Duty-Credit Scrip Glossary: Every Term, Plainly Defined

The schemes and instruments

Duty-credit scrip

A government-issued credit that remits the embedded duties and taxes on exports. It holds a face value usable against customs duty and can be sold or transferred. It lives as an electronic entry in the ICEGATE ledger, not as paper.

RoDTEP

Remission of Duties and Taxes on Exported Products. The main current scheme, it refunds hidden central, state, and local duties on most exported goods as a duty-credit scrip. See what is a RoDTEP scrip.

RoSCTL

Rebate of State and Central Taxes and Levies. A duty-credit scheme specifically for apparel and made-up textile exports, working the same way as RoDTEP on its own line. See RoDTEP vs RoSCTL.

MEIS

Merchandise Exports from India Scheme. A legacy incentive scheme, now discontinued for new exports, that issued transferable duty-credit scrips against merchandise exports. Older MEIS scrips may still circulate within their validity. See MEIS, SEIS and legacy scrips.

SEIS

Service Exports from India Scheme. The legacy counterpart to MEIS for service exporters, also discontinued for new claims, which issued duty-credit scrips against eligible service exports.

Types of scrip

The umbrella for the duty-credit family, RoDTEP, RoSCTL, and legacy MEIS and SEIS, each with its own eligibility and scheme code but the same basic mechanic. See types of duty-credit scrips in India.

The systems and identifiers

ICEGATE

The Indian Customs national portal for electronic filing and duty payment. It hosts the ledger where scrips are issued, held, transferred, and applied against duty. See the Electronic Duty Credit Ledger explained.

Electronic Duty Credit Ledger

The on-ICEGATE ledger that records each duty-credit scrip against an exporter's IEC, with its face value, balance, scheme, and expiry. It is the single source of truth for whether a scrip is genuine, unspent, and current, not a screenshot.

IEC

Importer-Exporter Code. The ten-character identifier every Indian importer and exporter needs to trade across borders. Scrips are issued to, and transferred between, IECs. See ICEGATE registration for scrip holders.

Shipping bill

The customs document filed for an export consignment. It carries the details that determine a scrip claim, and its chain is one of the things provenance screening verifies before a scrip trades.

Scroll

The processing step that generates a scrip. A scroll matures at the port after export, and on maturity the duty-credit scrip issues into the exporter's ledger. In short: the scroll runs, the scrip appears.

Bill of Entry

The customs document filed to clear an import consignment. It carries the assessed customs duty an importer must pay, in cash or with duty-credit scrips. See how to pay customs duty with scrips.

HSN 4907

The tariff classification under which duty-credit scrips fall for GST. The sale of a scrip itself is GST-exempt under HSN 4907 (Notification 02/2017); GST applies only to a platform's service fee, not to the scrip. See GST on duty-credit scrips.

Value, timing, and rate

Face value

The amount a scrip can discharge against customs duty. A scrip of one lakh face pays one lakh of duty, which is why scrips trade a little below face and never above it. See face value explained.

Scrip Reference Rate (SRR)

The benchmark rate ScripX publishes each trading day for scrips, broken out by scheme and expiry band. Every firm offer is anchored to it, so the price is a visible reference rather than a private quote. See the SRR explained.

Expiry band

The bracket a scrip falls into based on how far it is from expiry, which adjusts its rate. Broadly: beyond ninety days earns full value, inside ninety days carries a small adjustment, and under thirty days is sell-now priority. See when does a scrip expire.

Surge

A short-term upward adjustment to an offer when buyer demand is strong, shown as one of the reasons on the offer screen so the number is explained rather than mysterious.

Size premium

A better rate applied to a large lot of face value, in the ScripX example above roughly two crore, reflecting stronger buyer appetite for larger scrips.

Settlement and protection

T+0

Same-business-day settlement. On a T+0 trade the payout reaches the seller the same business day the trade is accepted, by IMPS with a UTR, rather than days later. See same-day T+0 settlement.

Delivery-versus-payment (DvP)

A settlement model where the asset and the money move together, so neither side is exposed. The buyer's funds lock before the scrip moves, and the transfer executes on ICEGATE only then, which removes first-mover risk.

UTR

Unique Transaction Reference. The identifier on an IMPS or bank transfer that lets you trace a payout. A real settlement produces a UTR; a promise without one is just a promise.

Provenance screening

The pre-listing check that verifies a scrip against the live ledger status, the shipping-bill chain, the seller's IEC history, and KYC, so a fake, spent, or disputed scrip does not reach a buyer. See how provenance screening works.

Transferee protection

The safeguard, under government notifications from September 2022, that shields a bona-fide transferee from a seller's prior defaults on a genuine on-ledger transfer, so a clean scrip stays clean in the buyer's hands. See is it legal to buy and sell scrips.

FEFO

First-Expiring-First-Out. The rule for assembling an importer's scrip bundle, using nearer-dated scrips before fresher ones, so nothing ages toward expiry unused and the buyer tends to get a keener rate. See how importers save with scrips.

Whole-scrip bundle

The cheapest set of complete scrips assembled to cover an assessed Bill of Entry, with no part-scrips to reconcile, optimised for the buyer's total cost and capped at face.

Autopilot

The seller setting that sells every future scroll at the SRR or better, above a floor you set, whole scrips only, holding anything outside your guard-rails for your tap so you keep the veto without the chore.

Net-realisation statement

The per-trade document showing the rate, the fee, and your take-home, issued alongside the GST invoice so the outcome of a trade is fully accounted for. See accounting and GST for scrips.