Every export invoice hides costs GST never refunds — VAT on fuel, mandi tax, electricity duty, and a handful of other embedded charges that quietly eat into your margin on every shipment. The RoDTEP scheme was built to close exactly this gap, and it now touches almost every category of Indian export, from spices to steel. If you’re an exporter wondering whether you qualify, what the current rates look like, how long your scrips stay valid, or where most first-time claimants go wrong, this guide covers it end to end for 2026 — eligibility, rates, the claim process, and the small documentation errors that quietly cost exporters real money every year.

What is RoDTEP Scheme?

RoDTEP stands for Remission of Duties and Taxes on Exported Products — a government export incentive that refunds embedded central, state, and local duties that GST doesn’t cover, such as fuel VAT, coal cess, mandi tax, and electricity duty paid on inputs used to manufacture the exported goods. So what is RoDTEP scheme in practical terms? It’s a fixed percentage of your FOB export value, credited as a transferable duty scrip on ICEGATE, usable against future customs duty or sellable in the open market to another importer. This Remission of Duties and Taxes on Exported Products approach differs from older drawback schemes by targeting non-GST taxes specifically, rather than duty paid on imported inputs alone. It replaced the MEIS scheme in 2021 after MEIS was found to violate WTO subsidy rules, and it was designed from the ground up to stay compliant with those rules long-term.

Who Can Claim Under the RoDTEP Scheme?

Any manufacturer-exporter or merchant exporter registered with DGFT and holding a valid IEC can claim RoDTEP refunds, provided the goods are actually exported and payment is realised in foreign exchange. The scheme is largely product-agnostic, covering everything from cardamom to brass fittings, barring a short exclusion list that mostly covers items already benefiting from other duty exemptions, like SEZ and EOU units in certain cases. Before you even reach the claim stage, you need buyers lined up and shipping bills filed correctly; our guide on how to find buyers for export walks through that groundwork in detail.

To qualify for RoDTEP refunds, you need:

  • A valid Import Export Code (IEC) registered with DGFT
  • Shipping bills filed through ICEGATE with the RoDTEP declaration marked “Yes”
  • Export proceeds realised in foreign exchange within the RBI-prescribed period
  • Goods that don’t fall under the scheme’s negative or exclusion list
  • A valid AD Code registered at the port of export

Eligibility alone doesn’t guarantee a payout — your rate depends on HS code classification, and assuming one flat rate applies across the board is where many first-time exporters lose money. Two exporters shipping what looks like the same product on paper can end up with different scrip values simply because their HS codes sit in different rate brackets.

Sector coverage under RoDTEP is broad by design. Textile and garment exporters have historically claimed some of the higher rates, agricultural exporters shipping rice, spices, or processed food get smaller but steady refunds, and engineering and chemical exporters fall somewhere in between depending on how duty-intensive their inputs are. Pharma exporters, brass component manufacturers, and leather goods exporters all claim under the same mechanism, just at different rate slabs — which is exactly why checking your specific HS code matters more than reading a generic percentage online.

RoDTEP Scheme Rates List

The RoDTEP scheme rates list is published by DGFT as Appendix 4R and revised periodically, with adjustments carried through into 2026. Rates range from as low as 0.3% to as high as 4.3% of FOB value depending on HS code, and a few categories are capped at a fixed rupee amount per unit rather than a percentage — which matters for high-value, low-volume shipments where a percentage-based rate would otherwise pay out disproportionately. Here’s a quick snapshot of how rates break down across major export categories:

Export Category Typical RoDTEP Rate Cap (if any)
Textiles & Garments 2.5% – 4.3% Per-unit cap applies
Agricultural Products (rice, spices) 0.5% – 1.5% No cap
Engineering Goods 0.7% – 1.9% Value cap applies
Chemicals & Pharma 0.3% – 1.1% No cap
Leather & Footwear 1.5% – 2.4% Per-pair cap applies

These figures are indicative only — the exact rate for your specific HS code should always be checked on the DGFT portal before filing, since rates get revised without much public notice and a stale figure in an old blog post or PDF can cost you real money on a large shipment.

How to Claim RoDTEP Refund

Claiming your RoDTEP scheme refund starts well before the shipment leaves port — it starts at the quotation stage. Your proforma invoice, shipping bill, and export documentation all need to align, because any mismatch between declared value and actual realisation can hold up scrip generation for weeks. If you’re still finalising terms with a buyer, our breakdown of the proforma invoice process is worth reading first, since a poorly drafted one is where a lot of documentation mismatches originate.

Step-by-Step Claim Process

  1. Mark “Yes” against the RoDTEP column while filing your shipping bill on ICEGATE
  2. Wait for the shipping bill to move to “EGM filed” status after export
  3. The system auto-generates a scroll, and a duty credit scrip gets credited to your account
  4. Log in to ICEGATE to generate the scrip, then use or transfer it
  5. Use the scrip within its validity window to pay basic customs duty, or sell it in the open market

Documents Required for RoDTEP Claim

Keep your IEC certificate, AD Code registration, shipping bill copy, and BRC on hand — customs cross-checks these during scroll generation, and a mismatch anywhere in the chain is the single biggest reason claims get delayed or rejected outright. Smaller exporters often lose weeks simply because the AD Code on file with the bank doesn’t match the one declared on the shipping bill.

