Titanium dioxide pigment, the white pigment that opacifies plastics, entered the United States at USD 3,200 per tonne in 2025, against USD 3,170 in 2024 and USD 2,920 in 2021, each on a landed duty-paid import basis (US Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026). That five-year series is the only free, dated, primary price for pigment-grade titanium dioxide (TiO2, C.I. Pigment White 6, CAS 13463-67-7) published anywhere, and it is a national raw-material unit value, not a delivered price for one supplier's grade, so the question a compounder actually needs answered is what turns that single number into a comparable quote.

This guide is part of plastic additive prices, the section of the site that publishes only a figure with a named source, a stated basis and a year. It covers the five-year price history below, the four things that move the number, how dosage and grade change what a compounder actually pays per part, a checklist for reading a supplier's quote, and the outlook into 2026.

The price history comes first, then supply concentration, trade duties, grade and regulation as the four drivers, then dosage and cost in use, then how to compare a quote, then the 2026 outlook, and finally how this page is sourced and corrected. Grade selection, the full regulatory matrix and the rutile-versus-anatase chemistry live on a separate reference page, linked below the price data.

Titanium Dioxide Price: USD 3,200 per Tonne in 2025#

Titanium dioxide pigment entered the United States at USD 3,200 per tonne in 2025, against USD 3,170 in 2024, USD 3,240 in 2023, USD 3,450 in 2022 and USD 2,920 in 2021, each figure a US landed duty-paid import price (US Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026). US production reached about 1.0 million tonnes in 2025e, from five facilities in four states, valued at roughly USD 3 billion. Plastics is the second-largest US end use for the pigment after paints, ahead of paper, so a plastics compounder buys from the same supply pool as the coatings industry, not a dedicated plastics-grade market.

The table below is the full five-year series, with the year-on-year change shown as arithmetic rather than rounded to a single word.

This is a raw-material unit value for pigment entering the United States, not a delivered price for a specific compounder's grade. A surface-treated, weathering or dust-free grade sells above it.

What Drives the Titanium Dioxide Price?#

Four things move the titanium dioxide price: how concentrated its supply is, the duty applied at the US border, the grade and surface treatment a formulation actually needs, and the regulatory and substitution pressure on the pigment itself.

Supply Concentration: China's Share of World Pigment Capacity#

World titanium dioxide pigment capacity reached 9.9 million tonnes a year in 2025e, and China held about 6.0 million tonnes of it, roughly 61 percent, against 1.36 million tonnes in the United States (US Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026). United Kingdom capacity fell to 165,000 tonnes in 2025e from 315,000 tonnes in 2024, the sharpest single-country change in the five-year record, which shows that capacity can leave the market faster than new capacity elsewhere replaces it. A small group of producers supplies most of that capacity:

• Chemours (Ti-Pure), spun off from DuPont in July 2015.
• Tronox, which completed its acquisition of Cristal on 10 April 2019.
• Venator, which filed for Chapter 11 protection on 14 May 2023.
• Kronos Worldwide, LB Group (Lomon Billions) and Pangang, the remaining producers named in this reference.

Titanium dioxide remains the single largest substance among colorants for plastics, the pigment family that also carries carbon black and the organic and complex inorganic color pigments, and its supply concentration sets it apart from that wider family: most other plastics colorants have no comparable single-country capacity share documented in the free data.

Trade Flows and the Import Duty on Pigment-Grade TiO2#

Pigment-grade titanium dioxide entering the United States under HTS code 3206.11.0000 (80 percent TiO2 content or more) carries a 6 percent ad valorem duty, unfinished titanium dioxide under HTS 2823.00.0000 carries 5.5 percent, and other finished TiO2 pigments under HTS 3206.19.0000 carry 6 percent (US Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026). US imports of the pigment came 45 percent from Canada and 11 percent from China between 2021 and 2024, with Germany and Mexico each supplying 7 percent, so the duty applies to a supply base spread across several origins rather than concentrated in the same country that dominates world capacity. The full HTS schedule and duty rates for plastic additive raw materials, once published, will sit on plastic additive HS codes and tariffs; until then this page states only the codes and rates verified against the USGS series above.

