Short answer
China holds about 61% of the world's titanium dioxide pigment capacity, up from about 42% in 2019, according to the U.S. Geological Survey's yearend estimates; the United States is second with about 14%. The only long public price series is the unit value of US imports, which rose from $2,570 a tonne in 2017 to $3,450 in 2022 and was an estimated $3,200 in 2025. That figure is an average customs value, not a price anyone was quoted.
Most pigments have no public statistics at all. Titanium dioxide is the exception because it is made from mined titanium minerals, so the U.S. Geological Survey reports it in its annual Mineral Commodity Summaries: US production, imports, exports, a unit value and an estimate of pigment capacity for every producing country. In 2025 four companies made the pigment in the United States at five plants in four states, and their output was valued at about $3 billion. The survey ranks the uses as paint first, then plastics, then paper; when it last published percentages, for 2021, they were 60% paints, 20% plastics and 5% paper. More than 95% of the titanium mineral concentrate consumed in the United States goes into pigment and only the remainder into metal, welding rods and chemicals, so the mining side of the titanium industry is largely an industry for making things white.
The survey's capacity table is the clearest picture of who can make the pigment. At the end of 2019 it put world capacity at 7,660,000 tonnes a year, of which China had 3.25 million. By the end of 2025 the world figure was 9,900,000 tonnes and China's was 6 million. Capacity outside China did not grow at all over those years — the other country rows sum to about 4,400,000 tonnes in 2019 and 3,900,000 in 2025 — so the whole increase in the world's ability to make white pigment was Chinese: the 2024 edition describes China as continuing an unprecedented expansion in production and capacity. The United States stayed near 1.36 million tonnes. The United Kingdom's estimate fell from 315,000 to 165,000 tonnes between the 2024 and 2025 yearends, and Germany's from 472,000 to 339,000 between 2022 and 2023. These are estimates of operating capacity, not output: a plant counted here may be running well below it.
Titanium dioxide pigment is made by one of two routes. The chloride process turns high-grade feedstock — natural rutile, synthetic rutile, chloride-grade ilmenite or titanium slag — into titanium tetrachloride and burns that with oxygen at about 1,000 °C. The sulfate process digests ilmenite or slag in sulfuric acid, precipitates titanium hydroxide and calcines it. The split is geographical. Every US plant in the survey's 2020 yearbook table used the chloride process, five plants with about 1,330,000 tonnes of capacity between them, while the same yearbook reports that about 74% of the leading Chinese producer's output that year was sulfate-process. The feedstocks are priced very differently: in 2025 rutile concentrate averaged an estimated $1,140 a tonne free on board Australia against about $400 for ilmenite. Ilmenite supplies about 90% of the world's consumption of titanium minerals.
The same yearbook reported an expectation that chloride and sulfate capacity worldwide would move towards parity, driven by new chloride plants in China. That was a forward-looking statement, not a measurement. It also notes that either process can make pigment, and that the choice turns on raw material availability, freight and waste-disposal costs.
The figure the survey calls a price is the landed, duty-paid value of pigment imported into the United States divided by its tonnage. It averages every grade and every supplier, includes freight and tariff, and says nothing about what a paint maker paid under a contract. Read with that in mind, it moved in a narrow band: $2,570 a tonne in 2017, between $2,710 and $2,750 from 2018 to 2020, a peak of $3,450 in 2022, and an estimated $3,200 in 2025. Before the 2022 edition the survey published a producer price index instead, so the series on this page starts in 2017. Published contract or spot prices for pigment grades exist only in subscription trade services and are not reproduced here.
The United States exports more pigment than it imports, but the margin has shrunk. In 2015 it produced 1,220,000 tonnes and exported 649,000; in 2025 it produced an estimated 1,000,000 tonnes and exported 330,000, so net exports fell from 428,000 to 100,000 tonnes. Canada supplied 45% of US pigment imports in 2021–24 and China 11%. Underneath that sits an import dependence the pigment figures hide: the country relied on imports for 88% of its titanium mineral concentrates in 2025, mainly from South Africa, Canada, Madagascar and Mozambique. The annual figures are also revised. The 2024 production estimate was 850,000 tonnes in the 2025 edition and 940,000 in the 2026 edition, so the table takes each year from the latest edition that prints it.
