Duty-Credit Scrip Trading in India
Duty-credit scrip trading is the sale of transferable RoDTEP and RoSCTL customs credits by exporters who cannot use them to importers who can. One side turns a credit into cash, the other pays customs duty for less than cash. This page covers how the market actually works: the instruments, the venues, the price, the transfer, and where the risk sits.
What is being traded
Two live instruments. RoDTEP covers exported products generally; RoSCTL is the dedicated scheme for apparel and made-ups. Both issue e-scrips recorded in the Electronic Duty Credit Ledger on ICEGATE under the Electronic Duty Credit Ledger Regulations, 2021, each with a face value, a balance, and an expiry two years from its creation, a period Regulation 6(2) as amended in September 2022 sets and transfer does not change.
The older DGFT paper era, MEIS and SEIS scrips and the broker market that grew around them, is where the trade's vocabulary of "licenses" and "dealers" comes from. Where the legacy scrips stand covers what is still realisable from that era. Everything else on this page is about the live e-scrip market.
Why the trade exists at all
A duty-credit scrip pays the duties of Customs specified in the First Schedule to the Customs Tariff Act, 1975, which Regulation 6(1) provides for. In practice that is the basic customs duty line. An exporter who does not import has no duty to pay, so the credit is worth nothing to them in its native form. Selling it is not a workaround; it is the only way that exporter realises the remission at all. And the credit expires: unused duty credit lapses at the end of its validity and Regulation 6(3) provides that lapsed credit is not re-generated, so an unsold, unused scrip eventually becomes nothing.
The three ways scrips trade today
A broker desk
The historical default. A desk finds the counterparty, negotiates the number, and stands between two parties who have never met. What that service really involves, and what it costs, is set out in how a scrip desk actually runs today and how brokers price scrips.
A private or directory deal
Two firms find each other, often through a listing site or a forwarded contact, and settle bilaterally. Every step that a desk would have carried, price discovery, counterparty diligence, and the settlement gap, now sits with the two principals. How a scrip is actually sold today and how an importer actually buys one walk both sides of that trade, including who moves first and what that exposes.
An exchange
The seller takes one firm offer priced on their own scrip; the buyer receives screened cover for an assessed Bill of Entry; the settlement is delivery-versus-payment, so neither side is ever unsecured. That is the model ScripX runs, and the rest of this page describes the market mechanics that make it matter.
What a scrip fetches
Below face, always. The buyer is paying cash now for a credit they will apply later, and the gap between face and cash is what pays them for that. A price above face has no economic basis, because the scrip cannot pay more duty than its face; treat one as a warning. Why scrips trade below face covers the mechanics.
What the gap should be on a given day is the hard question, because duty credit has no published benchmark. A quoted number read in a message binds nobody and describes no particular scrip. How a scrip's rate is arrived at covers why no honest benchmark exists yet, and what a scrip is worth today covers what actually moves the number: the scheme, the validity remaining, the size and wholeness of the lot, and buy-side appetite on the day.
How the transfer works
Three rules from Regulation 7 of the Electronic Duty Credit Ledger Regulations, 2021 shape every trade. The credit transfers within the customs system to another person holding a valid Importer-exporter Code, 7(1). It transfers at a time for the entire amount in the e-scrip, 7(2), so there is no part-sale and no splitting; lots are built from whole scrips. And validity does not change on transfer, 7(3): the buyer inherits the seller's expiry clock. Whether a transferee can transfer onward is a question the regulation does not address and nothing published settles; a purchase is best planned around consumption. The transfer guide covers the sequence step by step.
The scrip sale, step by step
However the counterparty is found, every scrip sale is the same four events. The seller and buyer agree a price. The buyer's money and the seller's scrip are committed, in one order or the other. The transfer executes on ICEGATE. The seller is paid. Everything that goes wrong in this market goes wrong between those events: a price agreed against nothing, a commitment made by one side before the other, a payment that arrives late or never.
