to Check
Mainstream all-season, 15 to 18 inch, major brand	Often a North American plant (U.S., Canada, or Mexico), with some sizes from Asia	Partly	"Made in" line and plant code on your exact size
LT all-terrain or highway truck tire	U.S., Mexico, Canada, Japan, and Southeast Asia, often split within one model	No, it varies by size	Plant code on your size, plus load range
19 inch and up performance or summer tire	Frequently Europe, Japan, Korea, or Southeast Asia	Rarely	Plant code and four-digit date code
Winter or studdable tire	Nordic Europe, Japan, and Korea, with a few North American plants	Partly	Plant code and the Three-Peak Mountain Snowflake symbol
Value or economy brand	Mostly Asia: Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, China	Usually, since few have U.S. plants	Date code and UTQG grades
ST trailer tire	Mostly Asia	Usually	Load range and max load versus loaded trailer weight
Vintage bias-ply or reproduction tire	Small U.S. specialty plants and overseas plants using reproduction molds	No, the box name is the mold owner	Plant code, or ask the maker directly

Which Tire Brands Have No U.S. Factory?

As of October 2026, these brands sold in America have no U.S. tire plant. Every one of their tires is imported.

• Falken and Sumitomo: Sumitomo Rubber decided in November 2024 to end production at Tonawanda, New York, its only U.S. tire plant, and sold the site in April 2026.
• Nexen: Announced a Southeast U.S. plant around 2023. In June 2026, its CEO said the project is on hold.
• Kenda, Maxxis, and Federal: Taiwan-based, with U.S. sales offices but no U.S. tire plants.
• Westlake, Sailun, and Linglong: China-based, building in China and across Southeast Asia and Serbia.
• Most value and private-label brands: The name on the label designs the line and contracts a factory, usually in Asia.

Now the part most brand lists leave out: several brands people assume are imported build a real share of their U.S. tires right here. Hankook builds in Clarksville, Tennessee. Kumho builds in Macon, Georgia. Toyo and Nitto come out of White, Georgia. Yokohama builds in Salem, Virginia. Nokian builds all-season and all-weather tires in Dayton, Tennessee. Giti builds GT Radial tires in Richburg, South Carolina.

Here's the 2026 footprint by brand family. Use it when the question is "could my brand even be U.S.-built?"

Brand Family	U.S. Tire Plants (2026)	Also Ships U.S. Tires From	Bottom Line
Goodyear, Cooper	Lawton, OK; Findlay, OH; Tupelo, MS; Texarkana, AR; Fayetteville, NC (closing by end of 2027)	Canada, Mexico, Latin America, Asia	Check your size
Michelin, BFGoodrich	Several South Carolina plants; Fort Wayne, IN; Tuscaloosa, AL (BFGoodrich winding down by end of 2028)	Canada, Mexico, Europe, Thailand	Check your size
Bridgestone, Firestone	Wilson, NC; Aiken County, SC	Canada, Mexico, Japan, Asia	Check your size
Continental, General	Mount Vernon, IL; Sumter, SC	Mexico, Europe, Thailand	Check your size
Hankook	Clarksville, TN	Korea, Hungary, Indonesia, China	Some sizes U.S.-built
Kumho	Macon, GA	Korea, China, Vietnam	Some sizes U.S.-built
Toyo, Nitto	White, GA	Japan, Malaysia, Serbia	Many sizes U.S.-built
Yokohama	Salem, VA; West Point, MS (truck tires)	Japan and other Asian plants	Some sizes U.S.-built
Nokian	Dayton, TN	Finland, Romania	All-season lines often U.S.-built; winter lines mostly imported
Giti, GT Radial	Richburg, SC	China, Indonesia	Some sizes U.S.-built
Pirelli	Rome, GA (small, high-performance)	Mexico, Europe, Brazil	Mostly imported
Falken, Sumitomo	None since the Tonawanda, NY closure	Japan, Thailand, Turkey, Brazil	Imported
Nexen	None (U.S. plant on hold)	Korea, Czech Republic, China	Imported
Kenda, Maxxis, Federal	None	Taiwan, China, Southeast Asia	Imported
Westlake, Sailun, Linglong	None	China, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Serbia	Imported

Treat this as a 2026 snapshot. Plant footprints are moving fast, even for brands with deep American roots.

