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Most exporters never spend the duty credit scrips they earn, because most exporters do not import. The credit sits in the ICEGATE ledger, loses value as its expiry approaches, and eventually goes to zero. Selling is the normal outcome. This page is how that sale works, what it should cost you, and where sellers usually lose money.
RoDTEP and RoSCTL scrips sell identically. Everything here applies to both.

Before you can sell: convert scroll to scrip

You cannot sell a scroll. You can only sell a scrip. After customs generates the RoDTEP or RoSCTL scroll for your shipping bills, the sanctioned amount sits in your ICEGATE e-scrip ledger as an unconverted balance. It becomes a tradable instrument only when you create the e-scrip from it, at which point it gets a scrip number, a face value, and a validity date. Two things to do before you talk price:
  1. Check for unconverted scroll balances. Exporters routinely find sanctioned amounts they never converted.
  2. Check expiry dates on what you already hold. Validity is what determines your negotiating position. See Scrip validity and expiry.

What a buyer is actually buying

A buyer is paying cash today for the right to pay customs duty later. It cares about exactly four things: Everything in a scrip negotiation reduces to those four. If a quote you receive is not explainable in those terms, ask why.

The two ways scrips get sold

Broker negotiation

You circulate the scrip details, collect indicative bids, haggle, agree a number, transfer on ICEGATE, then wait for payment. Price discovery is private and asymmetric, and payment risk sits with you.

Exchange

You take a firm quote against a published benchmark, accept or decline, and title and money move together. Price is one number, and settlement is not a favour.
The structural difference is not the discount. It is who carries the gap between transfer and payment. In a negotiated deal, the seller transfers on the portal and then chases the money. On an exchange, the buyer’s funds are locked before the scrip moves, and the payout fires on confirmation of the transfer.

Selling on ScripX, step by step

1

Connect the firm

Register the exporter’s IEC and complete verification under the firm’s own mandate. Once the firm’s state is connected, its credits are readable. See Register a firm.
2

List the sellable credits

GET /v1/firms/{iec}/credits returns each credit with its scheme, face_paise, balance_paise, expiry_date and a sellable flag. A credit marked sellable: true has already cleared provenance screening.
3

Take a firm quote

POST /v1/quote with the specific scrip_no returns one firm price for that exact credit: price_bps as a percentage of face in basis points, all_in_paise as the net rupees the seller receives, and valid_until as the window the price holds for. Nothing is deducted after all_in_paise.
4

Place the order with a floor

POST /v1/orders carries min_pct_bps, a structural price floor. The order cannot fill below it. Send an Idempotency-Key so a retry never doubles the sale.
5

Get paid, with a UTR

Settlement is delivery versus payment: buyer funds lock first, title transfers on ICEGATE, and the payout fires on confirmation of the transfer, by IMPS, with a bank UTR on the receipt. Minutes, same business day (T+0). A settlement that cannot complete unwinds and refunds in full the same day.
The full sell-side walkthrough with request and response bodies is in the Exporter guide.

Reading the price you are offered

Scrip prices are quoted as a percentage of face value. On the ScripX API that is basis points: 9650 means 96.50% of face, so a scrip with ₹10,00,000 of face value pays out ₹9,65,000. The published benchmark, the Scrip Reference Rate, is available without an API key at GET /public/rates, with the daily series at GET /public/rates/{scheme}/history. Knowing the benchmark before you take a bid is the cheapest leverage a seller has. What moves the number is covered in Duty credit scrip price and discount rate explained.

Where sellers lose money

  • Letting scrips age. The discount widens as expiry approaches, and an expired scrip is worth zero. This is the single largest source of loss.
  • Never converting scroll to scrip. Sanctioned money that was never turned into an instrument.
  • Selling without a benchmark. Accepting the first bid with no reference point.
  • Transferring before being paid. Once a scrip has moved on the portal, your leverage is gone. Sequence matters more than the last few basis points.
  • Splitting attention across many small scrips. Small lots attract worse bids individually than the same face value handled as one book.

Tax and accounting treatment

A duty credit scrip sale is GST-exempt: scrips are classified under HSN 4907 and exempt under Notification 02/2017. There is no GST on the scrip value in the transfer. Sale proceeds are ordinarily accounted as income from the export incentive, and the discount to face is the cost of monetising early. Confirm treatment with your own tax adviser; this page is not tax advice.

Frequently asked questions

No. Scrips transfer whole. A buyer’s requirement is covered by a bundle of whole scrips, with any shortfall left over rather than a scrip being split. This is why the API reports a residual_paise on the buy side.
On ScripX the seller payout fires on ICEGATE confirmation of the transfer, by IMPS, with a UTR, in minutes on the same business day (T+0). In a negotiated private deal, payment timing is whatever the counterparty agrees to and honours.
The bank UTR on the payout. It is the reconciliation key, and it is carried into the tamper-evident audit export.
No. Selling is the exit for exporters who do not import. That is the whole reason the market exists.
Yes, if a balance remains and the scrip has not yet been transferred. It is priced on the remaining balance, not the original face value. Note that under the e-scrip framework a scrip may be transferred only once.
On ScripX, nothing moves one-sided. If settlement cannot complete, it unwinds safely and the buyer is refunded in full the same day. You still hold the scrip.