Quick answer
The anti-dumping duty process in India is run by the Directorate General of Trade Remedies under Section 9A of the Customs Tariff Act, 1975 and the Anti-Dumping Rules, 1995. DGTR will only initiate where the petitioners account for at least 25 percent of domestic production, the dumping margin is at least 2 percent of export price, and imports from the country concerned are at least 3 percent of total imports of that product. The case then runs through initiation, questionnaires at roughly 37 days, a preliminary finding no earlier than 60 days from initiation, verification, disclosure and hearing, and a final finding within one year, extendable by six months. Duty is the lower of the dumping margin and the injury margin, and runs five years unless a sunset review extends it.
The anti-dumping duty process in India is a structured, deadline-driven procedure run by the Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR) under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, under the authority of Section 9A of the Customs Tariff Act, 1975 and the Anti-Dumping Rules, 1995. This page explains how that process actually works, stage by stage, and how the dumping margin and injury margin behind every anti-dumping duty are calculated.
Already named in a live case?
- If you need to know what to do next rather than how the process works in general, our companion guide, How to Respond to an Anti-Dumping Investigation in India, walks through the practical response steps instead.
What Triggers the Anti-Dumping Duty Process in India
An investigation does not start automatically whenever an Indian producer feels undercut by an import price. DGTR applies specific thresholds before it will even initiate a case.
Standing
The domestic producers supporting the application must account for at least 25 percent of total domestic production of the like article, and the supporters must represent more than 50 percent of the production of those domestic producers who have expressed either support or opposition to the application.
De minimis dumping margin
If an exporter's calculated dumping margin works out to less than 2 percent of its export price, that exporter is excluded from the case, since the margin is treated as too small to matter.
Negligible import volume
If imports from a particular country account for less than 3 percent of India's total imports of that product, and the combined imports from all such sub-3-percent countries do not exceed 7 percent, those countries are generally excluded.
Once these thresholds are satisfied, DGTR can proceed to initiate a formal investigation. A petition that does not clear the standing threshold, or where the dumping margin calculated at the application stage looks likely to fall below the de minimis level, is unlikely to result in an initiation at all, which is why the application stage itself, not just the later questionnaire stage, is worth scrutiny by any exporter monitoring a sector where a petition looks likely.
The Anti-Dumping Duty Process in India, Stage by Stage
The table below sets out the process in the order it actually runs, from application to the five-year duty term.
| Stage | What Happens | Who Acts | Approximate Timing |
|---|---|---|---|
1. Application |
Domestic industry files a petition with dumping and injury evidence | Domestic industry, DGTR | Before initiation |
2. Initiation |
DGTR reviews standing and evidence, issues initiation notification | DGTR | Day 0 |
3. Questionnaire stage |
Exporters, producers, importers and the domestic industry respond to DGTR questionnaires | Interested parties | Roughly 37 days from issue |
4. Preliminary finding |
DGTR may recommend a provisional duty, not earlier than 60 days from initiation | DGTR, Dept. of Revenue | Typically within the first few months |
5. Verification |
On site or remote verification of questionnaire data | DGTR, interested parties | During the investigation |
6. Disclosure and hearing |
DGTR issues a disclosure statement and holds an oral hearing | DGTR, interested parties | Before the final finding |
7. Final finding |
DGTR issues its final determination on dumping, injury and causal link | DGTR | Within 1 year of initiation, extendable by up to 6 months |
8. Notification and appeal |
Department of Revenue notifies the duty; an unfavourable finding can be appealed | Dept. of Revenue, CESTAT | After the final finding |
9. Duration and review |
Duty stays in force for 5 years unless extended by a sunset review | DGTR, domestic industry | Up to 5 years, reviewable |
A few of these stages carry more legal weight than the table alone shows. Provisional duty cannot be imposed earlier than 60 days from the date of initiation, which gives interested parties a minimum window before any interim duty applies. The final finding is required within one year of initiation, though DGTR can extend that by up to six months in specific circumstances, and the resulting duty only takes legal effect once the Department of Revenue issues its own separate notification, distinct from DGTR's finding itself.
How the Dumping Margin and Injury Margin Are Calculated
Every anti-dumping duty in India rests on two separate calculations, and the lower of the two, not the higher, is what actually gets imposed.
Normal value and export price
Normal value is generally the price of the product in the exporter's own domestic market. Where reliable domestic sales data is not available, DGTR moves down a hierarchy: first to the export price to a third country, and if that is also unusable, to a constructed value, meaning cost of production plus a reasonable amount for selling, general and administrative expenses and profit. Export price is what the exporter actually charged for the goods sold to India, adjusted where needed for a fair comparison with normal value.
