More than half of apparel and footwear brands, 56%, report a return rate of 30% or higher, according to Radial and Two Boxes’ State of Retail Returns 2025 survey of 200 US retailers conducted in July 2025. That sits well above the 19.3% blended online return rate the National Retail Federation and Happy Returns measured across all of retail the same year. Clothing has always run hot on returns; the newest brand-side data says the problem is getting worse, not settling down.
What is the clothing return rate in 2026?
56% of apparel and footwear brands say their own return rate has reached 30% or higher, per Radial and Two Boxes’ survey of 200 retailers spanning six product categories, fielded in July 2025. For comparison, the same report found 71% of retailers across all categories perceive return rates as staying flat or falling, which means apparel and footwear brands are describing a rate meaningfully above what most other sectors report.
That brand-reported figure sits alongside an older but still-cited industry average: Coresight Research’s 2023 survey of 100 US apparel and footwear decision-makers measured a 24.4% average online return rate for the category, against a 19.3% blended online average the National Retail Federation and Happy Returns measured across all retail in 2025. Two different studies, two years apart, are pointing the same direction: clothing returns run well above the typical online order, and the share of brands at the high end has grown since Coresight’s number was measured.
Stores selling clothing should plan around a return rate closer to a third of orders than a fifth. Our Refund Policy Generator sets the return window, restocking fee, and refund method fields based on the category you actually sell, rather than a generic clause copied from a lower-return store.
Why do clothing returns happen so often?
Size and fit account for the majority of apparel returns, not damage or quality problems. Coresight Research’s 2023 survey of 100 senior managers at US apparel and footwear brands and retailers with $10 million or more in annual revenue found that 53% of returns were driven by a size or fit issue, well ahead of color mismatches (16%) and items arriving damaged (10%).
Figure 1: Share of apparel return reasons cited by surveyed retailers. Source: Coresight Research, “The True Cost of Apparel Returns” (2023), survey of 100 US apparel and footwear decision-makers, margin of error plus-or-minus 10%.
A shopper who cannot verify sizing before buying is the single biggest driver behind the numbers above. A return policy that pairs a clear sizing chart with a defined exchange path addresses the cause behind more than half of a clothing store’s returns, rather than just processing the refund after the fact.
How much clothing return fraud do apparel brands see?
Fraud is a meaningful share of the apparel return problem, not a side issue. Half of apparel and footwear brands estimate that 10% or more of their total returns are fraudulent, according to Radial and Two Boxes’ 2025 survey of 200 retailers, with the apparel and footwear segment reporting the highest concentration of any surveyed category.
Figure 2: Distribution of self-reported returns fraud rate among apparel and footwear brands. Source: Radial and Two Boxes, “The State of Retail Returns in 2025,” survey of 200 retailers, July 2025.
The type of fraud matters too. 65% of apparel and footwear brands name policy abuse, a customer returning an item outside the stated window or terms, as the leading cause of returns fraud they see, higher than any other industry the survey covered. Serial abuse (56%), decoy returns or price switching (53%), label tampering (44%), and wardrobing (44%) followed close behind.
Warning
The 56% “30%+ return rate” figure and the fraud-share data above come from a self-reported retailer survey (Radial and Two Boxes, n=200, July 2025), while the 24.4% average and the 53% fit-driven-returns figure come from a separate, smaller professional survey (Coresight Research, n=100, 2023). Treat these as directional signals from two different research organizations and methodologies, not one continuously-measured series.
A return policy that spells out the condition window and documents the return reason at intake gives a store a paper trail against exactly the fraud type apparel brands report most.
Are clothing retailers exposed by refunding before inspection?
Most are. 91% of apparel and footwear retailers issue a refund before inspecting the returned item, according to Radial and Two Boxes’ 2025 survey, a practice that creates fraud and cash-flow risk whenever a refund is initiated at drop-off rather than after the item is checked.
Figure 3: Where refund timing creates fraud exposure for apparel and footwear returns. Source: synthesized from Radial and Two Boxes’ 2025 State of Retail Returns findings above.
Refunding on drop-off is a customer-experience decision as much as a financial one. A store that wants to keep that fast refund and reduce exposure needs its condition and return-reason terms stated plainly in the policy itself, so a disputed refund has clear terms to point back to.
Which clothing categories return the most?
