Customs & Foreign Trade Policy

Customs and foreign trade policy is the framework that governs what can be imported into and exported from India and on what terms. The two pillars are the Customs Act 1962 — which levies and administers the duties — and the Foreign Trade (Development and Regulation) Act 1992, under which the Central Government frames the Foreign Trade Policy administered by the DGFT. The Foreign Trade Policy classifies goods into free, restricted, prohibited and canalised categories, and houses the export incentive schemes — Advance Authorisation, Duty Drawback, RoDTEP and the EPCG scheme — that shape the economics of exporting.

For an exporter, the policy layer is where the money is. Every shipment that qualifies for a scheme — the duty-free inputs of Advance Authorisation, the duty remission of RoDTEP, the duty exemption of EPCG — is carrying recoverable value that most businesses leave unclaimed because the paperwork is unfamiliar. For an importer, the policy layer is the list of what is permitted and what needs a licence.

The cost of policy blindness is silent and structural: exports priced without the incentive built in, imports ordered without checking the import policy classification, and benefit schemes left unclaimed year after year. Where the same goods are handled differently by different exporters, the difference in margin is almost always the schemes one of them claims and the other does not.

This service is for importers and exporters who want the policy layer of their business run professionally. We map your products against the import-export policy under the FT(D&R) Act 1992, identify the incentive schemes your exports qualify for under the Foreign Trade Policy, manage IEC and RCMC registrations, support scheme applications and export obligation tracking, and keep your customs operations aligned with the current policy.