What the law says
India's Finance Act, 2022 inserted Section 135AA into the Customs Act, 1962. It makes it a punishable offence to publish any information relating to the value or classification of goods entered for export or import, or the details of the exporter or importer, where that information is obtained from customs records, unless the disclosure is required by law.
In plain terms: identity-level Indian customs data, the kind that names the Indian importer or exporter on a shipment, may no longer be freely published or sold. India's Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) administers the restriction.
We do not sell, publish, or source Indian customs data. ShipScout has no connection to CBIC, Indian Customs, or any Indian government data system, and we do not obtain records from them directly or indirectly.
Every India trade flow on ShipScout is mirrored, independently licensed counterparty data from partner jurisdictions outside India: the customs filings of the importing or exporting country on the other side of each shipment.
Why counterparty data is a different thing
A shipment from Mumbai to Rotterdam is filed twice. India records an export. The Netherlands records an import. Those are two separate national records held by two separate authorities under two separate legal regimes.
Section 135AA governs the Indian record. It does not govern the Dutch one. When ShipScout shows that trade lane, it is showing the filing made in the destination jurisdiction, licensed from that jurisdiction's data, which remains lawful to license and publish.
This is why the picture is genuinely useful and also genuinely compliant. You see the lane, the counterparties on the non-Indian side, the volumes, the ports and the values as recorded abroad.
What this means in practice
What you still get
- India import and export lanes by product and HS code
- Overseas buyers and suppliers trading with India
- Volumes, values and ports as filed in the counterparty jurisdiction
- Trend and market-share analysis across those lanes
- The same coverage for 150+ other countries
What nobody can lawfully sell you
- Identity-level Indian customs records naming the Indian trader
- Bill-of-entry or shipping-bill data taken from Indian customs systems
- Anything sourced from CBIC records and republished
A note on vendors who still offer it
Some providers continue to sell identity-level Indian customs data. Buying it carries risk that sits with the buyer as well as the seller, and the exposure is not theoretical: the restriction carries penal consequences. If a vendor cannot tell you which jurisdiction a record was filed in and under what licence, that is the question worth asking before you sign.
Questions we get asked
Does this mean ShipScout has no India data?
No. It means our India data comes from the other side of the trade. You can still research India lanes, find overseas counterparties, and size markets. What you will not find is an Indian importer named from an Indian customs record.
Is the restriction likely to be relaxed?
We do not speculate about that, and we have built on the assumption that it stays. Our sourcing does not depend on the restriction changing.
Who can I talk to about this?
If you need the sourcing chain for a specific dataset before you buy, write to [email protected] and we will set it out.
This page is a description of how ShipScout sources data. It is not legal advice. If you need a view on your own obligations, take advice from a qualified professional.
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