What is the order of the India import duty calculation?

First BCD is charged on the assessable value. Then the Social Welfare Surcharge is 10% of the BCD. Then IGST is charged on the assessable value plus BCD plus the surcharge. The duties stack, so IGST is effectively charged on the duty-inclusive value.

What is the Social Welfare Surcharge?

The Social Welfare Surcharge (SWS) replaced the older education cesses. It is levied at 10% of the aggregate customs duties (primarily the BCD) and funds social welfare schemes. It is not charged on IGST.

What is the assessable value?

The assessable value is the CIF value — cost of goods plus insurance plus freight to the Indian port. Customs duty is calculated on this value, not on the goods price alone, so freight and insurance increase the duty base.

For GST-registered importers, the IGST paid on imports is generally available as input tax credit, so it is a cash-flow cost rather than a final cost. BCD and the Social Welfare Surcharge are not creditable and are a real cost of import.

Does this cover anti-dumping or compensation cess?

No. Specific goods can attract anti-dumping duty, safeguard duty, agriculture cess (AIDC) or GST compensation cess on top of the standard stack. This tool covers the core BCD + SWS + IGST chain; add product-specific levies separately.

India Basic Customs Duty Calculator

An India import duty calculator that builds the full customs duty stack on goods entering India: Basic Customs Duty (BCD) on the assessable value, the 10% Social Welfare Surcharge on the BCD, and IGST charged on the duty-inclusive value. It is for importers, e-commerce sellers and finance teams who need the landed cost and the effective duty rate for a product.

How it works

Indian import duties are levied in a specific order, with each layer adding to the base of the next:

BCD  = assessableValue * bcdRate
SWS  = BCD * 0.10                          (Social Welfare Surcharge, 10% of BCD)
IGSTbase = assessableValue + BCD + SWS
IGST = IGSTbase * igstRate
totalDuty = BCD + SWS + IGST
landed    = assessableValue + totalDuty

The assessable value is the CIF value (cost + insurance + freight to the Indian port), so transport costs raise the duty base. The Social Welfare Surcharge is 10% of the BCD only — it is not applied to IGST. IGST then sits on top of everything below it, which is why the effective rate is always higher than the headline BCD plus IGST rates added naively.

Example and notes

On an assessable value of ₹100,000 with a 10% BCD and 18% IGST: BCD is ₹10,000; the Social Welfare Surcharge is ₹1,000; the IGST base is ₹111,000 and IGST at 18% is ₹19,980. Total duty is ₹30,980, an effective rate of about 31% on the assessable value — noticeably above the 10% + 18% = 28% a naive sum would suggest, because of the stacking.

For GST-registered importers the IGST is usually recoverable as input credit, so the real cost is the BCD plus the surcharge. Specific products can also attract anti-dumping duty, AIDC or compensation cess — add those separately. All figures are computed locally in your browser.