Tamil Nadu has emerged as the state with the highest growth rate in merchandise exports in FY26 as the state’s strength in smartphone and other electronics goods exports has helped accelerate its overall tally.
Tamil Nadu’s total exports for FY26 stood at $59.3 billion, up 13.7 per cent YoY despite a year of trade tensions and geopolitical instability, as per data of Ministry of Commerce.
The Southern state was also the country’s top exporter of electronics goods at $19.9 billion, a 36 per cent growth YoY,f as smartphones and telecom instruments exports to the US from Tamil Nadu zoomed. With this, $20 billion worth electronic exports, Tamil Nadu now makes up 42 per cent share of India’s electronic exports, a category that remained undeterred by the tariffs tensions in the fiscal.
This also helped Kanchipuram district of Tamil Nadu, which houses major contract manufacturers of electronics such as Foxconn and Pegatron to emerge as the second-largest district by merchandise exports at $26.4 billion. Jamnagar with $36.6 billion was the largest district for merchandise exports.
The State was also top exporter of ready made garments. . At $5.3 billion, ready made garments exports declined marginally by 2 per cent YoY, for TN.
Gujarat and Maharashtra continued to be the leaders of exports but Gujarat’s exports declined by 5 per cent YoY considering the heavy petroleum products’ profile of the state. Maharashtra saw a subdued growth of 6.4 per cent YoY.
Karnataka with $34.4 billion worth of exports in FY26 clocked second highest growth rate of exports at over 12 per cent. Telangana saw a steep drop of 27 per cent in merchandise exports from $19.1 billion in FY25 to $13.9 billion in FY26.
Interestingly, though at third spot overall, Tamil Nadu is steadily growing its share of total India merchandise exports over the years.
In FY22, Tamil Nadu held 8.5 per cent share of total merchandise exports, and this number now stands at 13.7 per cent in FY26 as the State has a diverse export profile spanning engineering goods, electronics, textiles and other commodities, all of which are seeing growth trends in exports.
In contrast, Gujarat, which is heavily a petroleum/ petroleum products and gems and jewellery exporting state, has seen a decline in its share of exports from around 30.7 per cent in FY22 to 25.6 per cent in FY26.
After continuous decline in share from FY22 to FY25, Maharashtra has in FY26 seen an uptick in its share of merchandise exports to 16.2 per cent.
Published on July 6, 2026
