Import from China to India: a BIS licence need not name your seller.

Check IEC, tax and bank requirements before shipment

IEC — Importer Exporter Code. Issued by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT). Its Foreign Trade Policy, paragraph 2.05, requires an IEC for goods imports unless specifically exempted. It also requires an annual electronic update or confirmation during April–June. Issuing the code is not the end of the upkeep. Source checked on 9 September 2026.

GST and import tax. Ask your tax adviser which registration and input-credit rules apply to your business and goods. Check the tax documents needed for any credit you intend to claim; registration alone does not establish eligibility.

Bank and customs account details. Ask your bank and broker which ICEGATE bank-account or Authorised Dealer code steps apply to your transaction. Export-remittance and incentive instructions do not by themselves establish a requirement for every import at every port.

Check IEC rules with DGFT, tax rules with your adviser and payment steps with your bank. These checks do not confirm who the Chinese seller is.

Whether your product needs BIS, and why that certificate points at the Chinese factory

India uses Quality Control Orders (QCOs) to make specified standards and certification mandatory for covered products. The order sets the scope, scheme, dates and exceptions. An ISI licence is not the only BIS route; check which scheme applies to your product.

BIS distinguishes FMCS and CRS. The Foreign Manufacturers Certification Scheme (FMCS) grants foreign manufacturers licences to use the Standard Mark on covered products. The Compulsory Registration Scheme covers notified electronics and IT goods. Match the maker, site, product and licence or registration; do not treat all BIS documents as one scheme.

The maker named on a BIS document may differ from the trader invoicing you. That difference alone does not settle whether the goods are covered. Match the product, maker and site to the licence or registration, then obtain documents linking the seller to those goods. Ask BIS to confirm coverage where the chain is unclear.

Check the effective order before ordering. Use the BIS compulsory-certification list and linked amendments for your product’s standard, start date and exceptions. This page does not assign one deadline to all electrical appliances.

Duty, HS classification and clearance: not our lane, and not a guide’s either

Duty rates, IGST and cess change by product and by notification: get the number from your customs broker or the official tariff, not from a general guide. This page explains how to compare the Chinese company record with your order documents. Ask your broker whether that work is included.

There is no single duty rate for all imports from China. The rate depends on the product’s tariff classification and the measures in force on the day of entry, including any applicable anti-dumping or safeguard duty.

Ask your customs broker for a landed-cost estimate against the actual HS code. Treat the classification itself as a decision worth getting right early. The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs is the authority on it; a supplier’s quotation carries no such authority. Confirm a supplier’s duty estimate against the current tariff and your product classification.

We do not clear customs, we do not quote freight, and we do not calculate duty. A page that pretended otherwise would be the least useful thing on this site.

The China-side check that is actually ours

Agree who will check the Chinese seller and payee. Do not assume that customs, tax or freight services include that work.

A Chinese company exists in a state register under one exact Chinese name and one 18-character Unified Social Credit Code. The English name on an Alibaba storefront, an email signature or a proforma invoice (a draft invoice used to confirm the deal before you pay) is a trading style. An English name may return candidates from a commercial search. It does not confirm the Chinese legal entity. So the first question is mechanical. Does the name and code they gave you resolve to a live registered entity, and is that entity registered for the activity you are buying?

Before payment, settle the beneficiary question. Does the bank account you have been asked to pay belong to that same registered company? When the beneficiary is a different company, an individual, or an account in a third jurisdiction, that is not automatically fraud. But it is always something to resolve before the wire, because a transfer recall or recovery is not guaranteed. Ask your bank about the available process.

The registry check returns the source and query date for company records. Comparing document names is a separate step; we cannot confirm bank-account ownership. Ask your bank how to check the beneficiary and resolve any different payee before transferring funds.

Agree the payee and tooling terms before payment

The deposit. Resolve the seller and payee before sending it. A transfer recall or recovery is not guaranteed; ask your bank about the process.

Tooling and moulds. Agree the price, ownership, storage and release terms in writing before work starts. Check who receives the payment and who holds the tooling.

If a supplier explains a beneficiary mismatch with urgency, a frozen account, a year-end audit, a “temporary” alternative — treat the urgency itself as the reason to slow down.

What this page deliberately does not tell you

Which products are profitable to import. That is a market question about your channel and your margins, and anyone answering it from a distance is guessing. What can be put a number on is the flow itself: Chinese customs export values to 253 destinations, India among them, for the first half of 2026. That sizes a lane without saying anything about your margins.

The original country-filtered read was recovered on 10 September 2026. Its nine impressions and average position of 45 describe this whole site. They are not visits or evidence that this page alone appeared nine times. An average position is not a fixed results page. These figures do not measure buyer demand.

Duty rates, freight quotes and transit times. Country-specific, date-specific, and better sourced from your broker and forwarder this week than from any guide.

Whether the goods will be any good. A company record does not establish product quality. Use an approved sample and inspection against a written specification as evidence for the goods you order.

Whether a certificate is genuine. We verify the Chinese entity named on it against the Chinese public record. Confirming that a BIS licence is live and covers the product is a question for BIS.

Before the transfer: the four names, and why BIS makes this sharper in India

Ask who is responsible for checking the seller and payee; do not assume it is included in a broker or sourcing service. Who exactly am I paying, and is that the same party I contracted with? Put four names side by side, literally as written, before any deposit leaves:

A mismatch is not proof of fraud. A factory and a trading company can have separate roles, but those roles need documents. In the saved 264-record study, 67 scopes lacked import-export wording (25.4%). That does not prove an inability to export or explain where a buyer’s money goes. Get the seller, exporter and payee roles in writing before payment.

Where India differs. For goods under FMCS, identify the licensed manufacturer and factory as well as the seller and payee. These can be different companies. Document the connection to the actual goods and check the licence’s product coverage. A different seller name does not alone prove that the consignment is outside the licence.

Use the name-comparison tool in your browser before ordering records: four-party comparison. To confirm the registered identity behind any of those names: how to search the Chinese registry, or check an 18-character code locally with the USCI check-digit tool.

Registry records can change. On 8 August 2026, 145 of the 264 saved records had a change dated within the preceding 12 months (54.9%). This does not mean that every older report is invalid. Recheck details material to the payment. We do not confirm bank-account ownership, clear customs or approve product compliance.

If you already have a supplier in front of you

Ask for a photograph of the business licence (营业执照) to get the exact registered Chinese name and the 18-character code. Then check them against the public record rather than against the document you were sent. Use the returned source and query date when comparing the record with your documents.

Open the free factory-or-trader check

The free tool reads pasted scope text in your browser. Live record lookup depends on the commercial source being available. Every line we deliver names its source and the date it was queried, and states what it cannot show. We verify records. We do not certify suppliers, and we are not a substitute for a customs broker, a certification body or legal advice.