India's Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) issued Notification No. 36/2026-27 on September 15, 2026, amending the Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) 2023 to exempt low-value export consignments from the Registration-cum-Membership Certificate (RCMC) requirement. Effective immediately, an export consignment whose Free-on-Board (FOB) value does not exceed INR 3,00,000 (3 lakh) no longer requires an RCMC or Certificate of Registration, wherever such a requirement would otherwise apply under FTP 2023.
Signed by Director General of Foreign Trade Lav Agarwal under Section 5 of the Foreign Trade (Development and Regulation) Act 1992, the notification inserts a new sub-paragraph 2.57(c) into FTP 2023 and is to be published in the Gazette of India Extraordinary, Part II, Section 3, Sub-section (ii). The stated objective is to promote small-value exports, especially through postal, courier and other emerging channels.
Which exports no longer need an RCMC?
Any export consignment with an FOB value of INR 3,00,000 or less is now exempt from the RCMC and the Certificate of Registration requirement under FTP 2023 paragraph 2.57(c). The new sub-paragraph overrides the existing sub-paragraphs 2.57(a) and (b), which previously set out who must hold an RCMC based on the product category and the export incentive scheme claimed.
DGFT framed the measure as a de minimis relief aimed at high-volume, low-value consignments. The notification names postal, courier and other emerging channels as the intended beneficiaries, which in practice means e-commerce shipments and aggregator-routed exports where individual parcel values are small but shipment frequency is high. For these traders, the cost and delay of obtaining and renewing an RCMC often exceeded the value of any single consignment.
What still requires an RCMC, and what else has not changed?
Consignments whose FOB value exceeds INR 3,00,000 continue to require a valid RCMC or Certificate of Registration wherever such a requirement applies under FTP 2023. The de minimis threshold is per consignment, not per exporter, so a trader shipping multiple parcels in a day must assess each consignment against the INR 3,00,000 ceiling independently.
The notification lifts only the RCMC layer. It does not remove the other export obligations that can attach to the same consignment:
| Obligation | Still applies after Notification 36/2026-27? |
|---|---|
| RCMC or Certificate of Registration (FOB above INR 3,00,000) | Yes, unchanged |
| SCOMET licence for dual-use items | Yes, under Chapter 10 of FTP 2023 |
| Customs duty and border assessment (CBIC) | Yes, under the Customs Act 1962 |
| Export-proceeds realisation and counterparty screening (RBI, FEMA 1999) | Yes, unchanged |
An exporter shipping a low-value consignment of a SCOMET-listed item, for example, still needs the relevant DGFT licence even though the RCMC no longer applies to that consignment.
How does this fit the existing RCMC exemption track?
This is not the first RCMC relief DGFT has issued. Public Notice No. 44/2023 already exempts exporters with annual FOB turnover up to USD 1,000,000 from the RCMC requirement. Notification 36/2026-27 extends the same de minimis logic from an annual-turnover basis to a per-consignment basis, bringing one-off and parcel-level exports within the relief even when the exporter's overall turnover would otherwise have triggered the certificate.
Read together, the two instruments now cover both ends of the small-exporter profile: the trader whose total annual exports are modest, and the trader whose individual shipments are modest regardless of annual volume.
What should exporters and aggregators do now?
Because the amendment takes effect from September 15, 2026, export documentation teams should update their standard operating procedures immediately rather than wait for a later commencement date. Four concrete steps:
- Revise export documentation checklists so that consignments at or below INR 3,00,000 FOB are no longer flagged for an RCMC before shipment.
- Configure courier and e-commerce aggregator systems to apply the INR 3,00,000 threshold per consignment, since the exemption is parcel-level, not trader-level.
- Retain FOB value evidence for each exempted consignment, in case of customs or DGFT audit, to show the consignment qualified for the de minimis relief.
- Keep existing RCMCs valid for consignments above the threshold and for any incentive scheme that still requires one.
Compliance leads should also confirm that their Export Promotion Council or commodity board registrations remain current for consignments above the threshold, since those councils issue the RCMC that higher-value consignments still need.
Subscribe to the free newsletter
Next steps: verify whether your typical consignment values fall at or below the INR 3,00,000 FOB ceiling, confirm that your aggregator or customs broker has updated its RCMC checks for qualifying low-value shipments, brief your export documentation and finance teams on the per-consignment threshold, and keep existing RCMCs current for consignments above it. Obsidian surfaces DGFT foreign-trade amendments the moment they publish, per jurisdiction, so documentation procedures can be updated before the next consignment ships.
