Export from India to Dubai in 2026: The Ecommerce Seller Guide to IEC, GST, Shipping, Customs and Getting Paid

Most Indian brands meet the Gulf in the wrong order. They pick a marketplace, get halfway through registration, and only then discover that the platform wants an Importer Exporter Code, a Letter of Undertaking and an Authorised Dealership code they have never heard of. This page puts the order back: the export mechanics first, the marketplace last, because the marketplace step is the easy one.

It is written for an Indian seller with no export history who wants to sell into Dubai and the wider UAE, and it stays on the India side longer than most marketplace guides do. Where a number is published we cite it. Where nothing credible is published — and in India-to-UAE freight, most pricing is not — we say so and tell you who to ask. Everything is current as of September 2026.

What do you legally need before you can export at all?

Three things, in this order.

• Importer Exporter Code (IEC). Issued by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade against your PAN. It is the licence number that appears on every shipping bill. Apply on the DGFT portal; it is a free-standing registration and does not depend on turnover.
• AD code registration. Your bank issues an Authorised Dealer code letter, and that code has to be registered at each port or courier terminal you intend to ship from. Customs will not let a shipping bill through a port where your AD code is not registered. This is the step that most often delays a first shipment, because it is per-port and nobody tells you in advance.
• GST registration with an export-ready set-up. You need the GSTIN itself, and then a decision about how to handle IGST on exports, which is the next section.

noon's own documentation confirms the set it wants from an Indian cross-border seller: GST certificate, Letter of Undertaking copy, Authorised Dealership code copy, Importer Exporter Code copy and PAN copy for order processing, plus a passport copy matching the name on the GST certificate and a trade licence or equivalent business document at account creation. If you assemble that file before you register anywhere, the marketplace onboarding stops being the bottleneck.

How does GST work on exports, and what is an LUT?

Exports of goods are zero-rated under GST. That does not mean "ignore GST"; it means you have two routes and they behave very differently for cash flow.

Either way you can claim input tax credit on domestic inputs. The LUT route is why noon lists a "Letter of Undertaking (LUT) copy" among the documents required for order processing: your export invoices under its cross-border programme are zero-rated invoices. noon's own guidance to non-resident sellers in the UAE is explicit about the shape of that paperwork — "raise a zero-rated invoice for exports" and "maintain order ID level information for customs and VAT remittance".

Which shipping mode should an ecommerce exporter use?

India to Dubai is one of the shortest international lanes an Indian seller will ever run, and that shapes the answer. There are four realistic modes.

That last row is the one most Indian sellers underrate. It removes freight procurement from your first launch entirely. It comes with limits: noon states that cross-border items must not be fragile or dangerous goods and that volumetric or actual weight must not exceed 2 kg, so heavy or bulky ranges cannot use it.

On freight rates: neither noon nor Amazon.ae publishes an India-to-UAE freight rate card, and no honest guide can give you one, because rates move with fuel, season and lane capacity. Get three written quotes — one express, one air consolidator, one freight forwarder — for your actual box dimensions and monthly volume, and put the per-unit figure into your landed cost. Our noon landed cost calculator is built to take that number as an input rather than pretend to know it.

What happens at customs on each side?

India side. Your customs broker files a shipping bill against your IEC and AD code, with an HS code per item, and the goods are cleared for export. For ecommerce parcels the courier route uses the simplified shipping-bill regime for courier exports rather than a full commercial shipping bill; your courier will tell you which form your consignment goes on. Keep the shipping bill — it is the document your bank will want later.

UAE side. Somebody has to be the importer of record and pay import duty and 5% import VAT before the goods are released. The UAE VAT Executive Regulations provide that where an unregistered person imports goods using an agent who is registered for tax in the State, that agent is responsible for paying the tax. On noon's cross-border lane, noon fills that role: it states that it "collects the applicable VAT in both the UAE and KSA and pays it directly to the relevant authorities", and that import-related charges will not appear on your invoice. Only the VAT on marketplace fees — 5% in the UAE, 15% in KSA — shows up on your statement.

On duty rates, be careful with the figure you have probably read. The 5% GCC common external tariff is a default for many lines, not a universal rate: we could not retrieve a tariff schedule that states it as a blanket rate, Saudi Arabia raised many lines above 5% from 2020, and the India-UAE CEPA reduces or removes duty on a large share of Indian tariff lines. The rate that matters is the one against your HS code on the day you import. Use an 8-digit HS code for UAE listings on noon and a 12-digit code for KSA, which noon says can be looked up through the ZATCA tariff search tool, and note noon's warning that HS code accuracy is your legal responsibility.

What documents travel with the goods?

