# Where do pistachios come from?

Source: Commodity Origins, https://commodityorigins.com/commodities/pistachios/ — data JSON: https://commodityorigins.com/data/commodities/pistachios.json — license CC BY 4.0 (upstream data keeps its license; see Sources below).

Pistachios come mainly from the United States, which produced 498,950 tonnes in 2024, 36% of the world's 1.4 million tonnes (FAOSTAT). Turkey (Türkiye) (28%), Iran (23%) and Syria (6.1%) follow; the top five together supply 99%. The biggest exporter of pistachios (HS 080251) is the United States (72% of world export value in 2024, CEPII BACI). Pistachio wants a long, blazing, dry summer to fill the nut and a genuinely cold winter to break bud, a combination found on the high deserts of Iran and Turkey, in Syria and in California's southern San Joaquin Valley and almost nowhere else.

*A desert nut that bears heavily only every other year, grown mostly in Iran, the United States and Turkey.* Also called: pistachio, green almond.

## Where do pistachios come from?

| Rank | Country | Production 2024 (tonnes) | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | United States | 498,950 | 36% |
| 2 | Turkey (Türkiye) | 383,000 | 28% |
| 3 | Iran | 316,142 | 23% |
| 4 | Syria | 83,796 | 6.1% |
| 5 | China | 78,986 | 5.7% |
| 6 | Madagascar | 5,034 | 0.4% |
| 7 | Australia | 4,450 | 0.3% |
| 8 | Tunisia | 3,135 | 0.2% |
| 9 | Afghanistan | 2,825 | 0.2% |
| 10 | Iraq | 1,687 | 0.1% |
| | Rest of world | 0 | 0.2% |
| | World | 1.4 million | 100% |

Source: FAOSTAT Crops and livestock products (QCL), 2024.

In 2024 United States produced 498,950 tonnes, 36% of the world's 1.4 million tonnes (FAOSTAT). Turkey (Türkiye) followed with 28%, then Iran (23%), Syria (6.1%) and China (5.7%). The top five account for 99%, 18 countries reported output and 0.2% came from outside the top ten. World production changed +56% over the ten years to 2024 and +7% on the previous year.

Pistachio is the most concentrated of the major tree nuts: only a handful of countries grow it at scale, and the crop is measured in shell. Iran's orchards sit on the arid plateau around Kerman and Rafsanjan, Turkey's around Gaziantep and Şanlıurfa, and California's in the southern San Joaquin Valley. Syria's crop around Aleppo is old and substantial but has been disrupted for years.

Comparing any one year between countries is treacherous, because the tree bears heavily one season and lightly the next and the cycles in different countries do not line up. A year in which California is on and Iran is off, or the reverse, changes the ranking without anything structural having happened at all.


## Who exports and imports pistachios?

### Exporters of pistachios, in shell, fresh or dried (HS 080251), 2024

| Rank | Country | Value (US$) | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | United States | $2.5 billion | 72% |
| 2 | Iran | $473.4 million | 14% |
| 3 | Turkey (Türkiye) | $155.1 million | 4.5% |
| 4 | Germany | $102.3 million | 3% |
| 5 | Hong Kong | $44.7 million | 1.3% |
| 6 | Belgium | $30.3 million | 0.9% |
| 7 | Spain | $26.8 million | 0.8% |
| 8 | China | $25.9 million | 0.8% |
| 9 | Netherlands | $19 million | 0.6% |
| 10 | Australia | $17.6 million | 0.5% |
| 11 | Czechia | $16.6 million | 0.5% |
| 12 | Luxembourg | $9.3 million | 0.3% |
| 13 | United Arab Emirates | $6.2 million | 0.2% |
| 14 | France | $4.5 million | 0.1% |
| 15 | Lithuania | $4.3 million | 0.1% |

### Importers of pistachios, in shell, fresh or dried (HS 080251), 2024

| Rank | Country | Value (US$) | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | China | $909.1 million | 26% |
| 2 | Germany | $332.1 million | 9.7% |
| 3 | Vietnam | $265 million | 7.7% |
| 4 | Turkey (Türkiye) | $206.6 million | 6% |
| 5 | India | $187.4 million | 5.5% |
| 6 | Italy | $133 million | 3.9% |
| 7 | Spain | $131 million | 3.8% |
| 8 | Poland | $98.2 million | 2.9% |
| 9 | Belgium | $93.4 million | 2.7% |
| 10 | United Arab Emirates | $87.2 million | 2.5% |
| 11 | Hong Kong | $84.3 million | 2.5% |
| 12 | Netherlands | $64.8 million | 1.9% |
| 13 | France | $61.9 million | 1.8% |
| 14 | Saudi Arabia | $58.2 million | 1.7% |
| 15 | Jordan | $47.8 million | 1.4% |