Grade, Surface Treatment and Product Form#

Titanium dioxide reaches a compounder as an uncoated pigment or as an inorganically and organically surface-treated grade, and the treatment level, not the base pigment, decides which processing temperature a grade tolerates: only a few low-treated rutile grades suit extrusion above 525°F (274°C), while heavily treated weathering grades are poor candidates above 450°F (232°C) (Ampacet, technical FAQ on yellowing and pinking of white PE and PP). Low-treated rutile can also catalyse over-oxidation of phenolic antioxidants into colored titanium-quinone complexes, a defect called pinking, which formulators mitigate with zinc stearate rather than by paying for a different pigment grade. None of this changes the USD 3,200-per-tonne national average above it: the free USGS series does not break the price down by crystal form, treatment level or product form, so a specific grade's price is confirmed against a supplier's quote, not against this page.

Regulatory Status and Substitution#

Titanium dioxide carries no harmonised hazard classification in the European Union as of September 2026. The General Court annulled its Carcinogen Category 2 classification from Delegated Regulation (EU) 2020/217 on 23 November 2022, the Court of Justice dismissed the European Commission's and France's appeals on 1 August 2025, and the European Chemicals Agency removed the classification entry from its website on 25 August 2025, with the formal deletion from CLP Annex VI still pending (Titanium Dioxide Manufacturers Association). Titanium dioxide is registered under REACH (Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006) in the 1,000,000 to 10,000,000 tonnes per year band and sits on neither the SVHC Candidate List nor Annex XIV. The US Geological Survey names ground calcium carbonate, precipitated calcium carbonate, kaolin and talc as the pigment's substitutes; each of those minerals is priced far below titanium dioxide, so a future restriction would move demand, and price, toward those fillers rather than remove the underlying cost pressure. The regulations that could still change this picture, in the EU, the US and under REACH, are tracked on plastic additive regulations.

Titanium Dioxide Dosage and Cost in Use in Plastics#

Titanium dioxide's price per tonne does not become a cost per part until the dosage is fixed, and that dosage runs from about 5 wt% of the finished part for complex inorganic pigments including titanium dioxide, down to 0.5 to 3.0 phr in a US PVC pressure-pipe compound (ECHA plastics additives mapping exercise; Plastics Pipe Institute, TR-02, 2023). The table below sets out both bases side by side, because a phr figure and a wt% figure describe different things and this page never converts one into the other without showing the arithmetic.

How Much Titanium Dioxide a Plastic Part Actually Contains#

A parts-per-hundred-resin figure and a weight-percent figure describe two different bases, and the Plastics Pipe Institute's worked PVC pressure-pipe formulation shows the conversion between them: 0.50 phr of titanium dioxide in a compound with 108.03 total phr is 0.50 divided by 108.03, times 100, or 0.46 wt% of the finished compound (Plastics Pipe Institute, TR-02, 2023, Appendix C). That same worked formulation carries 0.70 phr of heat stabilizer, 1.20 phr of paraffin, 0.15 phr of polyethylene wax, 5.00 phr of calcium carbonate and 0.45 phr of calcium stearate alongside the titanium dioxide, which is why a PVC compounder's actual titanium dioxide cost per part is a small fraction of the pigment's price per tonne. The full conversion method between the two bases, for any additive, sits on PHR (parts per hundred resin).

Rutile or Anatase: Which Form Plastics Buy#

Plastics use rutile titanium dioxide in almost every application and anatase only where a softer, less abrasive pigment matters, chiefly fibres and paper, and the free USGS price series does not separate the two crystal forms, so a rutile-specific or an anatase-specific price is not published anywhere for free. Most compounders buy the pigment as a white masterbatch rather than as neat powder, and it is the masterbatch supplier's price per kilogram, together with its active content and let-down ratio, that decides the actual cost per part, not the USD 3,200-per-tonne raw-material figure on its own. The let-down conventions that turn a masterbatch price into a per-part cost, and the full rutile-versus-anatase comparison, are set out on the substance page linked below the price data.

