Overview
If you export fruits and vegetables, processed foods, cereals, honey, cashew or any other Scheduled agricultural product, someone in the chain — a bank, a buyer, a customs broker — will eventually ask for your RCMC. APEDA registration is that Registration-cum-Membership Certificate, issued under the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority Act, 1985, and it is the specific export-authorisation registration for Scheduled products, not a generic exporter licence. It sits alongside your IEC as one of the two things almost every agri-export shipment needs on file.
The APEDA Act requires every person exporting one or more Scheduled products to be registered with the Authority as an exporter of those products. Since 17 July 2023 that registration is no longer filed on a standalone APEDA portal — following a DGFT trade notice, APEDA now issues it as an e-RCMC through the DGFT Common Digital Platform instead. You cannot apply for it without an active Importer-Exporter Code first: the e-RCMC application is filed against your IEC, and the DGFT platform also expects your IEC profile kept current and a Digital Signature Certificate or Aadhaar e-Sign linked to your account before it will let you submit.
India has 26 export promotion councils and 9 commodity boards issuing RCMCs; you register with the one matching your line of business, which for Scheduled agricultural and processed-food products is APEDA and no other. The application also asks you to indicate whether you export as a manufacturer, merchant, or manufacturer-cum-merchant exporter, alongside the product group(s) and HS codes you trade in. Once issued, the certificate runs for five financial years — deemed valid from 1 April of the year of issue through 31 March five years later — and renewal is a distinct online transaction on the same DGFT e-RCMC platform, not an automatic rollover, so it needs to be diarised rather than assumed.
APEDA registration is not the same thing as an FSSAI licence: FSSAI covers food-safety compliance on manufacturing, processing and sale within India, while your APEDA RCMC is generally treated as the export-side registration specific to Scheduled products — most food exporters end up needing both, for different reasons. Registration also opens access to APEDA’s Financial Assistance Scheme for export infrastructure, quality and market development, though its guideline windows change from time to time, so we check APEDA’s current notification rather than assume a benefit is open-ended. We are a private consultancy, not affiliated with APEDA or the Government of India; we prepare your e-RCMC application and the supporting file, and APEDA (via the DGFT portal) decides whether to register you.
Who it’s for
- Exporters of fruits, vegetables, processed foods, dairy, cereals, honey, cashew, floriculture or any other product on APEDA’s Scheduled list
- Manufacturer exporters, merchant exporters and manufacturer-cum-merchant exporters who have not yet filed for an RCMC
- Businesses that already hold an IEC and are exporting Scheduled products without a valid RCMC on file
- Exporters whose existing RCMC has lapsed past its 5-year validity and needs renewal on the DGFT e-RCMC platform
- Food exporters trying to work out whether they need APEDA registration, an FSSAI licence, or both
Eligibility & requirements
- An active Importer-Exporter Code (IEC) from DGFT — mandatory before an APEDA e-RCMC application can even be filed
- An updated IEC profile on the DGFT portal, since the e-RCMC application is filed against that IEC record
- A valid Digital Signature Certificate or Aadhaar e-Sign linked to the DGFT account, used to authenticate the application
- A declared main line of business matching a Scheduled product category — Scheduled products span groups such as fruit and vegetable products, meat and poultry products, dairy, cereals, confectionery and bakery products, honey and sugar products, beverages, floriculture, cashew nuts and Basmati rice
- An export category the application asks you to indicate — manufacturer exporter, merchant exporter, or manufacturer-cum-merchant exporter
- A registration that stays current: an RCMC is valid for 5 financial years (1 April of issue through 31 March five years later) and needs an affirmative renewal filing on expiry, not a passive rollover
How CapEasy handles it
- We confirm your products actually fall under an APEDA Scheduled category, and which export category the application asks for — manufacturer, merchant, or manufacturer-cum-merchant — fits your business
- We check your IEC is active and your IEC profile on the DGFT portal is current — the e-RCMC application will not go through without both
- We help you get a Digital Signature Certificate or Aadhaar e-Sign linked to your DGFT account, if you do not already have one in place
- We prepare the e-RCMC application on the DGFT Common Digital Platform — product groups, HS codes and export category — and assemble the supporting document set
- You review and sign off the application and supporting documents before we submit
- We file and track the application against your IEC and application number through to certificate issuance
- Once your RCMC is live, we flag the 5-year validity window and its renewal date so it does not lapse unnoticed
Documents you’ll typically need
- IEC certificate/copy issued by DGFT
- Bank certificate or bank statement, typically with a cancelled cheque of the firm’s current account
- PAN of the business entity
- Constitution proof: Memorandum of Association for a company, or partnership deed for a firm
- Proof of manufacturing or a processing unit, commonly asked of manufacturer and manufacturer-cum-merchant exporters
- Existing FSSAI licence, sometimes also requested where the product is also food-regulated
CapEasy is a private consultancy and is not affiliated with any government authority. We help you assess eligibility and prepare and file your application; eligibility and approval depend on your specifics and the relevant department’s discretion.
