The ICUMSA 45 sugar price per ton is the number every sugar buyer wants first, and usually the one they trust least. That’s fair. Sugar quotes are all over the place, from offers that look too good to be true (they are) to quotes padded with costs nobody explained. We’re DThai Company Limited, a Bangkok exporter, and we sell ICUMSA 45 refined white sugar to importers, wholesalers and food factories worldwide. This page shows how we build a price, what moved the market in 2026, and how to read any quote you get, ours included.
Table of Contents
ICUMSA 45 Sugar Price Per Ton: The Short Answer
Nobody can give you one fixed ICUMSA 45 sugar price per ton, because the market moves every trading day. What we can give you is the reference point and the range.
The reference for refined white sugar is the London No. 5 futures contract and the white sugar price index published by the International Sugar Organization. In mid-October 2026 that index was sitting a little above $560 per ton. Physical ICUMSA 45 from Thailand trades at that benchmark plus or minus a premium, and then you add packing, freight and insurance depending on your terms.
So when someone asks us for the ICUMSA 45 sugar price per ton today, our honest answer is: start around the white sugar benchmark for FOB Bangkok in 50kg bags, then adjust for your port, volume and packing. Anything far below the benchmark isn’t a bargain. It’s a warning sign.
How 2026 Has Gone for White Sugar
This year has been a lesson in why you shouldn’t plan a sugar budget on last quarter’s number.
Early in 2026 the market was soft. Big crops in Brazil and talk of a global surplus kept London white sugar near the low $400s per ton for a while. Buyers who locked in volume then did well.
By late summer the mood flipped. Worries about the 2026/27 crop in the northern hemisphere, a firmer oil price and tighter refined sugar stocks pushed London futures up to around $550 per ton in August. Since then prices have swung back and forth in a wide band, and in October the ISO white sugar index was again in the $560s.
What does that mean for you? The ICUMSA 45 sugar price per ton you pay this season may be well over $100 different from what someone paid in the spring. When a supplier quotes you a figure, ask what date it’s based on. A price from three months ago is useless.
What Goes Into an ICUMSA 45 Sugar Price Per Ton
Every quote is a stack of costs. If two suppliers give you different numbers, the gap is almost always in one of these rows.
| Cost layer | What it covers | Who pays |
|---|---|---|
| Benchmark | London No. 5 white sugar, USD per ton | Market |
| Origin premium or discount | Thai sugar against the benchmark, by season and demand | Market |
| Packing | 50kg PP bags with liner, jumbo bags, or retail packs | Seller |
| Inland transport and loading | Mill to port, container stuffing | Seller (FOB) |
| Inspection | SGS or another surveyor at loading | Agreed in contract |
| Ocean freight | Thailand to your port | Seller (CFR/CIF) or buyer (FOB) |
| Insurance | Cargo cover during the voyage | Seller (CIF) or buyer |
| Duties and port costs | Import duty, clearing, trucking at destination | Buyer |
When we quote an ICUMSA 45 sugar price per ton, we fill in every one of those rows for you. If a quote you’ve received skips them, ask why.
FOB, CFR or CIF: Same Sugar, Three Prices
The Incoterm changes the number on the page more than anything else apart from the market itself.
- FOB (Free on Board) means we deliver the sugar onto the vessel at a Thai port. You arrange and pay for freight and insurance. This is the lowest number on paper.
- CFR (Cost and Freight) means we pay the freight to your port. You insure the cargo.
- CIF (Cost, Insurance and Freight) means we pay freight and insurance to your port.
A buyer comparing an FOB ICUMSA 45 sugar price per ton from one seller with a CIF price from another is comparing apples with fruit salad. Put every offer on the same basis before you decide. Our guide on FOB vs CIF was written for rice buyers, but the logic is exactly the same for sugar.
For most first-time buyers we suggest CFR or CIF. You get one landed figure, and you don’t have to find a forwarder in Thailand.
