Finding a factory that can actually make good activewear is a different job to finding a clothing manufacturer. This 2026 guide covers the fabrics, the MOQs, the real AUD cost bands, the China vs Vietnam call, and a worked example for a Gold Coast fitness label scaling from 200 to 2,000 units.
In short: Most Australian activewear brands manufacture in China or Vietnam, because almost no local factory can knit, dye, cut and bond performance fabric at a price that leaves you a margin. Expect MOQs of 300–500 units per colourway (not per style), ex-factory costs of roughly $6–$14 AUD for leggings and $5–$11 for a training tee, and three to four sampling rounds before you're production-ready. The factory you want is a knit specialist with in-house or partnered fabric, not a general apparel maker who'll sub-contract your stretch fabric to someone else.
Last updated: 14 September 2026
Gold Coast is crawling with fitness brands right now — Nerang and Burleigh studios turning into labels, PTs launching their own ranges, gyms selling merch that's outgrown the merch stage. And the single thing that kills most of them isn't marketing. It's picking a factory that makes clothes rather than a factory that makes activewear. Those are not the same business. Let's get into it.
A standard cut-and-sew factory works with woven fabric — shirts, pants, jackets. Activewear is knit, it stretches in two or four directions, and it behaves completely differently under a needle. Feed four-way stretch through a machine set up for wovens and you get skipped stitches, wavy seams and garments that go baggy after five washes.
A genuine activewear factory runs flatlock and coverstitch machines as standard, understands bonded and laser-cut seams, and has a fabric partner who can hold a consistent dye lot across 2,000 metres. When you're screening suppliers, that machine list is your first filter — and the fastest way to tell a real manufacturer from a trading company reselling someone else's line.
Three realistic options, and they suit very different stages.
The deepest performance-fabric ecosystem on earth sits around Fujian, Guangdong and Zhejiang. Recycled polyester, nylon-spandex blends, brushed interlock, seamless knitting — it's all local, which means shorter fabric lead times and far more choice at sampling. China is where most Aussie labels start, and it's the best fit for brands that want technical fabric without a huge first order.
Vietnam has become genuinely world-class at knitwear and cut-sew, and it's the leading China Plus One option for brands de-risking a single-country supply chain. The catch is that many Vietnamese activewear factories are geared to large Western brands, so MOQs can run higher than a comparable Chinese factory. Our guide to importing activewear and sportswear from Vietnam to Australia covers the freight and duty side in detail.
Local CMT workshops will do 20–100 unit runs and turn them around in a fortnight, which is brilliant for sampling and limited drops. They'll also cost you three to five times more per unit, and the fabric is usually imported from Asia anyway. Worth it for a capsule; not worth it for a core range. The same maths plays out across the apparel category — see our breakdown of clothing manufacturers in Melbourne, local vs overseas.
These are ex-factory figures our teams see across China and Vietnam in 2026, in AUD, at a 500-unit run. They exclude freight, duty and GST — always run your full landed cost before you set retail.
| Garment | Typical fabric | Ex-factory (AUD, 500 units) | Typical MOQ per colourway |
|---|---|---|---|
| High-waist leggings | Nylon-spandex 240–280gsm | $8–$14 | 300–500 |
| Sports bra (medium support) | Nylon-spandex + power mesh | $6–$11 | 300–500 |
| Training tee | Poly-spandex jersey 150–180gsm | $5–$11 | 300–500 |
| Men's training shorts (lined) | Recycled poly woven + mesh liner | $7–$13 | 300–500 |
| Oversized hoodie | Cotton-poly brushed fleece 320gsm | $12–$20 | 200–400 |
| Seamless set | Seamless-knit nylon | $14–$24 | 500–1,000 |
The number that surprises people is the MOQ column. Activewear minimums are driven by the dye lot, not the sewing. A mill won't dye 80 metres of teal for you, so your minimum is set per colour, per fabric — which is why a five-colour launch is really five MOQs stacked on top of each other. Our guide to minimum order quantities explains how to negotiate that down.