Are Goodyear and Michelin Tires Ever Imported?

Yes, routinely. An American headquarters, or a big American plant footprint, doesn't mean your size came from it.

Goodyear, headquartered in Akron, bought Cooper in 2021. Its U.S. consumer tires come from Lawton, Oklahoma and the former Cooper plants in Ohio, Mississippi, and Arkansas, and Goodyear plans to close its Fayetteville, North Carolina plant by the end of 2027. It also builds in Canada, Mexico, Latin America, and Asia, and sizes sold here come from those plants too.

Michelin is French but one of the largest tire manufacturers in the U.S. It ended production at Ardmore, Oklahoma in 2025, and in June 2026 announced that BFGoodrich production in Tuscaloosa, Alabama will wind down by the end of 2028, consolidating into Fort Wayne, Indiana. Michelin also supplies the U.S. from Canada, Mexico, Europe, and Thailand.

This isn't new. When Consumer Reports traced its 2020 test tires, BFGoodrich tires had come from Canada, China, and the U.S., and Firestone's from five countries on three continents. For the brands with the deepest U.S. footprint, see our ranking of the best tires made in the USA. Even on that list, the plant varies by size.

The practical consequence: when a plant closes or gets reassigned, its sizes move. A customer whose last set said "Made in USA" can reorder the identical model and size and get a sidewall that says Mexico. Nothing went wrong with the order. The mold moved.

Where Do Most Imported Tires Come From?

If your first guess is China, the numbers point somewhere else. According to Modern Tire Dealer's 2025 Facts Issue, these were the ten largest sources of passenger and light truck tires shipped into the U.S. in 2024.

Rank	Country	Consumer Tires Shipped to U.S. (2024)
1	Thailand	41.0 million
2	Mexico	24.4 million
3	Vietnam	16.7 million
4	Indonesia	15.4 million
5	Canada	14.3 million
6	South Korea	13.9 million
7	Japan	11.3 million
8	Cambodia	6.6 million
9	Chile	5.9 million
10	Philippines	5.0 million

Those ten countries alone account for about 154.5 million tires. For scale, the U.S. Tire Manufacturers Association (USTMA) counts roughly 307 million passenger and light truck tires shipped in the U.S. in 2025, original equipment and replacement combined. So the top ten import sources supply something on the order of half the consumer market by themselves.

China isn't in that top ten, and the reason is trade law, not tire technology. The U.S. placed duties on Chinese passenger and light truck tires in 2015, and production shifted to Thailand and Vietnam. In 2021, the U.S. International Trade Commission approved duties on tires from South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam, and production shifted again. Cambodia's passenger tire shipments to the U.S. jumped about 225 percent in 2024 alone. For how duties are showing up at the register, see our breakdown of whether tire prices are going up due to tariffs.

The country name also hides ownership. Thailand's tire plants are run by Japanese, French, American, and Chinese companies. "Made in Thailand" could mean Michelin, Bridgestone, Goodyear, Sumitomo, or a Chinese-owned maker. The country gives you the plant's address, not whose engineering the tire was built to.

Why Does the Same Tire Come From Different Countries?

Because a tire "model" is a design specification, and a size is a physical mold sitting in one press in one building.

Every size in a lineup needs its own mold. A popular all-terrain can run 60 to 100 sizes, from a 15-inch P-metric to a 22-inch Load Range E. The manufacturer decides which plant gets which molds, and it makes that call size by size based on four things:

• Equipment range. Tire building drums and curing presses handle a specific range of rim diameters and section widths. A plant tooled for 15- to 18-inch passenger tires can't simply start curing 22-inch truck tires.
• Volume. High-volume sizes go where there's spare capacity. Slow-moving sizes often get consolidated into a single plant that supplies the whole world.
• Original equipment contracts. Plants near vehicle assembly lines tend to build the OE sizes for those vehicles.
• Cost and duties. Labor, materials, freight, and trade duties all factor into which country builds which size for which market.

Picture a single all-season model: the 225/65R17 might come from Ohio, the 255/55R20 from Mexico, and the 275/50R22 from Thailand. Same tread, same name, three sidewall origins.

The category pattern shows up in the data. In Consumer Reports' 2020 review, about a third of its SUV and truck test tires were U.S.-made, versus roughly one in five ultra-high-performance tires. High-volume truck and SUV sizes tend to get North American molds. Low-profile, big-rim performance sizes more often come from Europe and Asia.

