The short answer, as of August 2026
The SEIS scheme is closed. The Service Exports from India Scheme (SEIS) stopped granting benefits for services rendered on or after 1 April 2020, so the last eligible year was FY2019-20.
The Foreign Trade Policy 2023 did not revive it, and there is no direct scrip-based successor for services.
If you are an Indian IT, ITeS or professional-services exporter searching for SEIS today, you are researching a scheme that no longer accepts fresh entitlement.
What remains live for service exporters is a different toolkit: zero-rated GST on export of services, and the government's new Export Promotion Mission, which folded in the older Market Access Initiative and interest-subvention support.
This guide sets out what SEIS was, why it ended, whether any past-year claim is still possible, and what to rely on now. It is general information, not tax or legal advice.
One clarification first, because the acronym is shared. In India, SEIS means the Service Exports from India Scheme, a DGFT export incentive. In the United Kingdom, SEIS means the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme, a tax relief for early-stage equity investors.
The two are unrelated. Everything below is India only.
Is the SEIS scheme still available?
No. As of August 2026, SEIS is not available for any current or future services. Benefits ceased for exports of services rendered on or after 1 April 2020, which makes FY2019-20 the final eligible year.
When the government released the Foreign Trade Policy 2023, it chose not to reintroduce SEIS or launch a like-for-like scrip scheme for services, per the DGFT.
The reasoning was partly structural. Duty credit scrip schemes tied to a percentage of net foreign exchange sit awkwardly against India's WTO commitments, which is the same tension that ended the goods-side Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS).
India's services exports had also grown strongly on their own, so the case for an open-ended entitlement weakened.
For a working exporter, the practical takeaway is simple. There is no SEIS application window open now, no way to earn a scrip on invoices raised in FY2020-21 or later, and no benefit to factor into current pricing.
Plan your margins on the schemes that are actually live, from GST zero-rating to capital-goods routes like the EPCG benefits for exporters who import equipment, which we cover further down.
What was the Service Exports from India Scheme?
SEIS was a DGFT incentive under the Foreign Trade Policy 2015-2020. It rewarded eligible Indian service exporters with transferable duty credit scrips worth a notified percentage of their net foreign exchange earnings.
A scrip was a certificate you could use to pay certain central duties, or sell in the open market for cash if you had no duty liability, which is what made it valuable to pure services firms with little import activity.
| Feature | Detail |
|---|---|
| Full form | Service Exports from India Scheme |
| Policy window | Foreign Trade Policy 2015 to 2020 |
| Administered by | Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) |
| Reward | Duty credit scrips, notified at 3%, 5% or 7% of net foreign exchange earned |
| Nature of scrip | Freely transferable, usable against certain duties or sold for cash |
| Currency basis | Net foreign exchange earnings (forex inflows minus forex outflows on services) |
| Status as of August 2026 | Discontinued for services rendered on or after 1 April 2020 |
SEIS was the services counterpart to MEIS, which did the same job for physical goods.
Both belonged to a generation of scrip-based incentives that India has since retired in favour of duty-remission schemes for goods and a consolidated promotion framework for services.
If you want the wider map of what replaced them, our explainer on export incentives sets out the current landscape.
What were the SEIS reward rates?
Rewards were tiered.
Under the FY2019-20 notified list (DGFT Appendix 3D), eligible services were granted duty credit scrips at 3%, 5% or 7% of net foreign exchange earned, with the exact rate set by service category and revised over the policy period.
The table below is representative rather than exhaustive, because the notified rate for a given service line changed across policy amendments.
| Service category (representative) | Notified SEIS band |
|---|---|
| Professional services (legal, accounting, architectural, engineering) | 5% to 7% |
| Research and development services | 5% |
| Rental and leasing services without operators | 5% |
| Other business and management services | 3% to 5% |
| Hotel, tourism, travel and related services | 3% to 5% |
| Educational, health and other notified services | 5% |
Two cautions if you are reconstructing a historical entitlement. First, always match the rate to the exact financial year and the notification in force then, not a general 3% to 7% band.
Second, the reward was calculated on net foreign exchange, not gross invoice value, so forex outflows against your services reduced the base.
For FY2019-20 specifically, entitlement was also subject to a cap introduced late in the scheme's life, which we cover in the past-claims section.
Who was eligible, and where did IEC and RCMC fit in?
SEIS eligibility rested on a few conditions, and the paperwork behind them still matters when you research an old claim or set up any export activity today.
- Import Export Code (IEC). You needed an active IEC to export services and to file for SEIS. The IEC is the base registration for any cross-border trade from India, and it remains a prerequisite for exporting today. If you are budgeting a fresh registration, see our note on IEC code fees.