### Exporters of pistachios, shelled, fresh or dried (HS 080252), 2024

| Rank | Country | Value (US$) | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | United States | $349.5 million | 27% |
| 2 | Turkey (Türkiye) | $284.8 million | 22% |
| 3 | Iran | $242.5 million | 19% |
| 4 | Germany | $83.5 million | 6.6% |
| 5 | Italy | $46.5 million | 3.7% |
| 6 | Afghanistan | $35.6 million | 2.8% |
| 7 | Spain | $34.9 million | 2.7% |
| 8 | Syria | $33.4 million | 2.6% |
| 9 | Netherlands | $31.7 million | 2.5% |
| 10 | China | $30.9 million | 2.4% |
| 11 | Jordan | $21.8 million | 1.7% |
| 12 | United Arab Emirates | $12.6 million | 1% |
| 13 | Vietnam | $9.5 million | 0.7% |
| 14 | Greece | $7.7 million | 0.6% |
| 15 | Slovakia | $6 million | 0.5% |

### Importers of pistachios, shelled, fresh or dried (HS 080252), 2024

| Rank | Country | Value (US$) | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Germany | $228.7 million | 18% |
| 2 | Italy | $220.4 million | 17% |
| 3 | Turkey (Türkiye) | $125.1 million | 9.8% |
| 4 | India | $84.2 million | 6.6% |
| 5 | France | $52 million | 4.1% |
| 6 | Netherlands | $43.4 million | 3.4% |
| 7 | United Kingdom | $37.3 million | 2.9% |
| 8 | Spain | $33 million | 2.6% |
| 9 | Poland | $30.3 million | 2.4% |
| 10 | Vietnam | $28.9 million | 2.3% |
| 11 | Saudi Arabia | $28.1 million | 2.2% |
| 12 | Brazil | $26.7 million | 2.1% |
| 13 | Iraq | $21.2 million | 1.7% |
| 14 | Jordan | $20.9 million | 1.6% |
| 15 | Canada | $18.8 million | 1.5% |

Source: CEPII BACI international trade database (HS22, V202601).

United States was the largest exporter of pistachios (HS 080251) in 2024 with 72% of world export value, ahead of Iran (14%), on world trade of $3.4 billion (CEPII BACI). China was the largest importer with 26%.

Shelled kernels are a separate and smaller line. In 2024 United States exported 27% of a kernel trade worth $1.3 billion, with Turkey (Türkiye) on 22% and Iran on 19%; Germany was the largest buyer with 18%.

The split matters. In-shell nuts go to snack markets that want to open them by hand, above all China and the Gulf, while kernels go to bakers and confectioners in Germany, Italy and Turkey who need green nutmeat for ice cream, baklava and mortadella. Turkey exports kernels and imports in-shell nuts at the same time.


## What do pistachios cost?

### How they are priced

There is no futures market and no free public benchmark price for pistachios, so this site quotes none. In California growers deliver to a processor and are paid a pool return settled over the marketing year, adjusted for the split rate, kernel color and defects in their delivery. In Iran the crop moves through private traders and exporters, and prices are quoted in local currency, so exchange rate moves are part of the price.

What is visible instead are trade assessments, customs statistics and industry shipment reports. Grading is unusually detailed: naturally split in-shell nuts carry a large premium over closed shells, size is counted per ounce, and a bright green kernel is worth more than a pale one. Aflatoxin results price the lot too, because a failed consignment cannot enter its intended market.


## What moves the price of pistachios?

### Alternate bearing

A pistachio tree sets a heavy crop one year and a light one the next, because buds for the following season abort while a big crop fills. Whole regions swing together, so supply arrives in a two-year rhythm that orchard management cannot fully remove.

### Winter chill

Buds need accumulated winter cold to break evenly in spring. A warm winter gives a straggling bloom in which the wind-pollinated male and female trees are out of step, and the crop fails to set, as California found after the warm winter of 2015.

### Aflatoxin

Pistachios are prone to a mold that produces aflatoxin, and importing countries test for it at the border. A single failing consignment can be rejected, and repeated failures have brought certification requirements on a whole origin, which raises cost and slows shipment.

### Sanctions and duties

United States antidumping duties on Iranian in-shell pistachios have stood since 1986, and broader sanctions restrict Iranian trade and payment. The result is a market split by policy as well as geography, with Iranian nuts routed toward Asia, the Gulf and Europe rather than North America.

### Water and salinity

Pistachio tolerates saline, alkaline soils and drought better than almond, which is why it is planted where little else thrives. It still needs irrigation, and Californian groundwater is being capped basin by basin, so expansion is a claim on a shrinking allocation.

## How are pistachios produced?

Pistachio is dioecious, with separate male and female trees, and pollen travels on the wind rather than by insects, so orchards scatter males among the females and rely on both flowering at the same moment. Trees are grafted onto rootstock, take five to seven years to bear and stay productive for decades.

Through the summer the kernel fills and the shell hardens; when the kernel is full it expands and splits the shell along a seam, which is the crack a shopper opens by hand. Harvest is a single pass in late summer, by trunk shaker onto a catch frame, and speed matters: the hull must come off within hours, because a heap of unhulled nuts stains and molds.

