China bans recycled fiber in baby clothes and underwear from 1 July — except for one material, in one specific use

What actually changes, and when

On 25 December 2025, China's State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) promulgated Order No. 119, the revised "Measures for the Quality Supervision and Administration of Fiber Products" (纤维制品质量监督管理办法), replacing the 2016 version. A companion mandatory national standard, GB 18383-2025 "General Technical Requirements for Products with Filling Materials," replacing GB 18383-2007, was issued alongside it. Both took effect 1 July 2026. Together they designate four product categories for priority regulation — infant fiber products, school uniforms, underwear, and filled fiber products such as quilts, pillows and stuffed toys — and, for underwear and infant fiber products specifically, flatly prohibit reprocessed fiber as a raw material.

A ban on the fabric, an exception in the stuffing

Chinese state and trade press covering Order No. 119 lead with the blanket framing: infant fiber products and close-fitting underwear will no longer be allowed to use reprocessed fiber as raw material — a tightening beyond the general standard, intended, per official commentary, to close off safety risk "at the source." Read only that headline, and a brand could reasonably conclude every recycled fiber is now off the table for a padded baby item. GB 18383-2025 draws the line more narrowly: for filled fiber products intended for children 36 months and under, recycled chemical fiber is banned as filling material — except recycled polyester, which stays permitted. A quilted baby blanket or a stuffed toy can still legally use recycled-polyester fill; the same item's outer shell fabric, if made from recycled fiber as a raw material, cannot.

The real subject: material provenance as product data

Order No. 119 does not stop at prohibiting or permitting a material — it attaches two data obligations to whichever choice a producer makes. First, any fiber product manufactured using reprocessed fiber, recycled chemical fiber, or reclaimed cleaned animal fiber must state on its label that the raw materials include recycled content, named according to what was actually used. Second, producers must establish and keep goods-receipt inspection records for raw and auxiliary materials — material name, specification, quantity, purchase date, and supplier name, address and contact details — for at least two years. Official commentary frames the goal explicitly: information that can be checked, a process that can be traced, and responsibility that can be assigned.

That makes the recycled-polyester carve-out an operational question, not just a legal one. A brand sourcing filling material for an infant quilt has to know, at the component level, whether the fiber inside is recycled polyester (compliant as filling) or another recycled chemical fiber (compliant nowhere in that product), and whether the outer fabric — a separate raw material, under a separate rule — is itself recycled at all. Getting that wrong is not a labeling-team oversight to fix later: under Order No. 119, both the label and the underlying purchase record have to be right before the product ships.

Why it matters for brands

Any brand manufacturing or selling infant apparel, school uniforms, underwear or filled textile products into China needs its bill of materials to distinguish raw fabric from filling at the SKU level, and to know the recycled status of each — the same finished item can be compliant on one component and prohibited on another. A sustainability push toward recycled content, which elsewhere is a selling point, is here a compliance variable that depends on exactly which part of the product it touches and exactly which of the two overlapping instruments applies. Treating "recycled fiber" as one yes/no flag on a product sheet, rather than a component-level, rule-specific classification backed by supplier records, is the mistake this structure invites.

Two ways to read 1 July