# The Label Is the Law: What the Fur Products Labeling Act Actually Requires

Source: https://fauxfinder.com/blog/2026-11-14-fur-labeling-law-faux-vs-real/

FauxFinder blog · 2026-11-11


Published 2026-11-14

Fur is the one apparel material a shopper cannot identify by touch or sight, and Congress answered that problem in 1951 with a naming law. The Fur Products Labeling Act, enforced by the Federal Trade Commission at 16 CFR Part 301, does not let a manufacturer pick its own vocabulary. Every garment made entirely or partly with fur must carry a label disclosing the animal's name according to the Fur Products Name Guide, the name or Registered Identification Number of the manufacturer, importer, or seller, the country of origin for imported fur, and whether the fur was pointed, dyed, bleached, or artificially colored. If none of those treatments were used, the label should say "natural." The statute reaches any product made in whole or in part of fur, which puts the trim on a parka hood inside the law, along with fur-lined shoes and gloves with rabbit cuffs. Any real fur anywhere on a garment pulls the whole product under the statute.

The Name Guide is where the deception used to live, and the law closes it by force. The label must carry the animal's name as listed: "raccoon dog" if that is the species, even though the garment trade spent years pushing "Asiatic raccoon" as the friendlier noun. It is illegal to label a fur with the name of any animal other than the animal that produced the fur, and illegal to use coined or fictitious animal names. The 2010 amendment, the Truth in Fur Labeling Act, tightened exactly this point. Mislabeled raccoon dog trim had been turning up sold as raccoon, as fox, and in some cases as faux fur, and the response was to make the animal-name requirement absolute. The same amendment added the country of origin to the mandatory set: you must state the fur's origin with the words "Fur Origin," for example "Fur Origin: Russia," even if you add the name of the fur's country of origin before the animal name. The country of origin of the fur garment may be different from the country of origin of the fur itself, and imported garments must be marked under the marking statute, 19 U.S.C. section 1304, enforced by US Customs and Border Protection.

## What else the label must say, and what it never says

A compliant label carries a fixed set of disclosures, and every one of them is load-bearing. If the fur product is composed of more than 10 percent of surface area of pieces, such as paws, tails, bellies, gills, ears, throats, heads, scraps, or waste fur, that must be disclosed. If the fur is used or damaged, that must be disclosed too: a rebuilt coat sold as new is misbranding, in the same category as a rolled-back odometer. The textile or wool content of the product, its country of origin, and its manufacturer or dealer identity must be disclosed as well. The label on a wool coat with fur trim must disclose the wool content as required by the Wool Act, and the content of a fur coat lining must be disclosed if the lining provides added warmth or contains any wool. The Dog and Cat Protection Act of 2000 prohibits importing, exporting, selling, trading, advertising, transporting, or distributing any products made with dog or cat fur, outright.

For the shopper, the label is the only reliable test, and it reads like a sentence once you know the grammar. A fully compliant label reads like "Genuine Fur: Dyed Mink, Origin: Denmark," and a label missing any single element is the specific condition the Act was written to stop. The faux side is governed by the mirror's honesty rather than the label's detail: the FTC's general deception authority prohibits imitation sold as genuine, and in the rarer entries, genuine sold as imitation. The garment whose trim says faux says it plainly, and the garment whose trim is real carries the statutory label the imitation never needs. When the two blur, the label is not a formality. It is the law's answer to the question the photograph cannot settle.

Keep reading: [Real Fur vs Faux Fur: Part the Hairs and Look at the Base](https://fauxfinder.com/blog/2026-11-13-real-vs-faux-fur-how-to-tell/), [Bonded Leather Is Barely Leather, and the Label Knows It](https://fauxfinder.com/blog/2026-11-13-bonded-leather-vs-faux-leather-labels/), and [Superfake Handbags: When the Copy Passes the Eye Test](https://fauxfinder.com/blog/2026-11-11-superfake-handbags-how-to-spot/) cover the nearby cases in this series.

## Frequently asked questions

### What must a fur label disclose under US law?

Under the Fur Products Labeling Act, enforced by the FTC at 16 CFR Part 301, the label must disclose the animal's name from the Fur Products Name Guide, the maker's name or Registered Identification Number, the country of origin for imported fur, and whether the fur was dyed, bleached, pointed, or artificially colored.

### Can a label call raccoon dog fur Asiatic raccoon?

No. The label must use the animal's name as listed in the Name Guide, so raccoon dog must be labeled raccoon dog. It is illegal to label fur with the name of any other animal, or to use coined or fictitious animal names. The 2010 Truth in Fur Labeling Act made the animal-name requirement absolute.

### Does the labeling law cover fur trim, or only full fur coats?

It covers any product made in whole or in part of fur, including the trim on a parka hood, fur-lined shoes, and gloves with rabbit cuffs. Any real fur anywhere on a garment pulls the whole product under the statute.

### Is dog or cat fur legal to sell in the US?

No. The Dog and Cat Protection Act of 2000 prohibits importing, exporting, selling, trading, advertising, transporting, or distributing any products made with dog or cat fur.