RoDTEP for Advance Authorisation, EOU and SEZ Units: Eligible, Once Not, and Eligible Again

The position today

Exports of products manufactured by Advance Authorisation holders, other than deemed exports, by Export Oriented Units, and by units in Special Economic Zones are eligible for RoDTEP, and their rates are notified in a separate schedule, Appendix 4RE. DGFT Notification No. 11/2025-26 dated 26 May 2025, headed "Restoration of RoDTEP for Advance Authorisations (AAs) holders, Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and Export-Oriented Units (EOUs) from 01.06.2025", provides that the support "is restored with effect from 01.06.2025".

Since then the categories have moved on the same clock as everyone else. Notification No. 74/2025-26 dated 31 March 2026 continues the scheme "for all eligible export products" to 30 September 2026 and continues the rates and value caps in both Appendix 4R and Appendix 4RE unchanged. The scheme's own end date is covered in is RoDTEP still available.

How they became eligible: an exclusion was deleted

The mechanism is worth understanding, because it explains why so much published material still says the opposite. These categories were never given a special inclusion. They were sitting in the ineligible list, and that list was edited.

DGFT Notification No. 70/2023 dated 8 March 2024, headed "Extending RoDTEP support for exports made by Advance Authorisation (AA) holders, Export Oriented Units (EOU), Special Economic Zones (SEZ) units", provides that "the serial numbers (viii), (x), (xi) and (xii) of Para 4.55 of FTP 2023 are deleted with effect from 11.03.2024". Para 4.55 of the Foreign Trade Policy 2023 is the list headed "Ineligible Supplies/ Items/Categories under the Scheme", and the four entries deleted were products manufactured in EHTP and BTP, products manufactured or exported in discharge of export obligation against an Advance Authorisation or Duty Free Import Authorisation or Special Advance Authorisation, products manufactured or exported by a hundred per cent Export Oriented Unit, and products manufactured or exported by units in Free Trade Zones, Export Processing Zones or Special Economic Zones.

The same notification created the second schedule, inserting Para 4.59A to provide that for exports of products manufactured by Advance Authorisation holders other than deemed exports, and by EOU and SEZ units, "the eligible RoDTEP export items, rates and per unit value caps, wherever applicable, are contained in Appendix 4RE".

Note the date carefully. The implementation date in Notification No. 70/2023 for Advance Authorisation holders and EOUs is 11 March 2024, not 1 April 2024, which is the date most commonly repeated. SEZ was handled separately and conditionally in the same notification: implementation for SEZ units was to happen once the IT integration of SEZ units with the Customs Automated System took place.

The sixteen weeks it lapsed, and the date range

This is the part that matters if you are looking at exports made in 2025, and it is not a rumour. It is written into a notification in terms.

DGFT Notification No. 66/2024-25 dated 20 March 2025 provides that the support for these categories "stands extended only up to 05.02.2025", and its effect clause states that "from 06.02.2025 onwards, exports from these categories will no longer be eligible for RoDTEP support", while adding that support for other categories, meaning Domestic Tariff Area exports, "shall continue as per Notification No. 32/2024-25". Notification No. 11/2025-26 then restored it from 1 June 2025.

So RoDTEP was unavailable to Advance Authorisation, EOU and SEZ exports from 6 February 2025 to 31 May 2025, roughly sixteen weeks, while Domestic Tariff Area exports were unaffected throughout. There is a second detail worth noticing about the sequencing: the notification recording the cut-off is dated 20 March 2025, six weeks after the 5 February 2025 date it was fixing. An exporter shipping in February and March 2025 was working against a position that was formalised afterwards.

Appendix 4RE is not a copy of Appendix 4R

Two separate schedules exist and they carry different numbers. Appendix 4R is headed as the RoDTEP schedule for Domestic Tariff Area exports; Appendix 4RE is headed as the RoDTEP rates for SEZ, EOU and Advance Authorisation exports, and its rate column is expressed as a percentage of FOB for those categories specifically.

The rates genuinely differ line by line, so reading the wrong schedule produces a wrong number rather than an approximately right one. If you are modelling what an export will earn, the schedule has to match the route the goods went out under. How RoDTEP rates are calculated covers how a rate becomes a scroll amount.

One clean negative worth publishing, because it saves a search: there are only two schedules. There is no Appendix 4RA, no 4RB and no 4RC. If a source refers you to one, that source is inventing it.