Dumping margin
The dumping margin is calculated as the normal value minus the export price, divided by the export price, expressed as a percentage. As an illustration, if the normal value of a product is 100 units of currency and the export price to India is 70, the dumping margin works out to roughly 43 percent.
Injury margin and the lesser duty rule
Injury margin is calculated separately, generally as the difference between the non-injurious price (the price the domestic industry would need to cover its costs and a reasonable return) and the landed value of the imported goods. India follows the lesser duty rule: the anti-dumping duty actually recommended is the lower of the dumping margin and the injury margin, not automatically the higher one, since the purpose of the duty is to remove the injury, not to penalise the exporter beyond that.
Anti-Dumping Duty, Countervailing Duty and Safeguard Duty
Anti-dumping duty is one of three trade remedies under Indian law, and the three are often confused with each other.
| Trade Remedy | What Triggers It | Legal Basis in India |
|---|---|---|
Anti-Dumping DutyPricing-based |
Export price below normal value (dumping margin) | Section 9A, Customs Tariff Act, 1975; Anti-Dumping Rules, 1995 |
Countervailing DutySubsidy-based |
A subsidy granted by a foreign government to its exporters | Section 9, Customs Tariff Act, 1975; Countervailing Duty Rules, 1995 |
Safeguard DutyVolume-based |
A sudden surge in imports causing serious injury, regardless of pricing or subsidy; remedy can be a duty or a tariff rate quota | Section 8B, Customs Tariff Act, 1975; Customs Tariff (Identification and Assessment of Safeguard Duty) Rules, 1997, as amended in 2021 |
Provisional Duty, Definitive Duty and Retrospective Application
A provisional duty can apply once DGTR reaches a preliminary finding, ahead of the final determination, and functions as an interim measure while the investigation continues. A definitive duty follows the final finding and is what actually stays in force for the duty's term. In limited circumstances involving a history of dumping or a short period of significant dumping that has caused injury difficult to repair, Indian law also permits an anti-dumping duty to be applied retrospectively, for a period of up to 90 days before the provisional duty took effect, though this is the exception applied in specific fact patterns rather than the general rule.
Sunset Reviews and Other Reviews
An anti-dumping duty does not run indefinitely. It stays in force for five years from the date of notification unless the domestic industry applies for, and DGTR grants, a sunset review, which examines whether dumping and injury are likely to continue or recur if the duty were allowed to lapse. Beyond sunset reviews, an exporter that was not individually examined in the original investigation can seek a new shipper review to get its own margin calculated, and any interested party can seek a changed circumstances review where the underlying facts have shifted materially since the original finding.
Anti-Circumvention Measures
A duty that only applies to one specific product description invites an obvious workaround: change the product just enough to fall outside that description, or route it through a third country, or complete only a final assembly step in India or in a third country while sourcing the core components from the country the duty targets.
Indian law addresses this through anti-circumvention provisions under the Anti-Dumping Rules, which let DGTR extend an existing duty to a modified product, a third-country transhipment route, or an assembly operation found to be circumventing the original finding, once it establishes that the change was made to avoid the duty rather than for a genuine commercial reason. A business restructuring its supply chain after a duty is imposed should treat this as a live risk, not a technicality, particularly where the change happens soon after the original duty takes effect.
How Marg Tax Advisors Helps With Anti-Dumping Duty Matters in India
Marg Tax Advisors advises and represents foreign producers, exporters and Indian importers through the anti-dumping duty process in India, from reviewing an initiation notification through to a sunset review years later. The team pairs lawyers with chartered accountants, since the dumping margin and injury margin calculations behind every case are as much an accounting exercise as a legal one, and a submission that gets the legal argument right but the underlying cost or sales data wrong rarely holds up at verification. That combination also matters for anti-circumvention questions, where a supply chain change has to be assessed on both the commercial facts and the legal standard DGTR applies.
Related reading
- For the practical steps to take if your company has actually received a notice, see How to Respond to an Anti-Dumping Investigation in India.
- For the firm's anti-dumping practice itself, see our Anti-Dumping Lawyer India page, and for the full trade remedies practice, our International Trade Lawyers in Delhi page.
Who You'll Work With
Shashank Shekhar Gupta
Founder, Chartered Accountant and Lawyer
Anti-dumping matters at Marg Tax Advisors are led by Shashank Shekhar Gupta, founder of the firm, a Chartered Accountant and a lawyer who chairs the International Trade Law Committee of the Indian Industries Association, North India’s largest MSME manufacturer association. Before founding Marg Tax Advisors, he worked with Deloitte and other consulting practices, which is where the firm’s approach of pairing legal argument with underlying financial data comes from.