• Commercial invoice — the price the buyer or importer pays, with currency and Incoterm.
• Packing list — carton-level contents, weights and dimensions.
• Certificate of origin — the document that unlocks a CEPA preferential rate, where your line qualifies. Without it you pay the standard rate regardless of where the goods were made.
• Bill of lading or air waybill — title and transport document.
• Shipping bill — the Indian export declaration.
• Product compliance paperwork — category dependent. Cosmetics, food, electronics and toys carry conformity requirements in the UAE, and MOIAT's conformity certification scheme for regulated products (ECAS) requires a valid trade licence, which means a foreign seller with no UAE entity cannot hold it in its own name. Saudi Arabia adds the Saber platform, where a Product Certificate of Conformity costs SAR 500 and a Shipment Certificate of Conformity SAR 350, both excluding VAT, and an unregistered shipment risks being re-exported.

How do you actually get paid?

Export proceeds come back through your AD bank, against the shipping bill, and your bank issues the electronic bank realisation certificate that closes the loop between the export declaration and the money. Your bank will tell you the realisation window that applies to your consignment; do not take a number for that from a blog, including this one.

On the marketplace side, noon is specific for Indian sellers: all payments go to the bank account linked to the noon India seller account, that account must be able to receive USD, settlement is in USD, and payment is made from noon's UAE or KSA entity. Any charge the receiving bank deducts is yours, not noon's. noon generates statements every Wednesday, with payouts for UAE and KSA processed on the Thursday of the following week, and a minimum payout threshold of 100 AED or SAR where your bank currency matches the marketplace currency — or 1,000 AED or SAR where it does not, which is the case for every Indian seller holding a non-AED account. Below that threshold, funds roll over. Disputes on a statement must be raised within 15 days.

Run the same item into Saudi Arabia and two things change: VAT on fees is 15% not 5%, and duty is calculated on CIF with VAT then applied on the customs declaration including duty. ZATCA's own guidance for e-store customers confirms both the CIF basis and that "VAT is applied to all amounts calculated in the customs declaration, including customs duties". A margin that works in Dubai can be negative in Riyadh on the same price.

Then, and only then, the marketplace step

With IEC, AD code, GST and LUT in place and a landed cost per SKU, the marketplace decision is small. noon's cross-border programme is the lowest-friction entry for an Indian seller: non-VAT legal entity, GSTIN, USD pricing, USD settlement, no UAE trade licence. Our guide to selling on noon without a trade licence covers what that route can and cannot do, and noon vs Amazon.ae for Indian sellers covers the platform choice. If Saudi Arabia is on the list, start with how to sell on noon Saudi Arabia, because the tax and conformity load is heavier there. The VAT in UAE and KSA glossary entry has the thresholds, and FBN explains the fulfilment model the fee example above assumes.

If you would rather not learn all of this by making the mistakes, this is exactly the sequence our noon account management team runs for Indian brands entering the Gulf.

FAQ

Do I need an IEC to sell on noon from India? Yes. noon lists the Importer Exporter Code copy among the documents required for order processing under its cross-border programme, alongside GST, LUT, AD code and PAN.

Can I export without paying IGST? Yes, by filing a Letter of Undertaking and invoicing the export as zero-rated. The alternative is to pay IGST and claim a refund, which ties up working capital. Confirm the current procedure with your CA.

Is duty from India to the UAE really 5%? Not reliably. 5% is the GCC default for many tariff lines, the India-UAE CEPA reduces or removes duty on a large share of Indian lines, and Saudi Arabia charges more than 5% on many lines. The rate is per HS code, so check yours and carry a certificate of origin to claim a preference.

Who is the importer of record on a cross-border noon sale? noon states that it collects the applicable UAE and KSA VAT and pays it to the authorities directly, and that import-related charges do not appear on the seller's invoice. Only VAT on marketplace fees reaches your statement.

How long until money from the Gulf reaches my Indian bank? noon issues statements every Wednesday and processes UAE and KSA payouts on the Thursday of the following week, in USD, provided you clear the minimum threshold — 1,000 AED or SAR for a bank account held in a different currency from the marketplace, which applies to Indian sellers.

What is the heaviest item I can send cross-border on noon? For the India lane, noon states that volumetric or actual weight must not exceed 2 kg, and that fragile and dangerous goods are not eligible. Bulkier ranges need a local entity and a local warehouse.

Get the export file and the Gulf launch done once

The pattern we see is brands doing the paperwork twice: once badly, alone, then again properly after a shipment is stuck. If you want the export file, the landed-cost model and the marketplace launch sequenced correctly the first time, book a free audit through our noon account management page.