How to Verify an Indian Exporter Before You Pay

Which registrations should you check first, and where?

The first thing to check on any Indian exporter isn't their price — it's whether they're a real, registered business. Two registrations matter most for an agricultural export, and India's government publishes a way to check each of them:

• IEC (Import Export Code). Issued by India's DGFT, this is the base legal requirement to export from India. No legitimate exporter operates without one. Ask for it directly, and if a supplier is cagey about sharing it, that alone is worth pausing on.
• APEDA registration. For agricultural and processed food exporters specifically. If you're buying fresh produce, grains, spices, or similar categories, this is the second thing to ask about.

Two further records, GST registration and (for companies and LLPs) the corporate registry, help you confirm that the business behind those registrations is the one you're dealing with. The steps below say what to ask for and where to check it. None of them needs a paid service.

Step 1: Check the IEC on DGFT's public lookup

Ask for: the IEC number and the exact registered firm name.
Check it at: DGFT's View Any IEC page. Enter the IEC and at least the first three characters of the firm name. If the portal replies that details for that IEC aren't available, either the number is wrong or it doesn't belong to that name. The same page shows whether the IEC is on DGFT's Denied Entity List, which you want to see clear.

Step 2: Confirm APEDA registration (RCMC) for farm products

Ask for: the APEDA RCMC (Registration-cum-Membership Certificate) number and a copy of the certificate.
Check it at: APEDA's Exporter Status page, which searches by RCMC number or exporter name. APEDA's Exporter's Directory can also be filtered by state, product and exporter type (manufacturer, merchant, or both), which helps you see whether a supplier's claimed role matches its listing. Since July 2023 APEDA issues RCMCs through the DGFT portal, and an IEC is a prerequisite, so the firm name on the RCMC should match the name on the IEC.

Step 3: Look up the GSTIN

Ask for: the exporter's GSTIN, which should also appear on their invoices.
Check it at: the GST portal's Search Taxpayer page, which takes a GSTIN and needs no login. Compare the legal name and registration status it returns with the IEC and the proforma invoice. A GSTIN that returns a different business name is a serious warning.

Step 4: Check company records where they apply

Ask for: the Corporate Identification Number (CIN) or LLPIN, if the exporter is a company or LLP.
Check it at: the Ministry of Corporate Affairs master data service, which currently asks you to log in to the MCA portal first. Proprietorships and partnership firms aren't registered with MCA, so their absence isn't a problem in itself.

Step 5: Make sure every name matches

The single most useful test ties the steps together. The business name on the IEC, the APEDA record, the GST registration, the proforma invoice and the beneficiary on the bank account you're asked to pay should be the same entity. A request to pay a personal account, or an unrelated company "handling payments for us", deserves a direct question and a written explanation before any money moves.

Name mismatches matter beyond fraud, because they also stop legitimate payments. Under a letter of credit, the bank checks that the invoice is issued by the beneficiary named in the credit, so a small difference in the name can be called a discrepancy. Scenario: an LC names "Sunrise Agro Exports Pvt Ltd" as beneficiary, but the invoice and IEC are in the name of "Sunrise Agro Exports", a proprietorship run by the same family. The goods have shipped, the bank refuses the documents, and the cargo sits at the destination port while the LC is amended. A one-line check of the IEC name against the draft LC before it is issued would have prevented it. The same check works in reverse: the name on the bank account you are asked to pay by TT should be the name on the IEC and GST record, not a related company.

None of the five checks needs a paid service, and a supplier who answers them promptly has usually been asked before.

The same applies to us: Green Plus EXIM shares its IEC and APEDA registration documents on request (see our registrations), and we would rather you check them on the DGFT and APEDA portals than take our word for it.

Are references worth asking for, and how do you check them?

A supplier with real buyer relationships should be willing to connect you with at least one existing customer, or provide enough detail (destination markets, approximate volumes, how long they've worked together) that you can sanity-check the claim. This isn't foolproof — references can be cherry-picked — but a total unwillingness to provide any track record is itself informative.

