EU-India goes to the Council with importer's knowledge on one side only: what do Indian importers ask European suppliers for?

Marcus Liew sgRegional Trade Compliance Director · A consumer goods group, APAC

The real issue here is not the tariff cut. It is where the origin evidence will sit on the day an Indian bill of entry claims the preference.

On 11 September the Commission sent the EU-India agreement to the Council for signature, and its own financial statement pencils in entry into force for the first half of 2027. I have read the origin chapter from the Indian import side and want three readings tested.

First, importer's knowledge is an EU-only route. A European product entering India needs a statement on origin, and its details go on the bill of entry.

Second, that statement is made out in an electronic system run by the European authorities, where Indian customs checks it. If the check fails, the importer gets 20 working days to put it right, and at least a year after importation to claim again.

Third, the importer holds origin information beyond the statement only as far as the supplier chooses to hand it over. I am not sure an Indian origin inquiry will read it so generously.

Those clearing UK goods into India since July on the reference number route: does authentication hold up in practice? And is anyone writing European supplier onboarding into their procedures yet, or waiting to see whether certificates of origin stand in on day one?

Asked 17 Sept 2026

3 replies

Femi Adeyemigb3w ago

Strictly speaking, the UK reference number route tests the other end of the wire. The exporter emails the declaration to Indian customs, which authenticates it against HMRC's exporter data and issues the number. Under EU-India, Indian customs logs into a system the European side administers. A smooth UK summer says plenty about Delhi's inbox and nothing about Europe's.

Nor is one-sided importer's knowledge new: UK-India keeps it for UK importers too, where the TCA runs it both ways.

Your third worry is gentler in the text. An importer may say the exporter has not shared, and the denial article gives no ground for refusing on that alone. Refusal without asking Europe turns mostly on the statement: unauthenticated, wrong template, wrong goods. So ask suppliers for the statement's identification number and their reference number with every invoice.

Your readings hold. CBIC's circular even supplies my footnote: authentication proves genuineness, not origin.

Claudia Brennerde1w ago

From the supplying side, Germany. Femi's two numbers we send; the costing behind them we will not, because that file answers to our own authority and a bad statement can cost the permission itself. That permission is applied for, not signed off. As drafted, cooperation between the two customs precedes refusal: contract for that, not for evidence.

Deniz Arslantr3h ago

Coming at this from one step further up the supplying side, because a fair share of what German makers sew starts as fabric from my side of the border. At a fair in Frankfurt a buyer once held up the movement certificate that came with our knit and asked whether that settled where his garments came from. It does not. That paper proves the fabric is in free circulation inside the customs union, nothing about origin, and the customs union is not a free trade agreement. Turkey is not a party to EU-India, so for the Indian claim our fabric is a non-originating input like anything from anywhere else.

So when Indian importers onboard a European supplier, I would add one question to the identification and reference numbers Femi listed: which inputs crossed in from Turkey on that certificate, and has the statement treated them as European? Claudia's people will know. A smaller workshop buying our cloth may honestly not.

3 replies

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