A plain-language guide to the Import Export Code: what it is, who uses it, what to prepare, how the application runs and what follows it.
What the Import Export Code is
The Import Export Code — IEC — is a unique ten-digit code issued by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) on the basis of a business’s PAN. The DGFT describes it as what a business uses for clearing customs, sending shipments, and sending or receiving money in foreign currency.
Whether the requirement applies, and when it is worth obtaining, depends on the business and how it plans to trade. Understanding that comes before any application, and it is where Auxman begins.
Who the code applies to
The DGFT’s import procedures put the code first: before importing, a business must first obtain an IEC. Exporters meet the same requirement from the other direction — the code sits at the start of the export procedures too, alongside the banking and customs registrations that follow it.
Because the code is also tied to foreign-currency payments, businesses beyond goods traders — including service exporters — can encounter the requirement. Whether it applies to your business is confirmed before anything is prepared.
Documents and preparation
The application is made in the government’s prescribed form on the DGFT portal, and the form itself lists the requisite documents. They draw on information the business usually already has: its PAN — the code is issued against it — basic details of the business and its constitution, and its bank and address details.
Exactly what your application needs is confirmed at the start, and nothing has to be in order before the conversation begins.
How the application runs
The DGFT describes the IEC registration process as completely online. The work runs in four stages: understanding the business and whether the requirement applies, collecting and confirming the details and documents, professional review of the application, and submission — with status kept visible while the authority processes it.
Issuance decisions rest with the authority. We prepare, review and keep the requirement in view, and explain the process rather than promise an outcome.
Validity and keeping the code current
An IEC is not a licence that is re-applied for each consignment — once issued, the same code serves the business’s import and export activity. Whether any periodic confirmation or update applies to keep your code current is confirmed as part of the work, so the registration never depends on anyone remembering a date.
The IEC alongside other registrations
An Import Export Code is usually where importing or exporting begins — not where it ends. Depending on the business, other registrations such as GST may also be relevant, and the DGFT’s own procedures describe further steps beyond the code itself, including banking and customs-portal registrations that depend on how the business trades.
Auxman helps you understand what applies, so the code is obtained as part of a connected picture rather than in isolation.
After registration
Once issued, the code goes to work at the border and the bank: customs clearance, shipments and foreign-currency payments reference it. The practical questions that follow — what customs and banking steps come next for your first consignment — are part of what we explain once the code is in place.
Keeping that work connected to the registration — rather than handing it to a second provider — is where ongoing support usually begins.