Our ICUMSA 45 Specifications
This is the sugar we sell, and it’s what our ICUMSA 45 sugar price per ton refers to. These are the limits we load to, and every lot ships with a lab analysis so you can check them.
| Parameter | ICUMSA 45 refined white sugar |
|---|---|
| Color | 45 ICUMSA units max |
| Polarization | 99.80° min |
| Moisture | 0.04% max |
| Ash content | 0.04% max |
| Reducing sugars | 0.05% max |
| Sulphur dioxide (SO2) | 20 mg/kg max |
| Solubility | 100% dry and free-flowing |
| Granulation | Fine to medium, as agreed |
| Appearance | Sparkling white crystals |
| Origin | Thailand, cane sugar, current crop |
| Packing | 50kg PP woven bags with PE liner, 1,000kg jumbo bags, 1kg and 2kg retail packs |
| Container load | About 25 tons (500 bags of 50kg) per 20ft container |
The color figure is what puts it at the top of the grade ladder. If you want to understand where 45 sits against ICUMSA 100, 150 or 600, read our guide to ICUMSA sugar grades explained. The official test methods are set by ICUMSA itself.
You can see the product listing on our ICUMSA sugar for sale page.
How Packing Changes the ICUMSA 45 Sugar Price Per Ton
Same sugar, different bags, different ICUMSA 45 sugar price per ton. Here’s roughly how packing options compare against each other.
| Packing | How it compares | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| 50kg PP bags with liner | Base price | Importers, wholesalers, most factories |
| 1,000kg jumbo bags | Slightly lower per ton | Factories with forklifts and bulk hoppers |
| 25kg bags | Slightly higher | Markets where 50kg is too heavy to handle by hand |
| 1kg and 2kg retail packs | Noticeably higher | Supermarket and retail brands |
| Your own printed bags | Depends on print run | Private label buyers |
Retail packs cost more because of film, printing, cartons and the labor of filling small bags. If you sell to shops, it’s often cheaper overall to take 50kg bags and repack locally. Sometimes it isn’t, especially where labor and packing film are expensive. We’ll price both if you ask.
Seven Things That Move the ICUMSA 45 Sugar Price Per Ton
You can’t control any of these. Knowing them helps you time your buying and spot a quote that doesn’t add up.
1. Brazil’s harvest
Brazil is the biggest sugar exporter in the world. When its mills crush a big crop and put more of the cane into sugar instead of ethanol, world prices fall. When the crop disappoints, prices rise.
2. Oil and ethanol
Brazilian mills can turn cane into sugar or ethanol. When oil is expensive, ethanol pays better, so less cane goes to sugar. That’s why the ICUMSA 45 sugar price per ton often rises when crude oil rises.
3. India’s export policy
India produces huge amounts of sugar, but the government decides how much can leave the country. A change in export quotas can move the market overnight.
4. The Thai crop
Thailand usually crushes cane from around December to April. A good Thai crop means more white sugar available close to Asian and African buyers, and Thai premiums tend to soften.
5. The white premium
Refining raw sugar into white sugar costs money. The gap between raw and white prices, called the white premium, widens when refining capacity is tight. That gap is part of every ICUMSA 45 sugar price per ton you see.
6. Freight and currency
Container freight rates swing a lot. So does the Thai baht against the US dollar. Both feed directly into the CFR or CIF price you pay.
7. Your volume and timing
A buyer taking ten containers a month on a season-long contract gets better terms than someone buying one container once. Booking early in the crushing season can also help.
A Worked Example
Numbers make this clearer. These figures are an example only, to show how a quote is put together. They aren’t today’s offer.
Say the London white sugar benchmark is $560 per ton. Thai ICUMSA 45 is trading at a small discount that week, packed in 50kg bags, loaded at Laem Chabang. That gives you an FOB price somewhere close to the benchmark.
Now add freight. A 20ft container from Thailand to a port in the Middle East or East Africa might add something like $40 to $90 per ton, depending on the route and the month. West Africa and South America usually cost more. Add a small amount for insurance on CIF terms.
