Sending swag to employees in India, and what it actually costs
Almost everything written about this is a merchandise vendor quoting another merchandise vendor. The numbers below come from the customs documents themselves, and every one is linked so you can check it.
The short version: importing goods into India as gifts is prohibited outright, the full-duty route runs to 53.60% of CIF value, and the Know Your Customer paperwork is filed by your employee, not by you.
Why a parcel addressed to an employee is the hard case
Each link closes a route, and by the fifth there is nowhere sensible left to go.
- 1
Your employee has no Importer Exporter Code
A commercial import needs an IEC alongside the KYC documents. A salaried individual receiving a hoodie does not have one, so the shipment cannot clear as a commercial import in their name. That closes the route a company would normally use.
- 2
It cannot clear as a gift either
DGFT Notification No. 35/2015-2020 prohibits importing goods through courier or post as gifts, other than life-saving medicines and Rakhi. The same goods may be imported on payment of full duty, but that is a different entry, not the gift route.
- 3
So it clears as a personal import, and the duty is the employee’s
Under tariff heading 9804 Chennai Customs puts the total at 42.08% of CIF; on the bona fide gift route with full duty paid it is 53.60%. Under the default carrier terms the consignee is billed, and the consignee is your employee.
- 4
The employee personally files KYC and a Power of Attorney
Not the company, not HR, not the vendor. SwagUp’s own support page instructs the recipient to give UPS these documents before clearance, and warns that a shipment delayed for want of them will be abandoned by Indian customs.
- 5
Refusal at the door is the documented normal outcome
Customs says so in its own FAQ: consignees assume gifts are duty-free, gifts in fact attract 53.60%, and this leads to refusals. Multiply by headcount and the programme is a support queue.
The rules, with the documents
Six facts, each tied to the instrument it comes from. Where the received wisdom is imprecise, we say what the precise position is instead.
Importing goods into India as “gifts” is prohibited, not merely dutiable
DGFT Notification No. 35/2015-2020 of 12 December 2019, read with CBIC Circular No. 4/2020-Customs, prohibits the import of goods through courier or post as gifts, other than life-saving medicines and Rakhi. The same goods can be imported on payment of full applicable duty, which is a different customs entry with different paperwork.
Chennai Customs, FAQ on import of gifts and personal imports through courier, October 2025Duty on a bona fide gift consignment works out to 53.60% of CIF value
Basic customs duty at 20% of CIF, then IGST at 28% on the duty-paid value, which is 33.60% of CIF. Chennai Customs works the example through: a consignment of ₹10,000 CIF attracts ₹2,000 basic duty and ₹3,360 IGST, ₹5,360 in all.
Chennai Customs, FAQ on import of gifts and personal imports through courier, October 2025Refusal at the door is the documented normal outcome
Customs’ own wording: consignees often assume gifts from relatives are duty-free, in reality gifts attract 53.60% duty, leading to refusals, and couriers are advised to tell overseas shippers about duty at the booking stage. Your employee is the consignee, and the duty bill arrives with the parcel.
Chennai Customs, FAQ, question 12The employee cannot clear it as a commercial import either
A commercial import needs a valid Importer Exporter Code alongside the KYC documents. Your India-based employee, as a private individual, does not have one. That leaves the personal-import route under tariff heading 9804, where Chennai Customs puts the total at 42.08% of CIF.
Chennai Customs, FAQ, questions 2 and 8The paperwork lands on the employee, and the US platforms say so themselves
SwagUp’s support page tells the recipient to give UPS Know Your Customer and authorisation Power of Attorney documents before clearance, and states plainly that if the shipment is delayed for want of that information the package will be abandoned by Indian customs.
SwagUp support, documents needed to ship packages to IndiaThe “no de minimis” line everyone repeats is close, but not precise
There is no general de minimis for commercial courier imports, which is the part that is right. The ₹5,000 bona fide gift exemption does still exist in law under Sl. No. 608A of Notification 50/2017-Customs, it is simply unusable because clearing goods as a gift is prohibited. And section 25(6) of the Customs Act 1962 does set a floor: no duty is collected where the duty leviable is ₹100 or less, which at 53.60% is about ₹187 of value. Nothing you would ship, but it is the correct answer.
CBIC Circular No. 4/2020-Customs, 21 January 2020, and the Customs Act 1962This is a summary of published customs material, current as at 12 September 2026, and not legal or customs advice. Rates and notifications change. Check the linked documents, and ask your own customs broker before you ship.
What producing inside India changes
There is no import, so there is no customs entry, no duty, no KYC from the employee and no clearance window. An order placed by an employee in Bengaluru is a domestic delivery on a GST invoice, the same as anything else they buy.
Swpe Stores runs that as a funded store: you give every employee a budget for the year, they choose what they want in their own size, we produce and hold the stock in Pune and deliver to 21,000+ pincodes. Employees outside India ship from the same store on the same budget.
Frequently asked questions
How much is customs duty on swag sent to India?+
On the bona fide gift route with full duty paid, 53.60% of the CIF value: basic customs duty at 20% of CIF, then IGST at 28% on the duty-paid value, which is a further 33.60% of CIF. Chennai Customs works the example through in its own FAQ: a ₹10,000 consignment attracts ₹2,000 basic duty and ₹3,360 IGST, ₹5,360 in all. On the personal-import route under heading 9804 the total comes to 42.08% of CIF. Both are billed to the consignee, who is your employee, unless you have shipped on DDP terms.
Does India have a de minimis threshold for imports?+
Not a general one for commercial courier imports, which is the part every vendor page gets right. Two details they miss. The ₹5,000 bona fide gift exemption under Sl. No. 608A of Notification 50/2017-Customs does still exist in law; it is simply unusable, because clearing goods as a gift is prohibited outright. And section 25(6) of the Customs Act 1962 sets a genuine floor: no duty is collected where the duty leviable is ₹100 or less, which at 53.60% works out to roughly ₹187 of value. Nothing you would ship, but it is the accurate answer to the question.
Can we just ship DDP so the employee is not billed?+
You can, and you should if you ship at all. Under the default DAP terms the carrier bills the receiver for duty, tax and a disbursement fee; under DDP the sender carries the import formalities and the duty. DDP solves the bill. It does not solve the prohibition on the gift route, the KYC and Power of Attorney the employee still has to file, or the clearance time.
Why does producing inside India avoid all of this?+
Because there is no import. Merchandise made and warehoused in India and delivered to an Indian address is a domestic sale: one GST invoice, no customs entry, no KYC from the employee, no duty. That is the whole of the difference. We produce and hold stock in Pune and deliver to 21,000+ pincodes, and your overseas employees ship from the same programme.
Is swag taxable to the employee in India?+
There are two separate thresholds and they are routinely conflated. For income tax, gifts in kind from an employer are treated as nil-value up to ₹15,000 in the tax year, a figure that moved up from ₹5,000 on 1 April 2026 and that most of the internet has not caught up with. For GST, gifts up to ₹50,000 per employee per financial year are not treated as a supply at all. They are different numbers answering different questions. We have set both out, with the instruments, on the swag tax page.
What about US platforms that warehouse in India?+
Several do, and they serve India properly. PerkUp warehouses in India and Axomo fulfils from Pune with a minimum of one. The honest claim is not that importing is impossible or that nobody else can do this; it is about what the import route costs and what it asks of your HR team every time a box moves. If your platform already holds stock inside India, most of this page does not apply to you.
Serving an India team from abroad?
Tell us the headcount and where they sit. We will come back with what the same programme costs produced inside India, on a GST invoice, with no customs step.
We respond within 24 hours, Monday–Saturday