Benefits of RoDTEP Scheme

Beyond the refund itself, the RoDTEP scheme benefits go further than MEIS ever did — it’s WTO-compliant, so it’s far less likely to face the kind of trade dispute that shut MEIS down, and that’s why most consultants now rate the RoDTEP scheme Step-by-Step Process  benefits above any legacy incentive still floating around in outdated guides.

The core RoDTEP scheme benefits for exporters include:

  • Refunds on otherwise non-recoverable embedded taxes, like fuel VAT and mandi tax
  • Transferable duty credit scrips you can sell if you don’t need them
  • A WTO-compliant structure, lowering the risk of future scheme discontinuation
  • Automated processing through ICEGATE, cutting down manual paperwork
  • Coverage across nearly all export sectors, not just a select few

Smaller exporters in particular benefit from the automation angle — there’s no separate application form to chase, no manual approval queue, and no relationship-based processing that favours larger shipments over smaller ones. The scrip either generates against your shipping bill or it doesn’t, based purely on the declared data.

RoDTEP Scheme Validity

RoDTEP scheme validity works at two levels: the scheme itself, extended through successive budget cycles rather than a fixed sunset date, and the individual scrip, usable within one year of issue. Once a scrip lapses unused, that amount is gone — there’s no extension window, so exporters with lower shipment volumes should track scrip-level expiry closely rather than let scrips pile up unused in their ICEGATE ledger.

Common Mistakes That Delay RoDTEP Claims

Most delays trace back to three recurring errors. The first is forgetting to mark “Yes” against the RoDTEP declaration at the shipping bill stage — once a shipping bill is filed without it, there’s no retroactive fix, and that shipment’s refund is simply lost. The second is a mismatch between the AD Code registered with your bank and the one declared on the shipping bill, which stalls scroll generation until it’s corrected. The third is assuming your product’s rate without checking the current Appendix 4R entry for your exact HS code, which either overstates expected refunds or misses a recent downward revision entirely. None of these are complicated to avoid, but each one is common enough that customs officers and consultants see them weekly, and almost all of them trace back to a rushed filing rather than a genuine eligibility gap.

RoDTEP for MSME and First-Time Exporters

Smaller exporters often assume incentive schemes are built for large-volume shippers, but RoDTEP works the same way regardless of shipment size — there’s no minimum export value threshold, no separate application to file, and no approval committee deciding who qualifies. A first-time exporter shipping a single container gets the same automated scroll-and-scrip process as an established exporter shipping fifty. 

The one thing that trips up newer exporters more than volume ever does is documentation sequencing: filing the shipping bill before confirming the IEC and AD Code are both active and correctly linked to the bank account. For MSME exporters running lean teams without a dedicated compliance person, it’s worth building a simple pre-shipment checklist — IEC active, AD Code matched, RoDTEP box marked “Yes” — rather than relying on memory across multiple shipments a month. Consultants who work with first-time exporters usually catch this gap in the first two or three shipments; after that, it becomes routine.

RoDTEP vs Duty Drawback vs MEIS: What’s the Difference

Exporters often confuse RoDTEP with older or parallel schemes, so it’s worth separating the three clearly. Duty Drawback refunds customs duty paid specifically on imported inputs used in the export product — it’s narrower and only applies where you can prove import duty was paid. 

RoDTEP, by contrast, refunds embedded domestic taxes like fuel VAT and mandi tax that never show up as an import duty line item at all, which is why the two schemes are claimable together rather than as alternatives. MEIS, the scheme RoDTEP replaced, rewarded exports as a percentage of value regardless of actual tax burden, which is precisely the structure the WTO objected to. RoDTEP was deliberately designed to tie refunds to real, demonstrable tax incidence, which is what keeps it compliant where MEIS wasn’t.

Before You File: A Quick Compliance Check

Before submitting your first RoDTEP scheme claim, it’s worth confirming your registration details are current — an inactive or incorrectly linked IEC is one of the quieter reasons scrolls get stuck in processing without any clear error message. Running an IEC code verification check before you file saves you a follow-up trip to customs later, and it takes a fraction of the time a stuck scroll does to resolve.

Conclusion

The RoDTEP scheme isn’t complicated once you’ve filed a claim or two — the friction is almost always in documentation, not eligibility. Get your IEC, AD Code, and shipping bill declarations right from the first shipment, track the RoDTEP scheme rates list by HS code instead of assuming a flat percentage, and treat scrip validity as a deadline, not a formality. Build this into your shipping checklist and refunds land without the back-and-forth that trips up everyone else.

FAQs

Q1: What is RoDTEP scheme in simple terms?
RoDTEP (Remission of Duties and Taxes on Exported Products) is a government refund for embedded taxes on exported goods that GST doesn’t cover, paid out as a transferable duty credit scrip.

Q2: How are RoDTEP rates decided?
 DGFT sets rates by HS code under Appendix 4R, ranging roughly between 0.3% and 4.3% of FOB value, with periodic revisions.

Q3: What happens if I don’t use my scrip within RoDTEP scheme validity?
 The scrip lapses and the amount is forfeited — there’s no grace period, so it should be used or transferred before expiry.