At the plant the hull is stripped, the nuts floated to separate open from closed shells, dried, sized, sorted by machine and by hand, then roasted and salted or held raw. Closed shells are cracked mechanically for kernel, and kernels are peeled and color-sorted, since green is what a baker pays for.


## What are pistachios used for?

Most pistachios are eaten in the shell as a roasted, salted snack, and that market takes the best of the crop. Kernels go into ice cream, nougat, halva, baklava and Turkish delight, into mortadella, and into bakery and chocolate, where the color is as much the point as the flavour.

By-products stay close to the orchard. Hulls are composted or fed to livestock and are also a source of natural pigments and tannins. Shells go to fuel, bedding and abrasives, and increasingly to activated carbon. Kernels that fail on color or size are ground into paste, where appearance no longer prices the product.


## Supply chain and chokepoints

Processing sits beside the orchards, because the hull has to come off within hours of shaking. In California a small number of large processors take the crop; in Iran the chain runs through village traders, terminal markets in Rafsanjan and Tehran, and exporters.

The traded product is dry, stable and packed in cartons or vacuum bags, so it needs no cold chain. Aflatoxin certification, not refrigeration, governs whether a consignment clears customs, and testing regimes differ enough between destinations that lots are pre-sorted by market.

The structural risks are concentration and biennial supply. Three countries grow nearly all of it, each has a two-year bearing cycle, and one of them is under long-standing trade restrictions. A poor Californian set and a Turkish off-year in the same season leave buyers with very little to fall back on.


## Timeline

- 1929: A United States plant explorer collects pistachio seed in Iran. Seed gathered around Kerman was grown at a Californian research station and produced the Kerman variety, the basis of an industry that did not exist before it. (https://americanpistachios.org/about-us/grower-resources/historical-accomplishments)
- 1957: The Kerman variety is released to growers. A named, propagated female variety with a matching male pollinizer made commercial orchards possible and ended reliance on variable seedling trees. (https://americanpistachios.org/about-us/grower-resources/historical-accomplishments)
- 1976: California harvests its first commercial pistachio crop. It marked the arrival of a second large producer outside the traditional Iranian and Turkish belt, and the start of decades of planting in the San Joaquin Valley. (https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/crops/fruit-and-tree-nuts)
- 1986: The United States imposes antidumping duties on Iranian in-shell pistachios. The order, followed by a broader trade embargo, closed the largest consumer market to Iranian nuts and gave Californian growers a protected home market for decades. (https://americanpistachios.org/about-us/grower-resources/historical-accomplishments)
- 1997-09: The European Union suspends imports of Iranian pistachios over aflatoxin. The suspension, later replaced by certification and designated entry points, made aflatoxin testing a permanent condition of trade rather than an occasional check. (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/ALL/?uri=CELEX:31997D0830)
- 2015: A warm winter wrecks the Californian crop. Too few chill hours gave an uneven bloom in which male and female trees flowered out of step, and the harvest fell by roughly half from the previous year. (https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/crops/fruit-and-tree-nuts)

## Frequently asked questions

### which country produces the most pistachios

United States produced 498,950 tonnes in 2024, 36% of the world's 1.4 million tonnes (FAOSTAT). Turkey (Türkiye) was second with 28% and Iran third with 23%. Rankings move between years because the tree bears heavily only every other season.

### why are pistachios so expensive

Three reasons. The tree bears a heavy crop only every second year, it takes five to seven years from planting before it yields at all, and only a few regions have both the hot dry summers and the cold winters it needs. Aflatoxin testing and hand sorting add cost on top.

### why are pistachios already open

The split is natural. As the kernel fills in late summer it expands and forces the shell apart along a seam. Nuts that stay closed are usually immature or poorly filled, and processors float them off and crack them mechanically for kernel rather than selling them in shell.

### why are some pistachios greener than others

Colour comes from chlorophyll in the kernel and fades as the nut matures and dries. Bakers and confectioners pay a premium for deep green kernels for ice cream, baklava and nougat, so lots are color-sorted and the greenest are diverted away from the snack trade.

### who buys the most pistachios

China was the largest importer of pistachios (HS 080251) in 2024, taking 26% of a trade worth $3.4 billion (CEPII BACI), ahead of Germany with 9.7%. In-shell nuts go mainly to snack markets, kernels to bakers and confectioners.

### why does the united states tax iranian pistachios

United States antidumping duties on Iranian in-shell pistachios have been in place since 1986, following a petition from Californian growers, and were later reinforced by a broad trade embargo. The effect is that Iranian nuts are sold into Asia, the Gulf and Europe rather than North America.

## Sources

- FAOSTAT Crops and livestock products (QCL), 2024. License: CC BY 4.0 (FAO Statistical Database Terms of Use). https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QCL
- CEPII BACI international trade database (HS22, V202601), BACI HS22 V202601, fetched 6 September 2026. License: Etalab Open Licence 2.0. https://www.cepii.fr/CEPII/en/bdd_modele/bdd_modele_item.asp?id=37

Text last reviewed 2026-09-05. Cite as: Commodity Origins, "Where do pistachios come from?", https://commodityorigins.com/commodities/pistachios/.