| Year | Production | Imports | Exports | Net exports | Apparent consumption | Import unit value (US$ per tonne) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 1,220,000 | 221,000 | 649,000 | 428,000 | 792,000 | – |
| 2016 | 1,240,000 | 247,000 | 651,000 | 404,000 | 840,000 | – |
| 2017 | 1,260,000 | 240,000 | 634,000 | 394,000 | 870,000 | 2,570 |
| 2018 | 1,150,000 | 268,000 | 528,000 | 260,000 | 890,000 | 2,730 |
| 2019 | 1,000,000 | 226,000 | 401,000 | 175,000 | 825,000 | 2,750 |
| 2020 | 1,000,000 | 262,000 | 386,000 | 124,000 | 880,000 | 2,710 |
| 2021 | 1,150,000 | 251,000 | 494,000 | 243,000 | 907,000 | 2,920 |
| 2022 | 1,150,000 | 265,000 | 378,000 | 113,000 | 1,040,000 | 3,450 |
| 2023 | 910,000 | 228,000 | 288,000 | 60,000 | 850,000 | 3,240 |
| 2024 | 940,000 | 236,000 | 358,000 | 122,000 | 818,000 | 3,170 |
| 2025 (estimate) | 1,000,000 | 230,000 | 330,000 | 100,000 | 900,000 | 3,200 |
| Country | 2019 | 2022 | 2025 | Share of 2025 total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| China | 3,250,000 | 5,000,000 | 6,000,000 | 60.5% |
| United States | 1,370,000 | 1,370,000 | 1,360,000 | 13.7% |
| Mexico | 300,000 | 300,000 | 350,000 | 3.5% |
| Germany | 472,000 | 472,000 | 339,000 | 3.4% |
| Japan | 314,000 | 322,000 | 322,000 | 3.2% |
| Australia | 260,000 | 260,000 | 260,000 | 2.6% |
| Saudi Arabia | 210,000 | 210,000 | 200,000 | 2% |
| United Kingdom | 315,000 | 315,000 | 165,000 | 1.7% |
| Ukraine | 120,000 | 120,000 | 122,000 | 1.2% |
| Canada | 104,000 | 104,000 | 108,000 | 1.1% |
| India | 108,000 | 108,000 | 91,000 | 0.9% |
| Russia | 55,000 | 55,000 | 55,000 | 0.6% |
| Other countries | 784,000 | 784,000 | 540,000 | 5.4% |
| World (as published, rounded) | 7,660,000 | 9,400,000 | 9,900,000 | 100% |
| Yearend | China (tonnes a year) | World, as published | China's share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 3,250,000 | 7,660,000 | 42.4% |
| 2020 | 4,000,000 | 8,400,000 | 47.6% |
| 2021 | 4,000,000 | 8,400,000 | 47.6% |
| 2022 | 5,000,000 | 9,400,000 | 53.1% |
| 2023 | 5,500,000 | 9,800,000 | 55.9% |
| 2024 | 5,500,000 | 9,800,000 | 55.9% |
| 2025 | 6,000,000 | 9,900,000 | 60.5% |
Why: It is an average customs value of US imports across every grade, with freight and duty included.
Fix: Call it an import unit value, give the year, and do not compare it with a supplier's quote for a specific grade.
Why: USGS revises earlier years in each new edition, sometimes by tens of thousands of tonnes.
Fix: Cite the edition as well as the year, and prefer the most recent edition that still prints the year.
Why: Capacity counts what plants could make; utilisation and exports are not in the table.
Fix: Use capacity to describe where the plants are, and say that production by country is not published.
Each statement is labelled by kind — established fact, a standard’s requirement, observed market data, a convention, or Colourwise’s own interpretation or analysis — with the strength of the evidence behind it.
Observed market dataStrong evidence· World, by country· 2025
USGS estimates yearend 2025 titanium dioxide pigment capacity at 9,900,000 tonnes a year worldwide, of which China has 6,000,000 and the United States 1,360,000.
Measured: Yearend operating capacity of titanium dioxide pigment plants. Method: USGS estimate from company and government reports
Caveat: Capacity is an estimate of what plants could make, not what they made; the world total is rounded and country figures for China are round numbers.
Source: Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: Titanium and Titanium Dioxide
Colourwise analysisStrong evidence
China's share of world titanium dioxide pigment capacity rose from 42.4% at the end of 2019 to 60.5% at the end of 2025.
Based on: China's capacity divided by the sum of the country rows in each USGS capacity table; see the capacity tables on this page.
Caveat: A share of estimated capacity, not of production or sales. USGS does not publish world pigment production.
Source: Mineral Commodity Summaries 2020: Titanium and Titanium Dioxide; Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: Titanium and Titanium Dioxide
Observed market dataStrong evidence· United States· 2017–2025
The unit value of titanium dioxide pigment imported into the United States was $2,570 a tonne in 2017, peaked at $3,450 in 2022 and was an estimated $3,200 in 2025.
Measured: Titanium dioxide pigment imported for consumption. Method: Landed duty-paid customs value divided by tonnage
Caveat: An average customs value across all grades, including freight and duty. It is not a contract, list or spot price, and it is in nominal dollars.
Source: Mineral Commodity Summaries 2022: Titanium and Titanium Dioxide; Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: Titanium and Titanium Dioxide
FactStrong evidence
All five US titanium dioxide pigment plants listed by USGS for 2020 used the chloride process, and about 74% of the leading Chinese producer's 2020 output was made by the sulfate process.
Caveat: A 2020 snapshot; the yearbook itself expected the chloride share in China to grow.
Observed market dataStrong evidence· United States· 2025 (estimated)
More than 95% of the titanium mineral concentrates consumed in the United States in 2025 went to titanium dioxide pigment producers, and the country relied on imports for 88% of those concentrates.
Measured: Titanium mineral concentrates, by titanium dioxide content.
Caveat: US mine production is rounded to the nearest 100,000 tonnes to protect company data.
Source: Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: Titanium Mineral Concentrates
Colourwise interpretationLimited evidence
Because one pigment supplies the white in most paint, plastic and paper, and three-fifths of the capacity to make it now sits in one country, the cost of white is exposed to trade policy and energy prices in a way that the cost of most colours is not.
Based on: Colourwise's reading of the USGS capacity tables and end-use ranking. USGS reports the concentration; it does not draw this conclusion, and no price effect is measured here.
Caveat: An interpretation, not a forecast. Calcium carbonate, kaolin and talc compete with titanium dioxide as white extenders, which limits how far its price can move finished goods.
Reviewed 1 October 2026. Colourwise summarises its sources in its own words and does not reproduce standards text or proprietary colour data. Spotted an error? Tell us.