How to Read and Compare a Titanium Dioxide Quote#

Two titanium dioxide quotes are comparable only when both state the same five things: the crystal form and surface treatment, the delivery basis, whether the product is neat pigment or a masterbatch with its let-down ratio, the volume and packaging, and which legal entity holds the compliance registration for that specific grade. A quote that omits any one of the five cannot be set against a second quote on the same terms.

1. Confirm the crystal form, rutile or anatase, and the surface treatment level.
2. Fix the delivery basis (ex-works, landed duty-paid, CIF) and the currency.
3. State whether the offer is neat pigment or a masterbatch, and, if a masterbatch, its active content and let-down ratio.
4. State the volume, the packaging and the minimum order quantity.
5. Ask which legal entity holds the REACH registration (Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006) and any food-contact clearance under Regulation (EU) No 10/2011 or 21 CFR 178.3297 for that grade.
6. Convert the offer to a cost per kilogram of the finished compound, using the dosage basis above, before comparing it with another offer.

Sending one specification to verified suppliers keeps every quote on the same basis. The plastic additive supplier finder routes a single request to more than one titanium dioxide manufacturer at once.

Titanium Dioxide Price Trends and Outlook for 2026#

The titanium dioxide price held nearly flat between 2024 and 2025, moving from USD 3,170 to USD 3,200 per tonne, a rise of 0.9 percent, after a sharper swing of minus 6.1 percent in 2023 and plus 18.2 percent in 2022 (US Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026). World pigment capacity grew to 9.9 million tonnes in 2025e even as United Kingdom capacity nearly halved to 165,000 tonnes, a combination consistent with the near-flat price: new capacity elsewhere offset the lost UK output, and the US Geological Survey records no announced US capacity addition for 2026. This page updates the series each year when the US Geological Survey publishes its next Mineral Commodity Summaries, typically in January or February.

How This Price Guide Is Built, Sourced and Corrected#

This guide publishes only a titanium dioxide price with a named source, a stated basis and a year, drawn from the same free, primary series used across every price guide on this site.

• Only a figure with a named source, a stated basis and a year enters the table above.
• Only free primary or freely reproduced data is used, never a paywalled assessment or a marketplace offer.
• A grade or crystal-form price premium is stated only once our source library holds one with a source; today it does not, and this page says so rather than estimating a number.
• A visible gap is left where no free data exists, never an estimate presented as a fact.

Corrections to this page follow the editorial policy: independence, sources and corrections, and the series is checked against each new USGS release.

How This Price Guide Relates to Titanium Dioxide in Plastics and the Price Index#

This page prices titanium dioxide; it does not describe the substance's full chemistry, its complete regulatory matrix or its grade-selection logic in detail, all of which live on a separate reference page built for that purpose.

Titanium Dioxide Identity, Grades and Regulatory Status#

Titanium dioxide (TiO2, C.I. Pigment White 6, CAS 13463-67-7, EC 236-675-5) carries an EU food-contact status under Regulation (EU) No 10/2011 (FCM No 610, no specific migration limit) and a Prop 65 listing of 2 September 2011, alongside the rutile-versus-anatase chemistry and the processing-temperature limits summarised earlier on this page. The full identity table, grade comparison and regulatory matrix are set out on titanium dioxide in plastics.

The Other Plastic Additive Price Guides#

Titanium dioxide is one of eight additives and raw materials with a dedicated price guide on this site. The full set, with the verified data each one carries, is indexed on the plastic additive prices page linked above:

• Carbon black price
• Plasticizer prices (DOP/DEHP, DOTP, DINP, DINCH, TOTM)
• Antimony trioxide price
• Calcium carbonate filler price
• PE wax price
• Calcium and zinc stearate prices
• Silica price for plastics