- Registration-cum-Membership Certificate (RCMC). Claiming most FTP benefits required an RCMC from the relevant Export Promotion Council, for services usually the Services Export Promotion Council (SEPC). The RCMC is still the gateway document for scheme-linked benefits, so anyone reviewing a legacy SEIS file or applying for current promotion support will meet it again. Our guide to RCMC registration walks through it.
- Notified service and minimum forex. The service had to appear on the notified list, be supplied from India to a recipient abroad, and cross a minimum net-foreign-exchange threshold for the year.
For a services firm, the enduring lesson is that clean documentation, an active IEC and a valid RCMC are what let you access any incentive at all.
If you are checking whether a code on an old file is still valid, our note on IEC code verification covers the quick DGFT lookup.
SEIS is gone, but the paperwork spine it ran on is the same one the current schemes use.
Why was SEIS discontinued, and what is the timeline?
The scheme wound down with the Foreign Trade Policy 2015-2020 it belonged to, and the government did not carry it forward.
- 1 April 2015: SEIS launched under the Foreign Trade Policy 2015-2020, replacing the earlier Served From India Scheme.
- 2015 to 2020: Eligible exporters earned duty credit scrips at 3%, 5% or 7% of net foreign exchange, by notified category.
- FY2019-20: The last year for which services could earn an entitlement, with a per-exporter cap introduced for this final year.
- 1 April 2020: Benefits ceased. Services rendered on or after this date earned no SEIS entitlement.
- Foreign Trade Policy 2023: SEIS was not revived, and no direct scrip-based services successor was announced, as confirmed by the DGFT.
SEIS vs MEIS vs RoDTEP: what covers what?
Exporters often confuse the three because they overlap in time and vocabulary. They do not overlap in scope. SEIS was services only.
MEIS and RoDTEP are goods schemes, and the underlying distinction between export of services vs export of goods is what decides which regime you fall under.
RoDTEP does not extend to services, so no RoDTEP claim replaces a lost SEIS scrip.
| Scheme | Covers | Status as of August 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| SEIS | Export of notified services | Discontinued for services from 1 April 2020 |
| MEIS | Export of goods | Discontinued, was challenged at the WTO |
| RoDTEP | Export of goods | Active, refunds embedded duties and taxes on goods |
| RoSCTL | Export of apparel and made-ups (goods) | Active, goods only |
If your business exports physical goods alongside services, the goods side has its own live remission route. Our explainer on the RoDTEP scheme covers how that works and why it is not a services option.
Firms that manufacture solely for export may also operate as an export oriented unit, which carries its own set of duty benefits distinct from any scrip.
What can service exporters use instead of SEIS today?
There is no single scrip that reproduces SEIS for services. Instead, the support is spread across GST treatment and a consolidated promotion framework. As of August 2026, the live options for an Indian services exporter are as follows.
Zero-rated GST on export of services
This is the most universal and valuable lever for a pure services firm.
A qualifying export of services is zero-rated under GST, letting you either export under a Letter of Undertaking without paying IGST, or pay IGST and claim a refund, and recover input tax credit either way.
It is not a bonus scrip, but it protects your margin from domestic tax leakage on export revenue.
Read our detailed guides on export of services under GST and, for the mechanics of the refund and LUT route, zero-rated supply under GST.
Export Promotion Mission (EPM)
The government's current umbrella framework, approved with an outlay of ₹25,060 crore for FY2025-26 to FY2030-31, consolidates older instruments into two arms, according to the PIB press note on the Export Promotion Mission.
The NIRYAT PROTSAHAN arm covers trade-finance support such as interest subvention and export factoring, and NIRYAT DISHA covers non-financial enablers such as market access, branding and compliance support.
Our overview of the Export Promotion Mission breaks down both arms in detail. EPM is designed to cover both merchandise and services, so services exporters fall within its scope.
Interest subvention on export credit
The older Interest Equalisation Scheme lapsed on 31 December 2024.
A successor interest-subvention support was launched in early 2026 under the Export Promotion Mission's trade-finance arm, aimed at reducing the cost of pre- and post-shipment credit for eligible exporters, MSMEs in particular.
Check current eligibility and rates with your bank, because the terms differ from the old scheme.
Market access support (formerly MAI)
The standalone Market Access Initiative has been folded into EPM's NIRYAT DISHA arm. Support for entering new overseas markets, international branding and participation in trade events now runs through that framework rather than the old MAI line.
If your bottleneck is demand rather than tax, our guide on how to find international buyers covers the channels that work for service firms.
