The American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) has announced steel import permit applications for September which totaled 1.65 million nt.
September’s import permit applications were down 12 percent from the 1.876 million nt reported in August and down 11.5 percent from the August preliminary imports total of 1.864 million. The import permit tonnage for finished steel in September was 1.248 million down 11 percent from the preliminary imports of 1.402 million in August. For the first nine months of 2025, the total and finished steel imports were 20.380 million nt and 15.146 million nt, down 8.5 percent and 12.2 percent from the same period in 2024. The estimated finished steel import market share in September was 14 percent and is 19 percent year-to-date.
Steel imports with large increases in September permits compared to August preliminary imports include sheet and strip hot dipped electrolytic galvanized (up 208 percent), line pipe (up 48 percent), structural pipe and tubing (up 41 percent), tin plate (up 14 percent) and sheets and strip hot dipped galvanized (up 13 percent).
In September, the largest steel import permit applications were for Canada (318,000 nt, up 5 percent from August preliminary), Brazil (241,000 nt, down 10 percent), South Korea (233,000 nt, up 32 percent), Mexico (127,000 nt, down 35 percent) and Germany (87,000 nt, up 15 percent). Through the first nine months of 2025, the largest suppliers were Canada (3,729,000 nt, down 26 percent), Brazil (3,393,000 nt, down 9 percent) and Mexico (2,348,000 nt, down 8 percent).