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Government of India
Ministry of Commerce & Industry
Directorate
General of Foreign Trade
Trade Notice No. 09/2018
Udyog Bhawan, New Delhi
Dated 12th June, 2017
To
1. All IEC holders/applicants
2. All EPCs / All Chambers
of Trade and Industries
3. FIEO/ASSOCHAM/CII
4. All RA’s of DGFT
5. All
field formations of Customs
Sub: Changes in IEC with the introduction of GST-regd.
The Foreign Trade (Development & Regulation) Act, 1992 provides that no
person shall make any import or export except under an Importer Exporter Code
(IEC) number, granted by the Director General of Foreign Trade or the officer
authorized by the Director General in this behalf. Further, Para 2.05 of the
FTP, 2015-20 lays down that IEC, a 10 digit number, is mandatory for undertaking
any import export activities, while Para 2.08 of the HBP (2015-20) lays down the
procedure to be followed for obtaining an IEC, which is PAN based. As on date
PAN has one to one correlation with IEC.
2. With the implementation of
the GST w.e.f. (the notified date), GSTIN would be used for purposes of (i)
credit flow of IGST on import of goods, and (ii) refund or rebate of IGST
related to export of goods. Registration No. under GST, called GSTIN, is a
15-digit alpha numeric code with PAN prefixed by State Code and suffixed by 3
digit details of business verticals of the PAN holder. As GSTIN will be used for
the purposes mentioned above, it thereby assumes importance as identifier at the
transaction level. In view of this, it has been decided that importer/exporter
would need to declare only GSTIN (wherever registered with GSTN) at the time of
import and export of goods. The PAN level aggregation of data would
automatically happen in the system.
3. Since obtaining GSTIN is not
compulsory for all importers / exporters below a threshold limit of turnover,
all exporters / importers may not register with GSTIN [barring compulsory
registration in certain cases as provided in section 24 of the Central Goods and
Services Tax Act, 2017 (12 of 2017) or in cases where either credit is claimed
of IGST], therefore, GSTIN cannot become universal, as IEC is for import/export
business. Further, DGFT recognizes only the corporate entity (single identity)
and not individual transactions.
4. As a measure of ease of doing
business, it has been decided to keep the identity of an entity uniform across
the Ministries/Departments. Henceforth (with the implementation of GST), PAN of
an entity will be used for the purpose of IEC, i.e., IEC will be issued by DGFT
with the difference that it will be alpha numeric (instead of 10 digit numeric
at present) and will be same as PAN of an entity. For new applicants, w.e.f. the
notified date, application for IEC will be made to DGFT and applicant’s PAN will
be authorized as IEC. For residuary categories under Para 2.07 of HBP 2015-20,
the IEC will be either UIN issued by GSTN and authorized by DGFT or any common
number to be notified by DGFT.
5. Further, for the existing IEC holders,
necessary changes in the system are being carried out by DGFT so that their PAN
becomes their IEC. DGFT system will undertake this migration and the existing
IEC holders are not required to undertake any additional exercise in this
regard. IEC holders are required to quote their PAN (in place of existing IEC)
in all their future documentation, w.e.f. the notified date. The legacy data
which is based on IEC would be converted into PAN based in due course of time.
(S.P. Roy)
Joint Director General of Foreign Trade
Telefax:
23062240
E-mail: [email protected]
[F. No.01/93/180/04/AM-18/PC-2(B)]
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