Clothing tops the list of categories shoppers say they return most often. Statista Consumer Insights’ 2025 US survey found clothing was the category consumers most frequently reported returning in the past 12 months, at 25% of respondents, followed by shoes at 17% and accessories at 12%. Within apparel specifically, Loop Returns’ Winter 2024 Benchmark Report, an analysis of 22 million returns processed across more than 4,000 Shopify brands, found swimwear the single highest-returning vertical at 21.6%.
| Metric | Value | Source | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apparel/footwear brands reporting a 30%+ return rate | 56% | Radial and Two Boxes | 2025 |
| Apparel/footwear average online return rate | 24.4% | Coresight Research | 2023 |
| Swimwear return rate (highest apparel vertical) | 21.6% | Loop Returns | 2024 |
| Blended online return rate, all categories | 19.3% | NRF / Happy Returns | 2025 |
| Shoppers who returned clothing in the past 12 months | 25% | Statista Consumer Insights | 2025 |
| Shoppers who returned shoes in the past 12 months | 17% | Statista Consumer Insights | 2025 |
Electronics, by contrast, is generally reported as a lower-return category industry-wide; a category-specific breakdown for electronics returns is not yet published on this site, so treat any electronics comparison here as directional only. For the full order-level picture across every product type, not just fashion, see our ecommerce return rate data for 2026, and for how apparel stacks up against other individual industries, see our return rate benchmarks by industry.
Are shoppers checking clothing return policies before they buy?
Yes, and that habit is part of why the return rate and the fraud numbers above matter commercially. 81% of shoppers say they review a store’s return policy before completing a purchase, according to the National Retail Federation and Happy Returns’ 2025 survey, and 82% call free returns an important purchase factor. For a fit-driven category like clothing, that means the policy page is doing real conversion work before a single item ships.
Figure 4: Clothing-relevant return rate and policy milestones, 2023 to 2026. Sources: Coresight Research, Loop Returns, Radial and Two Boxes, National Retail Federation as reported by CNBC.
Merchants are responding to this environment by tightening terms even as shoppers keep checking the fine print more closely, which is exactly the tension our return policy check-rate data covers in more depth.
The Bottom Line
Clothing returns are not stabilizing. 56% of apparel and footwear brands now report a return rate of 30% or higher, well above both the 24.4% average Coresight measured in 2023 and the 19.3% blended online rate NRF and Happy Returns measured in 2025. Size and fit, not damage or defects, drive most of it, and a meaningful share of what looks like a return problem is actually a fraud problem: half of brands say 10% or more of their returns are fraudulent, and 91% still refund before inspecting the item. A clothing return policy that states sizing guidance, a defined condition window, and a documented return-reason process addresses the two biggest drivers in this data at once, rather than treating every return as identical.
Frequently Asked Questions
What percentage of clothing brands see return rates above 30%? 56% of apparel and footwear brands report a return rate of 30% or higher, according to Radial and Two Boxes’ State of Retail Returns 2025 survey of 200 US retailers conducted in July 2025.
Why do clothing returns happen so often? Size or fit issues drive 53% of apparel returns, more than color mismatches (16%) and damage (10%) combined, according to Coresight Research’s 2023 survey of 100 US apparel decision-makers.
How much clothing return fraud do apparel brands see? Half of apparel and footwear brands estimate that 10% or more of their returns are fraudulent, and 65% name policy abuse, returns made outside the stated window, as their top fraud type, per Radial and Two Boxes’ 2025 survey.
Do clothing retailers refund a return before inspecting it? Yes. 91% of apparel and footwear retailers issue a refund before inspecting the returned item, according to Radial and Two Boxes’ 2025 survey of 200 retailers, a practice that leaves them exposed to fraud.
Sources and References
- Radial and Two Boxes. (2025). “The State of Retail Returns in 2025.” Survey of 200 retailers across apparel/footwear/accessories, home improvement and garden, sports and fitness, home furnishings, health and beauty, and consumer electronics, conducted July 2025.
- Coresight Research. (2023). “The True Cost of Apparel Returns.” Survey of 100 US apparel and footwear brand and retailer decision-makers with $10 million or more in annual revenue, conducted March 2023, margin of error plus-or-minus 10%.
- National Retail Federation and Happy Returns. (2025). “2025 Retail Returns Landscape.” Survey of 2,006 consumers and 358 ecommerce professionals at US retailers with over $500 million in revenue, conducted summer 2025.
- Loop Returns. (2024). “Winter 2024 Benchmark Report.” Analysis of 22 million returns processed across more than 4,000 Shopify brands spanning ten industry verticals, published August 2024.
- Statista Consumer Insights. (2025). “Clothing and Shoes Are the Most Returned Online Purchases.” US consumer survey, published April 2025.
Note: All figures verified as of September 2026. Apparel return-rate and fraud figures come from separate research organizations on different survey cadences, so headline figures here are refreshed at least twice a year as new benchmark reports are published.
