Export Consultant for Small Business India | RASP International

An active Importer Exporter Code. GST registration. A current Udyam Registration Number if you intend to access MSME specific support, and most of the current interventions require it. AD Code registration at the port you will ship from. An RCMC from the relevant Export Promotion Council if you plan to claim benefits. Correct HS classification of your product at eight digits. Beyond that the requirement set depends on your product and destination market, and that is where the real cost sits.

The failure points are consistent. PAN not linked to Aadhaar, which blocks OTP authentication outright. A handwritten cancelled cheque, which is not accepted, so a pre printed cheque or a bank certificate is needed instead. A bank account name that does not match the firm name exactly, and the match is case sensitive. And a branch address entered out of the serial order shown on the GST certificate. Each of these is trivial to fix before submission and painful to fix after.

Yes. The updation window runs from 1 April to 30 June each year and it is mandatory even when nothing about your business has changed. Confirming an unchanged IEC is free. Modifying it carries a nominal fee. Missing the window deactivates the IEC, and a deactivated IEC will stop a shipment at the port. This is the single most common avoidable failure we see in small exporter files.

Interest subvention for pre and post shipment export credit was launched under the Export Promotion Mission by DGFT Trade Notice 20/2025-26 dated 2 January 2026, succeeding the older Interest Equalisation Scheme approach. The rate is 2.75 percent per annum on pre shipment and post shipment rupee export credit for Micro, Small and Medium enterprises. The maximum benefit is Rs 50 lakh per MSME exporter per financial year.

Eligibility requires an active IEC not on the Denied Entity List and a valid Udyam Registration Number, and the export must fall within a notified positive list of tariff lines at HSN six digit level. The step most exporters miss is that an online declaration of intent has to be filed before you apply for the export credit, which generates a Unique Identification Number. One UIN corresponds to one lending bank, so borrowing from two banks means two UINs. The UIN goes to your bank and the bank maps its subvention claims against it.

Trade Notice 22/2025-26 dated 16 January 2026 added further conditions. Subvention is not admissible on deemed exports. It is not admissible where the credit account turns non performing before the export cycle completes. And an exporter who grows out of the MSME category during the year stays eligible for three years from the date of reclassification.

Partially, through TRACE, the Trade Regulations, Accreditation and Compliance Enablement intervention under the Export Promotion Mission. It covers partial reimbursement of testing, inspection, certification, audit and traceability costs for MSMEs in international value chains, against a notified positive list of certifications.

Two conditions decide whether you can use it. Eligibility is prospective and applies only to activities undertaken on or after 20 February 2026, so historic certification spend is outside the scheme. And the intent to claim has to be filed before the certification is obtained. Exporters who certify first and read the guidelines afterwards lose the claim entirely, and there is no retrospective cure for it.

Failing to tick the RoDTEP declaration on the shipping bill checklist at the time of filing. It cannot be added retrospectively and it kills the entire claim for that shipment. Two other failure points come close: a mismatch between the AD code, IFSC and account number registered against your IEC, and a wrong HS code, because RoDTEP rates are set against the eight digit code and the wrong one silently reduces or zeroes the remission rather than throwing an error.

RoDTEP was reduced by 50 percent on 23 February 2026 under Notification 60/2025-26, restored in full on 23 March 2026 under Notification 66/2025-26, and extended to 30 September 2026 under Notification 74/2025-26. ITC HS Chapters 01 to 24 were exempt from the reduction. Plan cash flow around the current end date rather than assuming continuity.

Duty Drawback pays into your bank account directly. RoDTEP issues a transferable scrip, which you either use against your own import duty or sell. A scrip can only be sold 24 hours after issuance, and scrip validity is two years under Notification 79/2022-Customs N.T. For a small exporter with no import leg, that difference changes when the money actually reaches you, which matters more than the headline rate.

You need one if you intend to claim scheme benefits or apply for certain DGFT authorisations. The council depends on your product, and the classification decision is not always obvious for products sitting between two categories. Registering with the wrong council means your RCMC does not support the benefit you are trying to claim, and correcting it costs more time than getting it right at the outset. RCMC registration is worth doing early.

Market Access Support, launched under the Export Promotion Mission by trade notice dated 31 December 2025, covers buyer seller meets, reverse buyer seller meets, trade fairs and exhibitions. It is implemented through the Trade Connect ePlatform at trade.gov.in, with Export Promotion Councils and other approved bodies acting as organising agencies. Participation runs through those agencies rather than through direct individual application, so your council relationship determines your access.

Not by mass emailing importer lists. The approach that works is narrowing to a defined market and product code, building a verified contact list of actual decision makers rather than generic company inboxes, and running structured outreach with follow up discipline. We run this as a defined engagement with a tracked contact list rather than as an open ended promise, because buyer sourcing without measurement is indistinguishable from noise. See buyer research for how we scope it.

Handicrafts and stone products, leather goods, textiles and apparel, processed food, herbal and ayurvedic products, engineering and auto components, chemicals and detergents, and agricultural commodities, into the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, Gulf markets, Africa and South East Asia. Our base in Agra puts us close to the handicraft, leather and stone clusters, and we work with exporters across India remotely.

Confirm your IEC is active and that annual updation was completed in the April to June window. Verify your Udyam registration is current, because most Export Promotion Mission interventions require it. Check whether your product sits on the positive list for interest subvention before you take export credit, and file the intent first if it does. If certification is coming, file the TRACE intent to claim before you certify, not after. And check your last three shipping bills for the RoDTEP declaration, because that tells you whether you have been losing remission without noticing.