How small should your first quantity be?

This is the single most effective risk-reduction tool available to you, and it's underused. A trial order — smaller than your eventual target volume — lets you evaluate whether a supplier actually delivers what they specify, on the timeline they promise, with proper documentation, before you commit real money to a full container or a recurring contract.

Agricultural exporters often quote a full container as their standard minimum, so ask directly whether a smaller first quantity is possible. The right size is the smallest quantity that still tests what you care about: the grade, the packing, the documents and the arrival condition. For a dense cargo that can mean a part-load or a single container rather than the several containers you plan to buy each month.

If a supplier resists a trial order and pushes hard for a large first commitment, ask why. Sometimes there's a legitimate reason (minimum processing runs, a specific harvest window). Often it's simply that a trial order doesn't suit their cash-flow needs — which tells you something about their financial position, not yours.

Should a first-time importer and an established distributor check differently?

The checks are the same; the order and the depth change. A first-time importer, with no history with Indian suppliers and no in-house compliance team, should run all five registration checks before asking for samples, call at least one reference, start with a trial order, and pay by LC or a partial advance with the balance against documents. Paying for third-party inspection on the first shipment is cheap insurance at that stage.

An established distributor already knows what an Indian proforma, phytosanitary certificate and bill of lading should look like, so it can run the registration checks alongside sampling and price talks rather than before them. What it should not relax is the payment check: the beneficiary name is verified on every first payment to a new supplier and on every change of bank details, however long the relationship.

Scenario: a distributor that has bought from India for years adds a new spice supplier. It checks the IEC and GSTIN in a few minutes and moves straight to a full container on LC terms. A first-time importer of the same product starts with a trial quantity, pays 30% in advance and 70% against documents, and books an inspection agency. Both are sensible; the difference is how much of the risk each can already judge for itself.

Which payment terms protect a first-time buyer?

For a first order of meaningful size, a Letter of Credit is the standard tool for a reason: your bank releases payment only once the exporter presents documents proving the goods were shipped as agreed. This doesn't guarantee the goods match the contract in every respect, but it does mean you're not simply wiring money on trust.

For smaller trial orders, a partial advance with the balance due against shipping documents is common and reasonable. What should make you uncomfortable is a request for 100% advance payment on a large, first-time order from an unverified supplier — that shifts essentially all the risk onto you.

See our how we structure payment page for more detail on how these structures work.

What do vague answers on specification tell you?

A legitimate, experienced exporter should be comfortable discussing specification in precise, measurable terms — moisture percentage, grade, size, packaging format, whatever applies to the product. If every answer is vague ("premium quality," "export grade," with no numbers attached), that's worth noting. Specific businesses give specific answers; the ones who don't may not have the operational discipline to actually deliver against a contract.

Which red flags should make you slow down?

• Unwillingness to share IEC or APEDA registration details
• No references, or refusal to discuss existing buyer relationships even in general terms
• Pressure for full advance payment on a first, large order
• Vague, non-numeric answers to specification questions
• Prices significantly below every other quote you've received, with no clear explanation

None of these alone is disqualifying — but two or three together are a strong signal to slow down, verify independently, and start smaller than originally planned.

Two patterns get past the registration checks, because they borrow a real exporter's identity. In the first, someone presents a genuine firm's IEC, GSTIN and APEDA number, all of which pass the government lookups, but writes from a free email address or a lookalike domain and gives a bank account in another name. The registrations prove the firm exists; they do not prove you are talking to it. Contact the firm on the phone number or address from its official records, not the one in the email, before you pay.

In the second, the supplier is real and the conversation is genuine, but a message arrives just before payment saying the bank details have changed. Scenario: a buyer receives a proforma by email, then a second email from what looks like the same address with "updated" bank details and a reason, such as an audit or a new bank. The buyer pays the new account; the exporter never receives the money. Treat any change of beneficiary as a red flag until you have confirmed it by phone on a number you already had, and ask for the change on the exporter's letterhead, signed, before you send a single payment.