RoDTEP and RoSCTL End on 30 September 2026: The 33 Day Window, and What We Think Happens on 1 October

The short answer, before anything else

Two of India’s biggest export rebate schemes sit on the same sunset date. RoDTEP and RoSCTL both stop on 30 September 2026 unless the government moves again.

Most exporters have read a headline about this and moved on. Very few have checked whether their own shipping bills from the last six months are actually claimable. Fewer still have looked at the scrips already sitting in their account, quietly running down their validity.

This guide covers four things. What is verified. What is still open. The mistakes that silently zero out a claim. And our own read on what the government does on 1 October, with the reasoning shown so you can disagree with it.

What exactly is ending

There are two separate schemes covering different goods. Exporters confuse them constantly and file the wrong one.

Both extensions landed on the same day. Both carried existing rates and conditions forward with no change.

Primary sources: the <a href=”https://w

ww.dgft.gov.in/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>DGFT portal, the Ministry of Textiles and the Press Information Bureau. Verify your position against these before you price a contract.

31 March 202

6: Notification 74/2025-26 extended the scheme to 30 September 2026 at those restored rates and value caps under Appendix 4R and Appendix 4RE.
• 30 April 2026: t

he schedule itself was realigned under DGFT Notification No. 15/2026-2027, splitting several 8 digit codes.

Current position: full rates, not half. Products in HS Chapters 01 to 24 were exempt from the February cut entirely.

If your accounts team booked RoDTEP receivables at the reduced level between late February and late March, those numbers are understated. Our RoDTEP rates 2026 guide has the full notification trail and the code splits from the April realignment.

Which scheme applies to your goods

The textile sector is split down the middle. This causes more wrong claims than any other product group in India.

You cannot claim RoSCTL and RoDTEP on the same consignment. You also cannot claim a rebate twice for the same embedded tax under two schemes.

<p>Duty Drawback is separate. It covers Basic Customs Duty incidence on imported inputs. For many apparel lines, RoSCTL plus Drawback is a legitimate stack and delivers the highest total rebate. Getting that stack right is worth real money on every single shipment.

Full breakdown on our RoSCTL scheme page and the RoDTEP scheme page.

The requirements, and the mistakes that kill claims

Claims do not die in the application. They die months earlier, in things nobody checked.

<h3>What are the core eligibility conditions?

• A valid Importer Exporter Code (IEC)
• Goods must be of Indian origin
• You must not be on the DGFT Denied Entity List
• A commercial shipment declared on a shipping bill
• Realisation expected through a banking channel
• No minimum turnover requirement

Both manufacturer exporters and merchant exporters qualify.&lt;/p>

<h3>What is the one mistake that kills a claim completel

y?

The RoDTEP declaration on the shipping bill.

>

You must mark the RoDTEP claim option as “Y” at the time of filing</strong>. If it was not marked, <strong>it cannot be added afterwards. The claim for that consignment is gone. No representation, no amendment, no exception.

We have seen exporters lose a full year of rebate because one person in a CHA office left a box unticked on repeat shipments and nobody checked the file for eleven months.

Audit your shipping bills from 1 April 2026 onward for this today.</strong> Even if you find losses, you stop the bleeding on everything still to be filed before 30 September.

The scrip, and the part nobody helps you with

RoDTEP and RoSCTL do not pay cash into your bank account. That is Duty Drawback.

These schemes issue a transferable duty credit e-scrip</strong>. You either use it against Basic Customs Duty on your own imports, or you sell it to someone who does import.

Scrip buyers are importers who need to pay customs duty. They want size. A large, clean, freshly issued scrip is easy to place and moves close to face value.

<p>Two situations get punished.

Small value scrips. A small exporter with a handful of shipments ends up with a scrip too small to interest a serious buyer. Brokers ignore it because the commission does not justify the paperwork. The exporter either sits on it or dumps it at a heavy discount.

Scrips near expiry. Once a scrip is close to its two year limit, the seller has no leverage. Everyone in the market can see the clock. Buyers quote deliberately poor rates because they know the alternative is zero. Many exporters accept it because they believe they have no choice.

In both cases the exporter is not being cheated by one buyer. They are being priced by a thin market with nobody bidding.

Nobody outside the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Finance knows the decision. Anyone stating it as certain is guessing. But the constraints are visible, and they narrow the range.

Scenario one: another short extension

This is the established pattern, and in our view the most likely outcome. RoDTEP has been extended repeatedly in short blocks, and each extension has landed within days of the previous expiry, giving exporters no planning runway.

The natural next block is 1 October 2026 to 31 March 2027, aligning the scheme to the financial year end.

Arguments for it:

• Extension has become the default response</li>
• The 16th Finance Commission cycle framework is
• still bei

ng worked out, and a bridge is the low friction option

• Sector pressure remains real despit

e the headline export recovery <li>The March 2026 destination shocks are recent enough to make withdrawal politically expensive

<p><strong>Watch for the announcement in the last ten days of September.</strong> Based on past behaviour, do not expect it earlier.

Scenario two: absorption into the Export Promotion Mission

Possible, but the arithmetic is not ready.

Budget documents have proposed converging RoDTEP and RoSCTL into the Export Promotion Mission after appraisal and approval. As of August 2026 that had not happened.

Here is the number that decides it.

The Export Promotion Mission has a total outlay of Rs 25,060 crore spread across six years</strong>, FY 2025-26 to FY 2030-31. That is roughly Rs 4,200 crore a year</strong> for everything the Mission does, across Niryat Protsahan and Niryat Disha, credit support, market access, logistics and certification.

RoDTEP alone cost Rs 13,020 crore in FY 2022-23.

RoDTEP by itself is around three times the entire annual EPM budget. The Mission cannot absorb RoDTEP at its current outlay without a very large top up that has not been announced.

Our read: full absorption on 1 October is unlikely. The money is not there yet. Absorption is a FY 2027-28 conversation, not a next month one.

Scenario three: lapse or a fresh rationalisation

Lower probability, not zero.

February 2026 showed the government is willing to cut rates when fiscal pressure builds, and willing to reverse when the sector pushes back hard enough.&lt;/p&gt;

A repeat rationalisation, rather than a clean lapse, is the more realistic version of this scenario. A hard lapse with no replacement would be a s

ignificant policy break and would hit exactly the MSME and labour intensive exporters the government has spent a year saying it wants to protect.

RoDTEP is also structured as a remission of embedded taxes rather than a subsidy, which is what keeps it defensible internationally. That design argues for continuation in some form rather than abandonment.

What about RoSCTL specifica

lly?

RoSCTL carries an extra trigger the others do

not. The 16th Finance Commission approval can land before 30 September and replace the current terms mi

d stream.

Apparel exporters therefore face two dates,

<p>not one. Treat any date before 30 September as live.

So what should you act

ually do?

&lt;strong>Plan as if it will be extended. File as if it will not.</p>

That sounds like a contradiction. It is not. Keep your export contracts priced on the assumption that some form of remission cont

inues, because the odds favour it. But get every claimable rupee from the current window filed before 30 September, because if you are wrong, there is no second chance.

<p>The people who get hurt in these transitio

ns are never the ones who filed early.

Frequently asked q

uestions

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