RoDTEP rates and the change timeline, read as at a date
Every page that publishes a RoDTEP rate table is publishing a snapshot without saying so. The rate is a property of a tariff line on a date, the schedule has been notified after its own effective date, and the tariff line itself sometimes stops existing. This is the lookup, not the table.
Ask what the RoDTEP rate is for a product and the question is already malformed. The rate belongs to an 8 digit tariff item, and the schedule carrying it has a date of effect that is not the date you are reading it on. Paragraph 4.54 of the Foreign Trade Policy 2023 states that a rebate is granted at a notified rate as a percentage of FOB value, with a value cap per unit where required, on items categorised under the notified 8 digit HS code.
Where do the rates actually live?
In two appendices, and picking the wrong one is the first way a figure goes wrong. Paragraph 4.54 of the Foreign Trade Policy 2023 provides that rates of rebate and value caps per unit are notified in Appendix 4R and in Appendix 4RE, the latter for exports of products manufactured by advance authorisation holders other than deemed exports, and by export oriented units and special economic zone units. So the same tariff item can carry two different answers depending on the kind of unit that made the goods, and the DGFT rates page publishes both, with a lookup by ITC HS code.
What does a row of the schedule actually say?
Six columns, and three of them are routinely dropped when the number is quoted onward. The schedule header reads: RoDTEP entry, tariff item, description of goods as per the customs tariff heading, unit quantity code, rate as a percentage of FOB, and cap in Rs per unit quantity code. A rate quoted without its cap and without its unit quantity code is not a rate, it is half of one, because the cap converts a percentage into a per unit ceiling and the unit decides what the cap is measured against. That is why we do not publish a rate table on this page: a table stripped of its columns and its date is the exact artefact that misleads.
Why is the notification date not the effective date?
Because the two routinely differ, and the gap runs the wrong way. The current domestic tariff area schedule carries the header "Appendix 4R - RoDTEP Schedule for DTA Exports w.e.f. 01.05.2025 Notified vide Notification No. 10 Dated 26.05.2025". The schedule took effect on 01-05-2025 and was notified on 26-05-2025. For twenty five days, shipments were governed by rates that had not yet been published. Paragraph 4.54 of the Foreign Trade Policy 2023 records the intention that rates would be reviewed annually and notified well in advance of the financial year, which makes the gap an observed fact rather than a design.
Why can the tariff line itself disappear?
Because the schedule is pinned to the customs tariff, and the customs tariff moves. DGFT publishes an annexure titled "Changes in Tariff Items under RoDTEP Schedule 4R consequent to the amendment of the First Schedule to the Customs Tariff Act w.e.f. 01.05.2025", stating on its face that it was "Notified on 26.05.2025 under Notification No.: 10/2025-26 w.e.f. 01.05.2025". Its rows show tariff items marked Omitted and replaced by new 8 digit items carrying the same rate: 10063010 omitted, and 10063011, 10063012 and 10063019 created in its place. A code that was correct on a shipping bill can therefore be absent from today's schedule entirely.
How do you read the schedule as it stood on a shipment date?
Backwards from the shipment, never forwards from today. The method is short, and the discipline is in doing it in this order rather than starting with the number.
- Fix the date. Take the shipment's own date, not the date of the review. Everything below is decided by it.
- Fix the unit type. Domestic tariff area exports read Appendix 4R. Advance authorisation, export oriented unit and special economic zone exports read Appendix 4RE, per paragraph 4.54 of the Foreign Trade Policy 2023.
- Find the schedule version in force on that date. Identify the notification whose effective date covers the shipment date, and read that version, not the one currently published.
- Locate the 8 digit tariff item as it stood then. If the item has since been omitted or split, use the tariff change annexure to map it forward or back rather than guessing at the nearest code.
- Carry all three figures. Rate as a percentage of FOB, the cap in Rs per unit quantity code, and the unit quantity code itself. Record the notification number and its effective date alongside the number.
What does the schedule not tell you?
