Classification

ITC-HS codes: finding the right 8 digits

Every Indian shipping bill carries an 8-digit code. The first six are international. The last two are India's, and those are the ones that decide your duty, your restrictions and your RoDTEP rate.

TradeLala · 2 September 2026 · 6 min read

Stacked document folders on a plain surface — Cover photo from Unsplash

A product classification looks like an administrative detail right up until the day it costs you money. Then it becomes the most expensive number on the shipping bill. It sets the duty your buyer pays, whether the goods need a licence, which incentive schemes attach, and, quietly, whether anyone researching the market will ever find you.

India moved goods under 11,565 distinct 8-digit lines in FY 2025-26. Yours is one of them. This is how to be sure which.

What the eight digits mean

The Harmonized System is a World Customs Organization standard, so the first six digits mean the same thing in every member country. India then adds two national digits. That produces the ITC-HS code (Indian Trade Clarification based on Harmonized System) that every shipping bill and export invoice has to carry.

The first six digits are what your buyer's customs broker will recognise. The last two are what the Indian exchequer uses to decide what you get back.

Six digits versus eight: what changes

Where each length is the correct one to use.
Use	Digits needed	Why
Shipping bill, export invoice	8	Statutory. All exporters, whatever the turnover.
RoDTEP / Duty Drawback claim	8	Rates and value caps are published against 8-digit lines.
Import licensing / restrictions	8	Free, restricted and prohibited status is set nationally.
Buyer's customs entry abroad	6 + their national digits	Their last digits are theirs, not yours.
Cross-country market research	6	Only the first six are comparable between countries.
GST invoicing (domestic)	4, 6 or 8	Depends on turnover. A separate rule set from customs.

The research consequence

If you are comparing India's exports of a product against Vietnam's or China's, truncate to six digits. Comparing an Indian 8-digit line against a Chinese 8-digit line means comparing two different national splits that happen to be the same length. The numbers will not reconcile, and whatever you conclude from them will be wrong.

How to find and verify your code

Four sources, in the order you should use them. The first three are authoritative. The fourth is the reality check that almost nobody performs.

The DGFT ITC-HS schedule
The Directorate General of Foreign Trade publishes Schedule 1 for imports and Schedule 2 for exports. This is the legal list of 8-digit lines and their policy status: free, restricted, prohibited, or state-trading. It is free on the DGFT site.
The CBIC Customs Tariff
The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs publishes the tariff with duty rates against each line, plus the Section and Chapter Notes. Read the Notes rather than skimming the descriptions. They contain the rules that decide borderline cases, and they routinely override what your intuition says the product obviously is.
The General Rules of Interpretation
Six rules, printed at the front of the tariff, that resolve any ambiguity in a fixed order. Two of them do almost all the work. GRI 3(a) says the most specific description beats the more general one. GRI 3(b) says that for a composite item or a set, you classify by whichever component gives it its essential character. If your product is a kit or an assembly, read these before you guess.
What your market actually files
This is the step that separates a correct classification from a useful one. Pull the shipment records for your product description and see which 8-digit codes real consignments moved under. If forty exporters of the same article file under xxxxxx10 and you file under xxxxxx90, one of you is wrong. Either way you need to know, because your product is currently invisible to every buyer researching the code everyone else uses.

The traps

Inheriting the code from your GST filings

GST and customs classification share the HS structure but not the obligation. A 6-digit code that satisfies a GST return is not a valid entry on a shipping bill. Plenty of exporters find this out only when a claim is rejected.

Classifying by material when a heading names the function

A specific heading beats a material-based one, per GRI 3(a). A steel bracket made for a machine may belong with machine parts rather than with articles of steel. The Section and Chapter Notes usually say so outright, which is why skipping them is expensive.

Letting the freight forwarder choose

Forwarders classify hundreds of products a week and default to whatever clears fastest. That is their optimisation, and it is a reasonable one for them. The declaration is still legally yours, the penalty is yours, and so is the incentive claim.

Ignoring the value cap

RoDTEP rates come with per-unit value caps as well as a percentage. A high-value variant of a product can hit the cap and yield materially less than the headline rate suggests. The cap is published against the same 8-digit line, so read both columns rather than just the first.

What a wrong code costs

Consequences of misclassification, roughly in the order you meet them.
Where it shows up	Effect
Customs clearance	Query, examination, delay, and demurrage while it gets resolved.
Duty at destination	Your buyer pays a rate neither of you quoted for. This is how a first order becomes the last one.
RoDTEP / Drawback	A claim against the wrong line is rejected, or recovered later with interest.
Licensing	A restricted line shipped as a free one is a compliance problem, not a paperwork one.
Free trade agreements	Preferential rates are granted per line. Wrong line, no preference, and the certificate of origin is void.
Being found	Buyers and sourcing teams search by code. The wrong one makes you invisible.

Get it in writing when the money is real

If a classification is genuinely borderline and the amounts are material, India's Advance Ruling mechanism under the Customs Act exists for exactly this. A binding ruling costs a fraction of one disputed consignment. Talk to a customs consultant or your CHA before you build a year of pricing on an assumption, and confirm current scheme rates and validity on the DGFT and CBIC sites, because notifications change.

A verification checklist

Full 8 digits, sourced from the DGFT ITC-HS schedule rather than from a GST return or an old invoice.
Section and Chapter Notes read for your chapter, exclusions included.
GRI 3(a) and 3(b) applied if the product is composite, a set, or has more than one plausible heading.
Import and export policy status checked: free, restricted or prohibited.
RoDTEP rate and value cap noted against the exact line.
Drawback schedule checked for the same line.
FTA preference confirmed for your destination markets, if you claim one.
Cross-checked against the codes comparable consignments actually move under.
Written down somewhere your invoicing, your CHA and your marketing all read from.

That last one is not filler. In our experience the most common cause of a mismatched shipping bill is that sales quotes one code, the factory writes another on the packing list, and the CHA files a third. One document, one owner, one code.

Once the code is right it becomes the key to everything else: which countries buy it (market selection), at what price (pricing), from whom (finding buyers), and what you get back on it (incentive schemes).