Read together, the modern picture is a shift away from a percentage-of-forex scrip and towards tax neutrality plus targeted finance and market support.
For a services exporter, the biggest recurring saving is not a scheme at all, it is getting the GST treatment right and keeping your foreign-exchange realisation clean and well-documented.
Nailing the basics of how to claim ITC in GST matters more to margin now than any scrip did, and independent professionals can start with our primer on GST for freelancers.
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Can you still claim SEIS for past years?
For most exporters, no. The application window for SEIS closed years ago. Claims related to eligible past years, up to and including FY2019-20, had to be filed within the notified deadline.
That final application deadline was extended to 28 February 2022 after an earlier 31 December 2021 cut-off, per DGFT public notices at the time. After that date, fresh SEIS applications were no longer accepted.
There is a narrow exception worth naming honestly. A small number of pre-filed applications and disputed cases were still moving through DGFT Regional Authorities in early 2023 for processing and resolution.
That was administrative clean-up of applications already in the system, not a reopening of the scheme. If you never filed within the deadline, there is no route to originate a claim now.
If you did file and the case is unresolved, that is a matter to take up with your DGFT Regional Authority or your consultant, and this guide should not be read as advice on a specific file.
A worked example: what was a $500,000 scrip worth?
A short illustration shows why services firms valued the scrip, and why its loss changed the arithmetic.
Worked example
Suppose a consulting firm earned USD 500,000 in net foreign exchange from notified services in an eligible year, and its service category carried a 5% SEIS rate.
The scrip value would be 5% of USD 500,000, which is USD 25,000 of duty credit.
A pure-services firm with little import duty to offset would typically sell that scrip in the market, often at a small discount to face value, converting it into direct cash.
That USD 25,000, minus the discount, was effectively a margin top-up on the same export revenue.
With SEIS gone, that top-up disappears.
The same USD 500,000 of export earnings now depends entirely on getting three things right: zero-rating the revenue under GST so no domestic tax erodes it, choosing correctly between LUT vs IGST refund so working capital is not locked up, converting the inflow at a fair exchange rate rather than a marked-up bank rate, and documenting the realisation cleanly so compliance is never a bottleneck.
The scheme was a bonus on top of good operations. Today, good operations are the whole game.
Where do cross-border payments fit for a services exporter now?
Once you accept that the margin lever has moved from a scrip to your own realisation quality, the way you get paid becomes a first-order decision rather than an afterthought.
Every export invoice has to be realised in foreign currency, converted, and evidenced with a valid foreign inward remittance certificate for GST, RBI and audit purposes.
The rules on realisation and repatriation of export proceeds set the timelines you have to meet, and weak documentation or a poor conversion rate quietly costs more than SEIS ever paid.
This is why dedicated cross-border payments for service exporters now matter more than any lapsed incentive.
This is the part Xflow is built for. Xflow receives cross-border export payments into India for service exporters, and it holds final RBI Payment Aggregator - Cross Border (PA-CB) authorisation for both export and import flows as of February 2026.
Payments settle to your Indian account on a T+1 basis at a mid-market rate, and every realisation generates an automatic electronic foreign inward remittance advice (eFIRA), so your evidence trail is ready when you claim your GST refund or face an audit.
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None of this is tax or legal advice, and your own GST and FTP positions should be confirmed with your adviser.
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Frequently asked questions
No. As of August 2026, SEIS is discontinued for services rendered on or after 1 April 2020. FY2019-20 was the last eligible year, and the Foreign Trade Policy 2023 did not revive it.
SEIS, the Service Exports from India Scheme, was a DGFT incentive under the Foreign Trade Policy 2015-2020. It gave service exporters transferable duty credit scrips worth 3%, 5% or 7% of their net foreign exchange earnings.
In India, SEIS means Service Exports from India Scheme, an export incentive. In the UK, the same acronym means Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme, an unrelated equity tax relief. This guide is India only.
There is no direct scrip replacement for services. As of August 2026, service exporters rely on zero-rated GST on exports plus support under the Export Promotion Mission, which absorbed the older Market Access Initiative and interest-subvention schemes.
For most exporters, no. The final application deadline was extended to 28 February 2022, after which fresh claims were not accepted. Only pre-filed or disputed cases already in the DGFT system continued to be processed.
No. RoDTEP and RoSCTL are goods schemes. RoDTEP refunds embedded duties and taxes on exported goods, and does not extend to services, so it is not a SEIS substitute for service exporters.
No. The Foreign Trade Policy 2023 did not revive SEIS or introduce a like-for-like scrip scheme for services. Support for services moved to GST zero-rating and the consolidated Export Promotion Mission framework.