You brief it with a tech pack, not a mood board. For performance knits, the spec sheet has to nail four things most first-timers leave out: fabric composition and GSM (e.g. 78% nylon / 22% elastane, 260gsm), stitch type per seam (flatlock at the inseam, coverstitch at the waistband), graded measurements across every size with tolerances, and Pantone references for every colourway.
Get that right and you'll land the fit in two or three sampling rounds instead of six. Get it wrong and every round costs you three weeks and a courier bill. Start with our tech pack guide before you email a single factory.
Plan on 14 to 20 weeks from first factory contact to stock landing in Australia. Roughly: two weeks to shortlist and quote factories, four to eight weeks across sampling and fit approval, six to eight weeks for fabric knitting, dyeing and bulk production, then four to six weeks sea freight into Brisbane for a Gold Coast brand. Air freight cuts the last leg to about a week, at roughly eight to fifteen times the cost per kilo.
Two things blow this out. Chinese New Year shuts factories for two to four weeks every January or February, and monsoon-season fabric delays in Vietnam are real. Work backwards from your launch date, then add a month of buffer.
A Burleigh Heads activewear brand sells 200 units a month of one legging style in two colours, made locally at $28 per unit — $5,600 a month, and a gross margin that disappears the moment they run a sale.
Moving 2,000 units (four colourways, 500 each) to a vetted Fujian knit factory at $11 ex-factory: $22,000. Add about $1,900 sea freight, 5% duty (~$1,100) and GST, plus a $450 pre-shipment inspection, and they land at roughly $27,900 — about $13.95 per unit delivered. Against $28 locally, that's a 50% cut in cost of goods on a ten-fold larger order. The brand keeps a Gold Coast CMT maker for sample runs and limited seasonal drops, and moves the core range offshore. That hybrid is where nearly every scaling Aussie label lands.
Four rules, learned the hard way across 20,000+ products.
Never approve bulk off a sales sample. The sample a factory sends to win your business is made by their best machinist with no time pressure. Always order a pre-production sample from the actual bulk fabric, then a production sample off the line.
Test the fabric, don't just feel it. Ask for GSM verification, pilling and colourfastness results. "Squat-proof" is a marketing word, not a spec — opacity is a function of GSM and knit density, so pin it down in numbers.
Confirm your labelling before production. Australian Consumer Law requires accurate fibre content and care labelling, and country-of-origin claims are policed by the ACCC. Our guide to country-of-origin labelling covers what you can and can't claim.
Inspect before you pay the balance. A pre-shipment inspection costs a few hundred dollars and is the only thing standing between you and a container of unsellable stock.
Most overseas activewear factories set 300–500 units per colourway, driven by fabric dye-lot minimums rather than sewing capacity. Seamless knitwear usually starts higher, at 500–1,000. A sourcing agent with an existing factory relationship can often get a first run accepted below the published minimum.
Yes — small CMT workshops in Melbourne, Sydney and South East Queensland will take runs from about 20 units, and they're excellent for samples and short drops. Expect to pay roughly three to five times the overseas unit cost, and note that the performance fabric is usually imported regardless.
China generally wins on fabric choice, lower MOQs and speed of sampling, which suits newer and mid-size brands. Vietnam is strong on knitwear quality and trade access and is the leading China Plus One option, but minimums can be higher. Many brands eventually split production across both — see our comparison of China vs Vietnam vs India for Australian businesses.
Apparel imports generally attract 5% customs duty plus 10% GST on the landed value, though the ChAFTA free trade agreement can reduce the duty rate to zero on eligible Chinese-origin goods with a valid Certificate of Origin. Classification decides the rate, so confirm your tariff code — and check current rates, as they change.
Not at launch, but branded polybags, swing tags and mailers lift perceived value significantly and are cheap to add to an existing apparel order. See our guide to custom packaging from China for costs and minimums.
Our clothing manufacturing service matches Australian activewear brands to vetted knit specialists in China and Vietnam, builds the tech pack, runs the sampling rounds, negotiates MOQ and pricing as one package, and inspects before your balance payment leaves the country. Bilingual teams on the ground, offices in five countries, 20,000+ products sourced for 300+ happy clients at around 77% average savings. Give us a bell and we'll talk through your range. New to importing generally? Start with importing products from China to Australia, or read up on what a customs broker does before your first container lands.