The undertaking that still applies

Eligibility for the category does not remove the condition that sits under every RoDTEP claim. Condition 2(1)(a) of Notification No. 76/2021-Customs (N.T.) dated 23 September 2021 provides that duty credit is issued "in lieu of remission of any duty or tax or levy, chargeable on any material used in the manufacture or processing of goods or for carrying out any operation on such goods in India that are exported, where such duty or tax or levy is not exempted, remitted or credited under any other Scheme".

That condition bites at the level of an individual duty or tax, not at the level of the scheme or the shipping bill. It is the same principle the exporter signs up to in the declaration behind statement code RD001, which undertakes that the claim "is not with respect to any duties or taxes or levies which are exempted or remitted or credited under any other mechanism outside RoDTEP". For an Advance Authorisation holder in particular, that is not an abstraction: the authorisation itself exempts certain duties on inputs, and what RoDTEP remits has to be something other than those. That is a question for your tax adviser on the facts of the consignment, and this page is not going to answer it for you.

What we could not establish

• The exact operative date for SEZ units. Notification No. 70/2023 made SEZ implementation conditional on the IT integration of SEZ units with the Customs Automated System, and we did not find a notification or advisory announcing the date that integration completed. Since 1 June 2025 the notifications treat SEZ alongside AA and EOU without qualification, which is why we state the current position as we do, but we cannot give you a clean date for the SEZ start under the original 2024 notification.
• Whether anything was done for exports caught in the February to May 2025 gap. We found no notification, circular or trade notice providing relief for shipments made in that window. That is not proof that no representation succeeded anywhere. It is what the public record shows.
• The current text of Table-1 to Notification No. 76/2021-Customs (N.T.). The CBIC repository serves that notification as issued rather than as amended, so the Table it returns still lists SEZ, EOU and Advance Authorisation exports as ineligible, a position the DGFT notifications above have overtaken. We are therefore not quoting that Table as the current customs-side position in either direction. This is worth knowing generally: an as-issued repository is an archive, not a statement of today.

Checked against the notifications named on this page: the primary sources themselves, not anyone’s copy of them.

Where to go from here

If your exports qualify, the credit still only arrives if the claim is on the shipping bill: the RODTEPY declaration. If it is arriving and you do not import enough to use it, selling the scrip is how it becomes money. And eligibility and exclusions covers what the scheme leaves out generally.

Frequently asked questions

Is RoDTEP available to Advance Authorisation holders?

Yes, for exports of products manufactured by Advance Authorisation holders other than deemed exports, with rates in Appendix 4RE. The exclusion was deleted from Para 4.55 of the Foreign Trade Policy 2023 by DGFT Notification No. 70/2023 dated 8 March 2024 with effect from 11 March 2024, and after a lapse in 2025 the support was restored by Notification No. 11/2025-26 dated 26 May 2025 with effect from 1 June 2025.

Can an SEZ unit or EOU claim RoDTEP?

Yes, on the current position. The exclusions covering hundred per cent Export Oriented Units and units in Free Trade Zones, Export Processing Zones and Special Economic Zones were deleted from Para 4.55 of the Foreign Trade Policy 2023 by DGFT Notification No. 70/2023, and Notification No. 11/2025-26 restored the support for these categories with effect from 1 June 2025.

Was RoDTEP ever withdrawn for AA, EOU and SEZ exports?

Yes. DGFT Notification No. 66/2024-25 dated 20 March 2025 extended the support for these categories only up to 5 February 2025 and stated that from 6 February 2025 onwards exports from them would no longer be eligible. It was restored from 1 June 2025 by Notification No. 11/2025-26, leaving a gap of about sixteen weeks. Domestic Tariff Area exports were not affected.

What is Appendix 4RE?

It is the separate RoDTEP rate schedule for exports by SEZ units, Export Oriented Units and Advance Authorisation holders, created by DGFT Notification No. 70/2023 dated 8 March 2024 through a new Para 4.59A of the Foreign Trade Policy 2023. Appendix 4R remains the schedule for Domestic Tariff Area exports, and the rates in the two are not the same.

Is there an Appendix 4RC for RoDTEP?

No. RoDTEP has two rate schedules, Appendix 4R for Domestic Tariff Area exports and Appendix 4RE for SEZ, EOU and Advance Authorisation exports. There is no 4RA, 4RB or 4RC.