One in three shoe executives see their retail prices for shoes on the store shelves rising as much as five percent this year, according to a 2026 Second Quarter FDRA Shoe Executive Business Outlook Survey.

It’s too early to tell if the higher prices will impact consumer spending when it comes to footwear. Many consumer shrugged off price increases in 2025, and the industry, as a whole, has rebounded this year.

“We will continue to be the advocate for our consumers and for the industry at large to try to drive prices down at a time when the numbers are going in the wrong direction, and for us, they’re going even more dramatically in the wrong direction than broader retail,” said Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America (FDRA) president and chief executive officer Matt Priest on a media briefing Wednesday.

He explained that in footwear, even though the May Consumer Price Index saw inflation up 4.2 percent, for footwear, inflation spiked higher. “We were at 5.2 precent in May,” Priest said. He noted that men’s footwear prices jumped 5.4 percent, reflecting the largest increase seen in 54 months. Women’s footwear prices rose a significant 6.2 percent, the largest increase in 45 months. And children’s shoe prices were up 2.3 percent.

However, because of tariffs and the crisis with Iran, input costs for shoe manufacturing have gone up. Many shoes are made with petroleum, particularly those in the athletic category. Priest said some FDRA members cited upwards of a 25 percent increase on those inputs because of the conflict, which then “translates into about a five percent increase on the price of a pair of shoes to finish good as it crosses the border.” Increases thus far haven’t been felt because many were working through materials and components that were “priced and manufactured before the conflict began.” He noted that much of that inventory has been used, and the new higher priced inputs eventually will push those prices up for consumers.

The FDRA Shoe Executive Business Outlook Survey also found that the six-month outlook from respondents dimmed as more than two in three said they saw a weaker outlook for the economy. Over three in five said their operating costs are higher from six months ago, while over half see their landed costs rising as much as 10 percent in 2026. And one in three see their retail price (on the store shelf) rising as much as five percent this year. In addition, nearly two in three don’t expect in increase or decrease hiring over the next six months.

Meanwhile, FDRA is working on a number of fronts in advocating for a reduction in tariffs to lower consumer costs. The actions are to counter plans for a tariff proposal to replace the Section 122 tariff that’s 10 percent across the board, which is set to expire on July 24.

Priest noted a June 25 letter from 16 House Republicans to Ambassador Jamieson Greer, the U.S. Trade Representative, asking President Donald Trump to cap tariffs at 20 percent. The letter urged that as the Administration finalizes Section 301 investigations that certain goods including apparel and footwear “are not disproportionately impacted by cumulative tariff stacking, particularly as families prepare for the back-to-school season.” The letter went on to note that consumer products already face some of the highest general duty rates, which means that layering additional tariffs on top of those Most Favored Nation (FN) rates “can create cumulative tariff levels well above those faced by goods in many other sectors.”

The 16 House Representatives who are signatories to the letter said that capping the cumulative tariff rates for apparel and footwear at the “greater of 20 percent or MFN for countries other than China, will further strengthen the trade dominance” established by Trump’s trade policy, while avoiding unintended cost pressures on American families.

Separately, there are several hearings taking place in Washington, D.C., this week. One was on a proposed additional 25 percent tariff on goods from Brazil on Tuesday. Priest noted that there are 11 suppliers of the U.S. market for footwear. The other is a hearing Thursday on forced labor.

Priest said FDRA’s message to both are the same: imposing tariffs on footwear harms American consumers and the proposed tariff remedy doesn’t alleviate the burdens on U.S. footwear commerce. Moreover, international trade supports hundreds of thousands of footwear jobs across the U.S., and tariffs put these jobs at risk. He also noted that while some consumer goods have an average rate of 2 percent, footwear has an average tariff rate of 12 percent, while rates are much higher for children’s shoes, with some often reaching 20 percent, or even 48 percent, and higher before any new tariffs are added.

With respect to Brazil, FDRA noted that tariffs could have unintended consequences of limiting footwear sourcing in the Western Hemisphere. Brazil has become the second largest Western Hemisphere supplier of footwear to the U.S. market, providing 11 million pairs a year for U.S. consumer, and it is one of the few nations with the capacity and infrastructure to provide shoes to the U.S. market at scale. In addition, its proximity to the U.S. helps to significantly reduce lead times.

“Less than one precent of footwear is made in the U.S., and even less is exported to Brazil each year. Because there is so little U.S. footwear trade into Brazil, a tariff remedy will not ease burdens on U.S. commerce when it comes to footwear,” Priest noted in his testimony Tuesday in addressing the purpose of Section 301 remedies, which is to address acts, policies and practices of a foreign country that burdens or restricts U.S. commerce.

Priest is set to testify Thursday on the forced labor issue. Per a prepared statement, he plans to note that tariffs as a remedy could have the unintended consequence of worsening conditions for workers in developing nations, and that when U.S. footwear brands source in foreign countries, they export U.S. values and high standards that could improve worker conditions, a critical tool for the U.S. in the fight against forced labor.

Priest also plans to note that with such a minimal amount of footwear made in the U.S., only 2,707 pairs of footwear were exported to Indonesia, 1,561 pairs to Cambodia and 213 pairs to Bangladesh, the proposed tariff as a 301 remedy won’t ease burdens on U.S. commerce when it comes to footwear.

And finally, Priest said FDRA is in the process of filing comments by Friday around a Board of Trade proposal in connection to a deal Trump and China President Xi Jinping struck when they met in China in May to “review non-sensitive items within the trade relationship with the potential of lowering tariffs on those goods.” He said those comments will include “asking the administration to remove all footwear tariffs, all the footwear lines out of the tariff regime that we’re currently charging on Chinese goods.”