Cotton Price History: Monthly Global Price Since 1992

Cotton is the world’s most widely used natural fibre and the backbone of the textile industry. This dataset tracks the Cotlook A Index as published in the World Bank Pink Sheet, in US dollars per kilogram, with continuous monthly coverage since 1992. China and India are the largest producers, while the United States and Brazil dominate exports.

Dataset: Cotton Price (1992–2026) · Updated 2026-09-01

Data provided as is, with no warranty of accuracy or timeliness. Check any figure against the primary source cited on this page before using it. Terms: legal notice.

Source: World Bank, Commodity Price Data (The Pink Sheet) · CC BY 4.0

Macro Takeaway

Dataset Overview

Dataset Variables

The CSV and Excel files contain the following columns. Each row represents one calendar month.

Column names match the CSV headers exactly.

Download the Complete Dataset

The full dataset is available in CSV and Excel formats — monthly observations covering more than three decades.

Data provided as is, with no warranty of accuracy or timeliness. Check any figure against the primary source cited on this page before using it. Terms: legal notice.

Source Data Access: World Bank Pink Sheet

The underlying series is the “Cotton, A Index” column of the Monthly Prices sheet in the World Bank’s Commodity Price Data, known as the Pink Sheet. The World Bank publishes it as a monthly Excel workbook on its commodity markets page, under a CC BY 4.0 licence that requires attribution to the World Bank.

The Eco3min dataset reproduces that column unmodified from January 1992, in US dollars per kilogram, in a stable CSV with a fixed column name for direct use in Python, R or any data pipeline. The URL never changes, which makes it suitable for automated scripts.

Direct CSV Access — Eco3min Structured Dataset

https://eco3min.fr/dataset/cotton-price.csv

This URL returns the complete dataset in CSV format. It can be used directly in pandas, R, curl, or any data tool.

Using the Dataset in Python

import pandas as pd

url = "https://eco3min.fr/dataset/cotton-price.csv"
df = pd.read_csv(url, parse_dates=["date"])

print(df.head())
print(df["cotton_price"].describe())

df.plot(x="date", y="cotton_price", title="Cotton Price", legend=False)

Using the Dataset in R

library(readr)

url <- "https://eco3min.fr/dataset/cotton-price.csv"
df <- read_csv(url)

head(df)
summary(df$cotton_price)

Both examples load the dataset directly from the URL — no download or API key required.

Methodology

The World Bank’s Pink Sheet reports the Cotton Outlook “Cotlook A Index” for middling 1-3/32 inch cotton, in US dollars per kilogram. The quotation basis has been the Far East, cost and freight (C/F), since 2006; earlier values refer to Northern Europe, c.i.f.

Values are monthly averages, which smooth the intra-month swings visible in daily futures and physical quotes. The series begins in 1992.

An Eco3min pipeline on GitHub Actions reads the Pink Sheet workbook after each monthly release, keeps the column unmodified and regenerates the CSV, Excel and JSON files and the page metadata. The World Bank updates the Pink Sheet on the second business day of each month.

Data Quality & Provider Notes

The Pink Sheet price is a widely cited reference for the physical market. A few provider-specific points matter when using this series.

• Release latency. The World Bank publishes the Pink Sheet on the second business day of each month, with the average of the month just ended. Eco3min refreshes the file after each release. The series is not a real-time price.
• Monthly average vs futures spot. This series is a monthly average. It will differ from any single exchange settlement, and a monthly average necessarily understates intra-month peaks.
• Revisions. Prices are market-derived and are not revised like survey-based macro series, but the World Bank can correct recent months or replace a series, and it lists those changes in the notes of the Pink Sheet workbook.
• Source change on 30 September 2026. Until that date this file reproduced another publisher’s series in US cents per pound; it now reproduces the Pink Sheet column in US dollars per kilogram. Values downloaded before and after the switch are not comparable without conversion (1 US dollar per kilogram equals about 45.36 US cents per pound).
• Alternative sources. ICE futures and the originating auction or indicator bodies provide higher-frequency or contract-specific quotes.

Common Pitfalls When Using This Series

1. Confusing nominal and real prices. This series is nominal. Comparing an early-1990s reading to a recent one without adjusting for cumulative inflation overstates the real change. Deflating by CPI gives the true purchasing-power move.
2. Reading the monthly average as a market price. Headlines quote exchange futures; this dataset reports the monthly benchmark average. The two diverge most during fast-moving rallies.
3. Unit confusion. This series is in US dollars per kilogram, while ICE cotton futures are quoted in US cents per pound (1 US dollar per kilogram equals about 45.36 US cents per pound). The Cotlook A Index average will also differ from any single futures settlement.

Historical Regimes

1992–2002: Surpluses and decline. US subsidies and rising global output kept prices under pressure into the early 2000s. The index fell from 2.53 USD/kg in May 1995 to 0.82 in October 2001, the lowest in the file.

2003–2009: Stable band. Annual averages held between 1.22 and 1.57 USD/kg.

2010–2011: Record spike. Pakistan flooding, Indian export restrictions, depleted stocks, and strong Chinese demand drove the index from 1.71 USD/kg in January 2010 to 5.06 in March 2011, the highest on record.

2012–2019: Slump and range. A sharp 2012 reversal and a massive Chinese state stockpile capped prices, and annual averages stayed between 1.55 and 2.01 USD/kg.

2020: Covid low. A demand collapse pushed the index down to 1.40 USD/kg in April 2020.

2021–2026: Recovery and normalisation. Post-pandemic demand and firm energy prices lifted cotton to 3.61 USD/kg in May 2022, before it eased back as supply recovered, to 1.63 in December 2025 and February 2026. The index then rose to 2.11 in August 2026, the highest since March 2024.

Related Macroeconomic Datasets

Commodity Price Hub

This dataset is part of the Eco3min commodity price repository: energy, metals, agricultural softs and grains, most of them from the World Bank Pink Sheet.

Explore the Commodity Price Hub

Sources

• World Bank: Commodity Price Data (The Pink Sheet), Monthly Prices, column “Cotton, A Index” (CC BY 4.0)
• Cotlook Ltd, Cotton Outlook “A” Index, the market basis of the Pink Sheet series

Dataset Reference

Eco3min Research. (2026). Cotton Price — Global Monthly Price (1992-2026). Source: World Bank, Commodity Price Data (The Pink Sheet), CC BY 4.0.<br> https://eco3min.fr/en/cotton-price-history-dataset/