What stays constant is the specification. Each size is built to the same design and certified to the same federal standard, wherever the press sits.

How Can You Tell Where a Tire Was Made?

The tire tells you. You just need to know which two markings to read and which side to read them on.

1. Read the "Made in" line

Imported tires must be marked with their country of origin under federal customs law, and U.S.-built tires typically carry "Made in USA" too. Look for small raised lettering near the bead. For most shoppers, this is the only answer they need.

2. Find the full DOT code

Every tire certified for U.S. highway use carries "DOT" followed by its Tire Identification Number (TIN), required by NHTSA under 49 CFR Part 574. On current tires, the TIN is 13 characters in three groups:

• Plant code (first 3 characters): the specific factory that built the tire, assigned by NHTSA.
• Manufacturer's code (next 6): used by the manufacturer for size and internal tracking.
• Date code (last 4 digits): week and year of manufacture. "2425" means the 24th week of 2025.

Federal rules only require the full TIN on one sidewall. If the side facing you shows a shorter code or no date, the full number is on the other side, which is often the side facing the car. Our guide on how to read DOT tire date codes covers the date portion in detail.

3. Know which plant code format you're looking at

This is the detail that trips people up. Plant codes used to be two characters. NHTSA, running out of unique combinations, assigned a new three-character code to every plant that had a two-character one and allowed the old codes only until April 13, 2025. Tires built before that date can carry either format. Tires built after it carry three.

So if a 2025 or 2026 tire doesn't show up on a two-character lookup chart, the plant isn't unknown. The chart is older than the tire.

One precision note: TINs never use the letters G, I, O, Q, S, or Z, so an "O" in a plant code is always a zero and an "I" is always a one.

4. Check before it's mounted

An online listing can't show you the sidewall of the tire that ships. Read both markings when the tires arrive, before they go on the rims, and look for cuts and bubbles while you're down there. Our guide on tire sidewall damage and whether it's safe to drive shows what to look for.

Does a Made in USA Tire Use American Rubber?

Not the natural rubber. The U.S. imports essentially all of its natural rubber, well over a million metric tons a year, mostly from Southeast Asian plantations in Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Malaysia. Every tire needs it, because its tear resistance and low heat buildup are hard to match with synthetics alone.

Synthetic rubber, carbon black, and steel cord can all be made domestically. But "Made in USA" on a sidewall means the tire was mixed, built, and cured in a U.S. plant. It describes where the tire was manufactured, not where every raw material grew. Bridgestone has grown guayule, a desert shrub that yields natural rubber, in Arizona as a research program, but it isn't supplying mainstream tires at volume.

If you want the very short list of brands that build every tire they sell on U.S. soil, start with our guide to tires that are 100 percent made in America.

Are Imported Tires Less Safe Than American-Made Tires?

Not by rule, and not by default. Every tire sold for highway use in the U.S. has to meet the same Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards no matter where it was built:

• FMVSS 139 covers radial tires for passenger cars and light trucks, including endurance, high-speed, and low-pressure performance tests.
• FMVSS 109 covers bias-ply passenger tires, which matters for classic car owners.
• FMVSS 119 covers trailer tires and tires for heavier vehicles.

The DOT symbol is the manufacturer's certification that the tire meets the applicable standard. NHTSA runs its own compliance testing and enforces recalls, and foreign manufacturers carry the same recall obligations as domestic ones.

Independent testing backs that up. Consumer Reports found no clear link between country of origin and track performance. A premium tire from Japan and one from South Carolina compete on design and compound, not postal code.

Where the real differences live:

• The specific plant, not the country. Recalls are issued by plant code and production window. A defect is traced to a factory and a run of weeks, which is why the TIN exists in the first place.
• The specific line. Within any country, premium and budget lines differ. For passenger tires, the UTQG treadwear, traction, and temperature grades on the sidewall give you a federal-format comparison across any origin.
• Load margin on trailers. Most of the bad reputation imported tires carry comes from ST trailer tires run at or near their maximum load with no margin. The fix is load range and proper inflation. Our China bomb tire safety check walks through it.

Where Are Classic and Vintage Tires Made?

