Duty Drawback vs RoDTEP: what's the difference, and can you claim both?

Most Indian exporters have heard of both Duty Drawback and RoDTEP, and most conflate them — reasonably, since both show up as a percentage credited against the same Shipping Bill, and both feel like "the government pays you back after you export." But they refund fundamentally different things, they are computed on different logic, and knowing the difference is what lets you claim both correctly on the same shipment instead of leaving one on the table.

What Duty Drawback actually refunds

Duty Drawback refunds the customs duty already paid on imported inputs that went into the exported good. If you imported a raw material, paid Basic Customs Duty on it, and then used that material to manufacture something you exported, Drawback gives that customs duty back. It is compensation for duty you can prove you already paid at the border on an input.

In practice, most exporters claim the All Industry Rate (AIR) — a notified, HS-code-specific percentage of the FOB (or a capped per-unit amount) that approximates the customs-duty content of a standard input mix, so you do not have to prove your exact import bill line by line. A Brand Rate exists for cases where your actual duty-paid input cost is higher than the AIR and you can document it — a fixed-rate shortcut versus a documented actual, for the same underlying refund.

One structural point worth knowing: before GST, Duty Drawback also had a "Composite Rate" component that additionally covered central excise and service tax. That composite/higher rate was withdrawn once GST arrived, because those taxes are now recovered through the ordinary GST input-tax-credit refund mechanism instead. What survives today is the customs-only portion of Drawback — which is exactly why it does not overlap with a GST refund claim.

What RoDTEP refunds

RoDTEP works from the opposite direction. Rather than refunding duty you can point to on an import document, it remits embedded central, state and local taxes that get baked into an export's cost with no other credit path — fuel VAT on transport, electricity duty on manufacturing power, mandi tax, stamp duty on export paperwork, and similar levies that GST input-tax-credit and Duty Drawback both leave untouched. (We cover RoDTEP itself in full detail in our dedicated post — worth reading if you have not claimed it before.)

The distinction in one line

Duty Drawback refunds duty you can prove you paid on an input. RoDTEP refunds taxes you cannot prove or credit anywhere else. One looks backward at your import bill; the other looks sideways at taxes with no home to go to.

Can you claim both on the same shipment?

Generally, yes. Because customs-only Duty Drawback, RoDTEP, and a Rule 89 GST refund each target a non-overlapping tax bucket — customs duty on inputs, embedded non-creditable levies, and your own input GST respectively — a single export can legitimately stack all three. This is by design, not a loophole: the schemes were built to plug three different leaks, not to double-pay the same one.

The exception to watch: if you imported your inputs duty-free — under an Advance Authorisation or similar scheme — there is no customs duty paid on that input to draw back. Claiming Drawback on a shipment made from duty-free inputs is a rejected claim waiting to happen, and RoDTEP eligibility rules exclude several such duty-free-input categories too. Check the current exclusion list before assuming a shipment qualifies for either.

How both are actually claimed

The mechanics run in parallel, and both live or die at the same moment: the Shipping Bill.

• Declare both at filing. Neither Drawback nor RoDTEP can be claimed after the fact for a shipment where the declaration was missed on the Shipping Bill.
• Let the shipment complete and the EGM file. Customs then processes both claims off the same export event.
• Scrolls generate separately — a Drawback scroll and a RoDTEP scroll — each quantifying that shipment's credit under its own scheme.
• Drawback is typically credited to your registered bank account; RoDTEP lands as a scrip in your electronic credit ledger on ICEGATE, which you convert and use or transfer.

Where claims actually get lost

Not at the ledger — at declaration and classification. The recurring failure modes: forgetting to flag one of the two schemes on the Shipping Bill (the other still processes; the unflagged one is simply gone for that shipment), an HS code shallow enough to map to a Nil AIR or the wrong RoDTEP rate, and claiming Drawback on inputs that were actually imported duty-free.

Where automation earns its keep

Both schemes reward the same discipline: get the declaration right, on every eligible line, at the one moment it can be made. A platform that checks both AIR eligibility and the current RoDTEP rate against your exact HS code and export date — and flags both on the Shipping Bill automatically — turns two easily-missed checkboxes into one thing you never have to remember.