Your landed ICUMSA 45 sugar price per ton, before import duty, ends up as benchmark, plus or minus the Thai premium, plus freight and insurance. Then your own country adds duty, VAT and port costs, which can be large in some markets.
When we send you a quote, it lays out those lines one by one, so you can see where the money goes.
Why Very Cheap Offers Are Almost Always Fake
Sugar attracts more fake offers than any other commodity we trade. You’ve probably seen them: “ICUMSA 45, 50,000 tons a month for 12 months, $350 per ton CIF any port.” No real seller can do that. Refined white sugar costs what the market says it costs, and nobody sells it far below the benchmark for a year.
The people behind these offers usually want money before any sugar exists. They ask for fees for documents, “proof of product,” or a bank instrument from you up front. We wrote a full guide on this: ICUMSA 45 sugar scam warning signs.
The short version is simple. If the ICUMSA 45 sugar price per ton you’ve been offered is far below the white sugar index, walk away. A real supplier sends samples, accepts independent inspection, and is happy to be checked.
Lowest Quoted Price vs Lowest Real Cost
The cheapest quote and the cheapest sugar aren’t always the same thing. A few things cost buyers money after the deal is signed:
- Moisture and caking. Sugar packed in bags without a proper liner can pick up moisture at sea. Caked bags sell at a discount.
- Short weight. Without an independent weight certificate, you have no proof when bags come in light.
- Wrong paperwork. One missing certificate can leave a container sitting at port, running up storage charges. Our bulk sugar import documentation checklist covers every paper you’ll need, and our page on the HS code for sugar helps your clearing agent classify it correctly.
- Color drift. Sugar sold as ICUMSA 45 that tests at 100 or more isn’t worth the ICUMSA 45 sugar price per ton you paid for it.
That’s why we put inspection and lab results into every contract. It protects you, and honestly it protects us too.
ICUMSA 45 vs Other Grades on Price
Not every buyer needs the whitest sugar. If your customers are shops or bakeries in a price-sensitive market, ICUMSA 100 to 150 can do the job for less money. Soft drink bottlers, confectioners and pharmaceutical buyers usually do need 45, because color shows up in their product.
Raw sugar such as VHP is cheaper again, but it’s made for refineries, not for eating straight from the bag. If you’re weighing those two, see our comparison of VHP sugar vs ICUMSA 45. For a wider look at refined sugar pricing across grades and destinations, read our guide on the refined sugar price per ton.
When Is the Best Time to Buy?
People ask us this a lot, and the honest answer is that nobody times the sugar market perfectly. We don’t, and neither do the big trading houses. But a few patterns help.
The Thai crush runs from roughly December to April. Once the new crop is moving through the mills, there’s more white sugar on offer near Asian, Middle Eastern and African buyers, and the ICUMSA 45 sugar price per ton from Thailand often gets a little more competitive. Late in the season, when stocks thin out, Thai premiums tend to firm up.
Watch Brazil too. Their main harvest runs from about April to November. Reports on how much cane is going to sugar instead of ethanol move the whole market, and the ICUMSA 45 sugar price per ton follows.
What actually saves buyers money isn’t guessing the bottom. It’s spreading purchases. A buyer who books a fixed tonnage each month through the year pays an average price and never gets caught by one bad month. That’s what most of our regular customers do.
Who Buys ICUMSA 45 From Us
Our buyers look at the ICUMSA 45 sugar price per ton in different ways, depending on what they do with the sugar:
- Importers and wholesalers in the Middle East, Africa and Asia buying 50kg bags to resell. For them, price and steady supply matter most.
- Soft drink and juice bottlers who need low color and low ash so their drinks stay clear.
- Bakeries, biscuit and confectionery makers who care about granulation and how the sugar dissolves.
- Dairy and ice cream producers who need clean taste and consistent quality.