This is where the gap between the name on the box and the factory gets widest, and it's the corner of the market Performance Plus Tire has worked in since 1971.

Most collector tires come from reproduction programs. A company owns or licenses the original molds or drawings, then has the tire built by a plant that can run that construction. Coker Tire in Chattanooga holds the rights to Firestone, BFGoodrich, and U.S. Royal vintage lines. Specialty Tires of America builds bias-ply tires in Indiana, Pennsylvania. Kontio tires come from Finland. Other reproductions are cured overseas in plants that still run bias-ply equipment, which most modern radial factories no longer have.

For a vintage tire, the brand tells you who owns the mold. The plant code tells you who cured it. Bias-ply passenger reproductions still have to meet FMVSS 109 wherever they're built.

Lucas Classic Tires is now part of the Performance Plus Tire family. For a maker-by-maker breakdown by era, see our guide to who makes vintage car tires.

What Buying by Brand Name Is Costing You

Shopping by brand origin instead of by tire costs you something at every step, and the stakes climb:

1. You pay for a badge. Paying extra for a "domestic" brand when your size is built in Mexico or Thailand buys a logo, not a U.S.-built tire.
2. You pass on a better tire. Ruling out Hankook, Toyo, Kumho, or Giti for an overseas headquarters can mean skipping a higher-rated tire that, in your size, may be built in Tennessee, Georgia, or South Carolina.
3. You assume fresh. A U.S. plant doesn't make a tire new. Age comes from the last four digits of the TIN, wherever the tire was built.
4. You miss a recall. Tires aren't tied to your VIN, so a recall only finds you if the TIN was recorded and registered. The National Transportation Safety Board has flagged low tire recall completion as a safety gap.
5. You lose a tire at speed. The worst outcome isn't about country at all. It's an under-rated tire, usually on a trailer or loaded truck, run past its load capacity until it fails.

The fix at every rung is the same: choose the tire by size, load index, speed rating, and grades first, then verify origin on the sidewall if it matters to you.

How to Buy Tires When Country of Origin Matters to You

If where your tires are built is part of the decision, here's the order that gets you there without giving up anything on fitment:

1. Decide which "American" you mean. A U.S. plant, a U.S.-headquartered company, and any North American plant are three different shopping lists.
2. Start with your exact size. Pull the size, load index, and speed rating from your driver's door placard, then shop tires by size. Origin is decided at the size level.
3. Narrow by brand families with U.S. plants. Use the brand table above. Truck and SUV sizes offer more U.S. molds; 19-inch-and-up performance sizes offer fewer.
4. Match or beat the original spec. Never trade load index or speed rating down for a preferred origin.
5. Read the sidewall before mounting. Confirm the "Made in" line, plant code, and date code on every tire.
6. Record and register. Photograph each full TIN and register with the manufacturer so recall notices can reach you.

Conclusion

No brand list can fully answer "what tires are not made in the USA." Falken, Nexen, Kenda, Maxxis, Federal, Westlake, Sailun, and Linglong have no U.S. plant in 2026, so they're always imported. Everyone else, Goodyear and Michelin included, builds some sizes here and imports others, while Hankook, Toyo, Giti, and others build more of their U.S. tires in America than most people assume.

What settles it is your size and the plant that holds its mold, read straight off the sidewall from the "Made in" line and the plant code. Then judge the tire the way it should be judged: by load, speed rating, grades, and age.

Key Takeaways

• Brands with no U.S. tire plant in 2026 include Falken, Nexen, Kenda, Maxxis, Federal, Westlake, Sailun, and Linglong.
• Goodyear, Michelin, Bridgestone, Continental, and their sub-brands build some sizes in the U.S. and import others.
• Hankook, Kumho, Toyo, Nitto, Yokohama, Nokian, and Giti all build tires in U.S. plants.
• Production is assigned size by size, so one model can come from several countries.
• Thailand, Mexico, and Vietnam were the top three sources of imported consumer tires in 2024. China wasn't in the top ten.
• The "Made in" line and the DOT plant code on the sidewall are the only reliable origin answers.
• Plant codes became three characters for all tires built after April 13, 2025, so older two-character lookup charts can miss newer tires.
• Every U.S.-market tire meets the same FMVSS standards regardless of origin. Plant-specific recalls, tire age, and load margin matter more than country.

FAQs