Here’s How a North Texas Small or Medium (SME) Business Lands Its First International Customer
Most Texas companies that export are small. Of the state's 40,415 identified exporters in 2023, 92.3 percent were small businesses, according to the SBA. You do not need scale to sell internationally. You need one qualified market, a way to get paid, and somebody who has done it before.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
92.3 percent of Texas exporters were small businesses in 2023, accounting for 40.9 percent of export value.
The help is local and the counseling is free. There is a U.S. Commercial Service office serving Dallas-Fort Worth. Matchmaking and background reports carry fees.
The Supreme Court struck down the IEEPA tariffs in February 2026, but Section 232 tariffs on steel, aluminum and autos remain in force.
83.6 percent of Canadian and Mexican imports claimed a USMCA exemption in June 2026 — the most useful fact for a North Texas company.
How many Texas small businesses actually export?
Nearly all of them are small. Texas is the largest exporting state in the country, and per the SBA’s Office of Advocacy, 37,283 of its 40,415 identified exporters in 2023 were small businesses. Locally the concentration holds: the North Texas District Export Council reports 87 percent of Dallas-metro exporters are small or medium sized firms, on 2021 data. If you assumed exporting starts at a size you have not reached, the numbers say otherwise.
What a first export sale actually looks like
Smaller and duller than people imagine. It is usually one customer, in one country, buying one thing you already make, often because they found you rather than the reverse. Not a market entry strategy, not a distributor network, not a foreign subsidiary. Those come later, if at all.
I spent 25 years as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer with the Commerce Department's International Trade Administration, posted in China, South Africa, Mexico, the Netherlands, Jordan and Peru. I worked with Texas SMEs when I was at the U.S. Export Assistance Center in Forth Worth. I sat in a great many first meetings between a U.S. company and a foreign buyer, and the pattern held. The deals that worked started narrow. The ones that fell apart were the ambitious ones, where an owner tried to solve distribution for a whole region before proving one customer would pay. What killed them was rarely price and often pace: in the Netherlands, three meetings of rapport-building read as evasive, while in Jordan and Peru, pushing for a signature in the first meeting told the room you were not planning to stay.
What help exists, and what it costs
The U.S. Commercial Service runs an office serving Dallas-Fort Worth, one of more than 100 nationally, staffed by trade specialists whose job is to help local companies sell abroad. Most owners have no idea it exists.
Export counseling and readiness assessment — free. Whether your product, capacity and paperwork can survive an international order before you accept one.
Country market research — free. Which markets have demand for your category, and who is already competing there.
Vetted buyer introductions, the Gold Key Service. Staff in the destination country identify, vet and arrange meetings with up to five interested partners. $3,250 for the full service; appointment arrangement alone starts at $225.
A background check on the company that just emailed you, the International Company Profile. $150 partial, $700 full with a site visit. If an unfamiliar overseas buyer approaches you, buy the report before you ship anything.
Advocacy on foreign government tenders, the Advocacy Center — no fee. Commercial officers can advocate for you at senior levels of the host government. I have made those calls.
What tariffs mean for a small exporter in 2026
Less than the headlines suggest. On 20 February 2026, in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, the Supreme Court held that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorize the President to impose tariffs, removing a large tranche of duties. The Court declined to address other statutes, so Section 232 tariffs on steel, aluminum and autos remain in force, and per the Penn Wharton Budget Modelthe average effective rate was still 7.1 percent in June 2026.
The number that matters most here is different: 83.6 percent of Canadian and Mexican imports claimed a USMCA exemption in June 2026. Your two nearest foreign markets are, for most goods, still functionally duty free if you handle the origin paperwork. Mexico is a nine-hour drive from Fort Worth, and I spent two and a half years posted in the north of it. Look there before you look across an ocean.
How you actually get paid
This is the part that ends most first-time exporters, and it is boring enough that owners skip it until it is a crisis. You are extending credit across a border to a company you cannot easily sue. Decide the terms before youquote, because the terms are part of the price.
Use payment in advance or a letter of credit on a first order. A first-time buyer who will not accept either is telling you something.
Price the payment terms into the quote. If you offer 60-day terms to win the deal, that financing cost belongs in the number.
Ask about export credit insurance before you need it. The Export-Import Bank insures foreign receivables for small businesses at up to 95 percent of an invoice, against commercial and political loss.
Get the origin paperwork right from the first shipment. For Canada and Mexico, USMCA origin documentation is what turns a tariff into no tariff.
Should a $2 million business even try?
Only if the domestic business is stable enough to survive the distraction. An international order consumes owner attention out of proportion to its size, and attention is the scarcest resource in a business this size. If you are already the bottleneck at home, adding a time zone will not help. But if the domestic business is steady and growth has flattened, a second market is one of the few genuinely new sources of demand available to you. The question is not whether you are big enough. It is whether you can absorb one new customer who happens to be in Guadalajara.
Frequently asked questions
How does a small Texas business start exporting?
Start with one product and one market, then contact the U.S. Commercial Service office serving Dallas-Fort Worth for free counseling, a readiness assessment and country market research. 92.3 percent of Texas exporters are small businesses, so the support infrastructure is built for companies your size.
Do tariffs make exporting a bad idea in 2026?
Not for most exporters. The Supreme Court struck down the IEEPA tariffs in February 2026, and the average effective rate stood at 7.1 percent in June. Tariffs mainly raise the cost of what you import, so selling into a second currency can hedge that exposure.
Is exporting to Mexico or Canada still duty free under USMCA?
For most qualifying goods, yes. 83.6 percent of Canadian and Mexican imports claimed a USMCA exemption in June 2026. It depends on correct rules-of-origin documentation, so the paperwork is the actual requirement.
If a second market is on your mind, the first question is not which country. It is whether your business can
absorb a new kind of customer at all. The free Business Snapshot will give you a read on that. Then book a conversation with me. I spent 25 years helping American companies do this from the government's side of the table, and I will tell you plainly whether I think you are ready.