Eligibility, which is decided elsewhere and can zero a rate that looks perfectly good in the table. The Foreign Trade Policy 2023 lists categories not eligible for the rebate, among them the export of imported goods covered under paragraph 2.46 of the policy, products restricted for export under Schedule 2 of the export policy in the ITC (HS), and deemed exports. A rate found against a tariff item is therefore a ceiling on what might be claimable rather than a figure you can book, and the eligibility question has to be answered on the same date as the rate.
What this guide is not about
It is not about the claim windows. Once a rate is correctly read and a claim is correctly declared in the shipping bill, a different set of dates takes over: the scroll, the scrip creation window and the validity window, each running from a date the record already carries. Those belong to the two clocks on every RoDTEP claim, which is where the money is kept or lost after the rate is settled. This page ends where that one begins, at the moment the rate and the tariff item are both fixed to a date.
Where to go from here
A rate read as at a date is only useful if the date, the tariff item and the declaration all came from the same record.
- What happens after the rate is fixed. The two clocks on every RoDTEP claim covers the scroll, the creation window and the validity window.
- Where the rate review sits in the year. The EXIM compliance calendar lists the annual rate review and the annual scheme return with the rules that set them.
- Why the tariff item was wrong in the first place. One invoice value, thirteen assertions traces the HS code through the eight or nine places it is asserted.
- The same date discipline on the import leg. Landed cost at your gate computes the duty fold component by component, each named to its instrument.
- Place one claim on a clock. The RoDTEP clock calculator takes a scroll date and returns both downstream windows.
Purser Outbound carries the appendix, the notification number and the effective date alongside every rate it holds against a tariff line, so a figure quoted six months from now still says which schedule it came from. Purser never submits to a government portal, and it never sends an outbound message without a recorded human approval event. The customs broker still files the shipping bill: reading the rate as at a date is arithmetic, and what you do with the claim stays your decision.
Frequently asked questions
Where are RoDTEP rates notified?
RoDTEP rates are notified in Appendix 4R and Appendix 4RE, per paragraph 4.54 of the Foreign Trade Policy 2023. Appendix 4R carries the schedule for domestic tariff area exports and Appendix 4RE the schedule for exports of products manufactured by advance authorisation holders other than deemed exports, and by export oriented units and special economic zone units. DGFT publishes both, with a lookup by ITC HS code.
Why can a RoDTEP rate looked up today be wrong for an older shipment?
Because a schedule is in force from its own effective date, which is not the date you read it. The domestic tariff area schedule headed "Appendix 4R - RoDTEP Schedule for DTA Exports w.e.f. 01.05.2025" states that it was notified vide Notification No. 10 dated 26.05.2025, so it took effect twenty five days before it was published. A shipment is governed by the version in force on its own date, not by the version currently on screen.
What does a row of the RoDTEP schedule contain?
Six columns: the RoDTEP entry number, the tariff item, the description of goods as per the customs tariff heading, the unit quantity code, the rate as a percentage of FOB value, and the cap in Rs per unit quantity code. A rate quoted without its cap and its unit quantity code is incomplete, because the cap converts the percentage into a per unit ceiling and the unit decides what that ceiling is measured against.
Can a tariff item disappear from the RoDTEP schedule?
Yes. When the First Schedule to the Customs Tariff Act is amended, tariff items are omitted and replaced. The DGFT annexure of changes with effect from 01.05.2025 shows tariff item 10063010 omitted and items 10063011, 10063012 and 10063019 created in its place. A code that was correct on an older shipping bill can therefore be absent from the current schedule, and it has to be mapped through the change annexure rather than approximated.
Which exports are not eligible for RoDTEP?
The Foreign Trade Policy 2023 lists categories that are not eligible for the rebate, including the export of imported goods covered under paragraph 2.46 of the policy, products restricted for export under Schedule 2 of the export policy in the ITC (HS), and deemed exports. A rate found against a tariff item is a ceiling on what might be claimable rather than a bookable figure, and eligibility has to be checked on the same date as the rate.