Journal · Surf industry
How surfboards are made today: the industry behind the board
The shaper in a dusty bay is still the image. The reality is factories in Asia, machines that cut the blank, big-box foam boards and famous logos that no longer make anything. Here is how a board really reaches the rack.
Short answer: a board on the rack today usually comes from one of three places. A local shaper, whose blank is usually cut by a CNC machine and finished by hand. A large factory in Asia, like Cobra International in Thailand, which builds stock boards for several well-known brands. Or a mass-market foam board sold in big-box stores. Many of the biggest names in surf are now licensed brands that own a logo, not a workshop.
Three ways a board reaches you
Custom
Ordered from a shaper. The blank is usually cut by a machine from a digital file and finished by hand, then glassed in a local workshop.
Factory stock
Made in volume, often in Asia, to a brand’s designs and shipped finished around the world. Most boards you can buy off the rack.
Mass-market foam
Soft-top boards moulded in large runs and sold through supermarkets, warehouse clubs and online marketplaces, often at a fraction of the price of a hard board.
All three can make a good board. The difference is where it is made, who makes it, what it is made from and what happens when it breaks.
The factory
The largest composite board maker in the world is Cobra International, in Chonburi, Thailand. It started in 1978 building windsurf boards and today employs well over 2,000 people. In a 2025 factory tour, Surfer described it building boards for JS, Haydenshapes and Firewire, among others.
Brands are open about it. Haydenshapes, for example, says its global stock is built at Cobra, while its custom boards are made in Sydney. In 2018 its founder, Hayden Cox, told Surfer that about 65% of his boards were made in Thailand, and that the Sydney-made ones cost around 100 dollars more.
China matters too. Trade data analysed by Panjiva showed that in the year to July 2019, China supplied 68.8% of the surfboards shipped by sea into the United States. That figure likely includes foam boards.
Factory boards are not bad boards. Factories are consistent, and a well-run one can have better working conditions and air extraction than a small bay. But the model has a shape: design in one country, materials from another, production in a third, and a finished, bulky product shipped around the world to reach a beach.
The foam board at the supermarket
The fastest-growing part of the market in the last decade was not a performance board. It was the soft-top. In 2015, Fortune reported that the Wavestorm, an 8-foot foam board sold at Costco for about 100 dollars, had sold around 500,000 units and was the best-selling board in the US. The head of the surf industry association told the magazine that seeing surfboards at Costco was “not what we’d like to see”.
Foam boards brought a lot of people into the water, and that is good. They also turned the surfboard into a cheap, disposable object for many buyers: bought for a summer, left in a garage, thrown away.
The shaper and the machine
Shaping machines have been around since the 1970s and were normal practice by the mid-1990s. Today, a shaper usually designs the board in software, a CNC machine cuts the blank, and the shaper finishes it by hand. At Channel Islands, Fortune described that hand-finishing as about 30 minutes per board.
We don’t see this as a loss. Machines give precision and repeatability, and we use CNC ourselves to cut every frame. The question is not machine or hand. It is where the finished board is made and by whom, and whether the design reaches the surfer as a closed product or as something they can build, understand and repair.
Brands without workshops
Some of the most famous names in surf no longer run their own production:
- Channel Islands was bought by Burton in 2006. In 2020, a group led by Britt Merrick with the staff and team riders bought it back.
- Quiksilver went through bankruptcy in 2015, became Boardriders and bought Billabong in 2018.
- In 2023, Authentic Brands Group, a brand-licensing company, bought Boardriders for about 1.25 billion dollars, including Quiksilver, Billabong, Roxy and RVCA. Their operation was licensed to another company, Liberated Brands, which filed for bankruptcy in February 2025.
The logo you see on a board or a wetsuit may belong to a company whose business is licensing, not making. That is not illegal and not always bad. But it is a long way from the story surf brands like to tell.
How many boards? Nobody knows
You will find figures online for how many surfboards are made each year. They range from about 400,000 to several million, and none of them is audited. We won’t give you a number we can’t trace. What is clear is that most of those boards are foam and resin, most are built far from where they are surfed, and very few are designed to be repaired rather than replaced.
What to ask before you buy
- Where was it made? Stock or custom, and in which country.
- Who shaped it? A person, a file, or both.
- What is the core? PU foam, EPS, wood, or something else.
- Can it be repaired? And by whom, near you.
- How long will you keep it? The most sustainable board is the one you are still riding in ten years.
For the environmental side of these choices, read Is surfing sustainable? The green paradox of the surfboard.
FAQ
Where are most surfboards made?
A large share of off-the-rack boards are made in big factories in Asia, such as Cobra International in Thailand, and China is a major supplier to the US market. Custom boards are still mostly made locally by shapers and glassing shops.
Are machine-shaped surfboards worse?
No. Most boards today are cut by a CNC machine and finished by hand. The machine gives precision and repeatability. What matters more is the design, the materials and the finishing.
What is a pop-out surfboard?
A board made in a mould in large numbers rather than shaped individually. The term is often used for mass-produced stock boards and foam boards.
How many surfboards are made each year?
There is no reliable figure. Published estimates range from about 400,000 to several million a year, and none is independently audited.
Do big surf brands make their own boards?
Some do, many don’t. Several of the best-known surf names are now owned by licensing companies, and many brands have their stock boards built by large contract factories.
Keep reading
Guide
Paulownia wood for surfboards: the builder’s guide
Density, stability and durability with lab data, and a real cut list for a hollow board.
Read →The tree
What is Paulownia? The tree, the wood and what’s true about it
Botany, uses from Japan to surfboards, main properties, and the myths that don’t hold up.
Read →Sustainability
Is surfing sustainable? The green paradox of the surfboard
Foam, resin and surf travel: what the data say, and what really changes with a wooden board.
Read →Build local
Build local: a different economy for surfboards
The design travels, the board is built near the wave. Where the idea comes from and where it falls short.
Read →From the box to the wave, built by you
Design, CNC-cut frame and prepared Paulownia, shipped flat. The board is made where you surf it.
Sources
- Surfer (22 Aug 2025). Inside the Cobra factory.
- CompositesWorld. Watersports manufacturer diversifies into new markets, processes (Cobra International).
- Haydenshapes. Manufacturing. And Surfer (23 Aug 2018), Imported surfboards and surf culture.
- Panjiva / S&P Global (26 Aug 2019). Surfboard makers ride tariff wave out of China.
- Fortune (29 Oct 2015). The Costco surfboard.
- Fortune (7 Oct 2023). How a Channel Islands surfboard is designed and built.
- Swellnet (22 May 2015). Shaping machines and cut-and-paste modern design.
- Swellnet (25 Nov 2020). Channel Islands employees buy the company from Burton.
- Shop-Eat-Surf (Sep 2023). Authentic Brands’ purchase of Boardriders officially closes.
- Financier Worldwide (6 Feb 2025). Liberated Brands files for Chapter 11 protection.