On an exchange the same four events run in a fixed, safe order: the offer is firm before anything is committed, the money is locked before the scrip moves, and the payout is released against confirmation of the transfer with a bank UTR, the same business day. How same-day settlement works walks the clock end to end, and how a scrip is priced explains what moves the number on a face value you set.
Where the risk actually sits
Not in the transfer, which is a recorded movement on a government ledger. The risk is the gap around it. In a private trade the transfer and the payment are separate events, and whoever moves first is unsecured until the other side follows. A completed transfer has no documented reversal, so a seller who transfers first holds nothing but a promise. A buyer who pays first has the mirror problem, plus a provenance question they cannot answer from outside: whether the scrip is clean.
Delivery-versus-payment closes the gap structurally rather than by trust: the buyer's money is secured before the scrip moves, the seller's payout is released against confirmation of the transfer with a bank UTR, and a failed settlement unwinds and refunds in full the same day. Same-day T+0 settlement covers how the money and the scrip move.
Tax, in two sentences
The sale of a duty-credit scrip is GST-exempt, classified under HSN 4907 per Notification 02/2017. A service fee charged on the trade carries GST at 18 percent, which is why an all-in quote should always separate the two; GST on duty-credit scrips covers the interaction with input tax credit.
Where ScripX fits
ScripX is the exchange for this market. A seller's scrips arrive on their own as scrolls mature; selling one is a single firm offer, priced live on that scrip and held for sixty seconds, with its reasons shown. A buyer's Bill of Entry is covered from whole, provenance-screened scrips with the ask capped at face value. Settlement is delivery-versus-payment with the payout the same business day. The fee is printed: zero commission in early access, then 0.40 percent of face only when a trade settles.
Selling scrips, buying duty cover, running a desk on exchange rails, trading as a corporate group, or embedding the market in your product: each seat has its own walkthrough. For the instrument itself, start at duty-credit scrips explained end to end.
Common questions
What is duty-credit scrip trading?
The sale of transferable RoDTEP and RoSCTL duty credits by exporters who cannot use them to importers who can. The credit is an e-scrip in the Electronic Duty Credit Ledger on ICEGATE, and Regulation 7(1) of the Electronic Duty Credit Ledger Regulations, 2021 provides for its transfer to another person holding a valid Importer-exporter Code. The buyer applies it against basic customs duty at full face value, having paid less than face for it.
Is scrip trading legal in India?
Yes. RoDTEP and RoSCTL e-scrips are transferable by design, the transfer executes on the government's own ledger, and the sale is a recognised, GST-exempt supply classified under HSN 4907. The practical questions are provenance of the specific scrip and safety of the settlement, not the legality of the trade.
Can part of a scrip be sold?
No. Regulation 7(2) of the Electronic Duty Credit Ledger Regulations, 2021 provides that the duty credit is transferred at a time for the entire amount in the e-scrip. A scrip moves whole or not at all, which is why lots are assembled from whole scrips.
What does a scrip sell for?
Slightly below its face value, because the buyer pays cash today for a credit they will apply against duty later. There is no published rate for duty credit, and any figure quoted in the air binds nobody. On ScripX a scrip is priced live at the moment a price is asked for, and the offer is firm for sixty seconds with its reasons shown.
How is a scrip trade settled safely?
The order of operations is the protection. In a private deal the transfer and the payment are separate events, and whoever moves first is unsecured until the other side follows. On an exchange settling delivery-versus-payment, the buyer's money is secured before the scrip moves, and the seller's payout is released against confirmation of the transfer with a bank UTR, the same business day.
Who buys the scrips?
Importers, ultimately: any firm paying basic customs duty in cash can pay less of it by applying a scrip bought below face. On a broker desk the seller has to be matched to that buyer one call at a time. On an exchange the seller simply takes a firm offer, and finding the buy side is the exchange's problem.