- Retail packers who repack into 1kg and 2kg bags under their own brand.
A bottler will pay a little more per ton for sugar that’s always within spec, because one bad lot can stop a production line. A wholesaler in a competitive market will push harder on the ICUMSA 45 sugar price per ton and accept 50kg bags with a standard spec. We quote each of them differently because they need different things.
How to Get a Firm ICUMSA 45 Sugar Price Per Ton From Us
A good quote needs good information. Send us these six things and we’ll come back with a firm figure:
- Grade (ICUMSA 45, or another if you’re flexible)
- Packing (50kg bags, jumbo bags, retail packs or your own brand)
- Quantity per shipment and how often
- Destination port
- Incoterm you prefer (FOB, CFR or CIF)
- Any special specs, such as granulation size or SO2 limit
You’ll get back an ICUMSA 45 sugar price per ton with the Incoterm, the port, the shipment period and how long the offer is valid. In a market that moves daily, a validity of a few days is normal. A supplier who holds a price for a month is either padding it or not planning to deliver.
Payment Terms, Minimum Order and Lead Time
Our minimum order for ICUMSA 45 is one 20ft container, about 25 tons, and the ICUMSA 45 sugar price per ton gets better as volume grows. Most new buyers start with one or two containers, check the quality, then move to regular monthly shipments.
We work with letter of credit at sight and other terms agreed in the contract. If you’re new to documentary credits, our guide to the letter of credit for rice import explains how they work step by step, and the process is the same for sugar.
Lead time from signed contract to loading is usually two to four weeks for bagged sugar. Regular buyers can lock in volumes and terms for the season through our supply contracts, which takes some of the sting out of price swings.
Shipping Worldwide
We load from Bangkok and Laem Chabang and ship to buyers in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, the Americas and Oceania. Freight is a big part of the landed ICUMSA 45 sugar price per ton, so we’ll route your containers through the line and transshipment port that gives the best transit time and freight for your destination. See our shipping page for how we handle bookings and paperwork.
Other Sugar We Supply
Most ICUMSA 45 buyers also ask about other sugar at some point. We supply:
- White sugar in other ICUMSA grades, including 100 to 150
- Brown sugar, light and dark
- Demerara sugar and muscovado sugar
- Powdered sugar and coconut sugar
- Invert sugar syrup in drums, IBCs and flexitanks
You can browse them all on our sugar for sale page, or read our Thai sugar supplier guide for the bigger picture.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the ICUMSA 45 sugar price per ton today?
It changes daily with the London white sugar market. In mid-October 2026 the ISO white sugar index was a little above $560 per ton. Physical Thai ICUMSA 45 trades close to that, adjusted for premium, packing and freight. Contact us for today’s figure on your terms.
Why is my quote different from the futures price?
Futures are a benchmark for sugar delivered under exchange rules. Your quote adds the Thai premium or discount, packing, inspection, freight and insurance. Those layers can add a fair amount, especially on CIF terms to distant ports.
Is a lower ICUMSA 45 sugar price per ton always better?
No. A price well below the benchmark usually means the offer isn’t real, or the sugar won’t meet spec. Compare quotes on the same Incoterm, packing and inspection terms before you decide.
What’s the minimum order?
One 20ft container, about 25 tons in 50kg bags. Bigger regular orders get a better ICUMSA 45 sugar price per ton.
Can I get a sample first?
Yes. We send samples with the lab analysis so you can test them before you commit.
Do you inspect every shipment?
Yes, and inspection is already built into our ICUMSA 45 sugar price per ton. Every lot is tested before loading, and you can appoint SGS or another independent surveyor to sample the sugar at loading.
How long is your price valid?
Usually a few days, because the market moves fast. We state the validity on every offer.
The ICUMSA 45 sugar price per ton you end up paying comes down to the market, your terms and the supplier you pick. We can’t control the first one. We can give you a clear quote, real specs and sugar that matches them. Send us your grade, volume and port and we’ll get back to you with a price.