Commercial Invoice & Packing List for Export from India: The Complete Checklist

Quick answer: An Indian export Commercial Invoice must carry the exporter’s IEC and GSTIN, a unique invoice number and date, full buyer and consignee details, the Incoterm and named place, the currency and — when you invoice in anything other than rupees — the INR exchange rate, an 8-digit ITC-HS code on every line, and the GST declaration stating whether you’re exporting under a LUT (without paying IGST) or on payment of IGST. The Packing List repeats the shipment identity and adds package counts, net weight and gross weight per line. Miss one of these and the document doesn’t fail politely — it comes back from your CHA, your customs broker, or the bank that’s holding your remittance.

This guide walks every field, why it’s there, and which ones are mandatory versus strongly recommended.

Generate all four documents from your cargo list. Commercial Invoice, Packing List, Proforma and the combined Invoice-cum-Packing-List — with a live checklist that tells you what’s still missing.

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The four documents, and who asks for which

Most Indian export shipments move on the same small set of paperwork:

Document	Who asks for it	What it’s for
Proforma Invoice	Your buyer	The quote they confirm before the order ships. Same data, no commitment.
Commercial Invoice	Customs, the bank	The legal record of the sale — value, terms, HS codes, declarations.
Packing List	Forwarder, CHA, the buyer’s customs	What’s physically in each package — counts, weights, dimensions.
Invoice-cum-Packing-List	Many Indian filings	The two above combined on a single sheet.

They are not four separate data sets. They are four views of one shipment — which is exactly why retyping the same buyer address into four templates is where errors get in.

The Commercial Invoice, field by field

Exporter identity — who’s shipping

• IEC (Importer-Exporter Code) — mandatory. The 10-character DGFT code without which no export leaves India. Since 2017 your IEC is your firm’s PAN, which is why it’s 10 characters.
• GSTIN — mandatory. 15 characters: 2-digit state code, your 10-char PAN, an entity digit, a Z, and a checksum character. If yours doesn’t match that shape, it’s mistyped.
• Name, full address, and GST state code — the state code drives place-of-supply. It’s the same first two digits as your GSTIN (27 for Maharashtra, 24 for Gujarat, and so on).
• AD Code — the Authorised Dealer code from your bank branch. Strongly recommended on the document itself: it’s what links the shipment to the bank account that receives the remittance, and it’s registered against the port you’re filing at.

Buyer, consignee, and destination

Bill-to and ship-to are not always the same party. A buyer in Rotterdam may have you deliver to a consignee in Hamburg. The invoice needs the buyer in full; the consignee gets its own block whenever it differs, and the country of final destination must be stated explicitly — customs classifies the export on the destination, not on wherever the buyer happens to be registered.

Also state country of origin (India). Your buyer’s own customs will ask for it, and it’s what a Certificate of Origin later corroborates.

Terms and money

• Invoice number and date — unique, sequential. This number follows the shipment through the shipping bill, the bank, and eventually the eBRC that closes it out.
• Incoterm 2020 + named place — FOB Nhava Sheva, CIF Hamburg. The code alone is incomplete; the named place is what makes it mean anything.
• Currency, and the INR exchange rate — here’s the one that catches people. GST law wants the INR-equivalent value on an export invoice. If you invoice in USD, you must also carry the rate you converted at (the RBI reference rate for the date). An invoice in USD with no INR value is a routine reason for a document to come back.
• Payment terms — 100% advance, LC at sight, 30 days DA. Recommended, and your bank will look for it.

The GST declaration — LUT or IGST

An export is a zero-rated supply. You may make it one of two ways, and your invoice must say which:

1. Under a LUT (Letter of Undertaking) or bond, without paying IGST. The invoice must carry the LUT number and its validity. This is the common route for regular exporters.
2. On payment of IGST, then claiming a refund. The declaration changes accordingly.

This declaration is not decoration — it’s the sentence that tells the department which mechanism you’re using. A LUT-route invoice with no LUT number on it is incomplete.

The line items

Every line needs:

• An 8-digit ITC-HS code. Not 4, not 6 — 8. Six-digit codes are the international standard, but Indian exports are filed at 8, and a 6-digit code on an export invoice is one of the most common reasons a document gets rejected. Check yours line by line.
• Description, quantity, and unit. The description should be what the goods actually are, not your internal SKU name.
• Unit price and line amount, in the invoice currency.
• Net weight and gross weight.

Then the totals, and — an Indian invoice convention worth getting right — the amount in words.

The Packing List, and where it diverges

The Packing List answers a different question: not what is this sale worth, but what is physically in the box.

• Package count per line — how many cartons, crates, pallets.
• Net weight vs gross weight. Net is the goods; gross is the goods plus packing. Gross must be greater than or equal to net — if your packing list shows gross below net, someone has transposed a column, and it’s the kind of error that gets spotted downstream rather than by you.
• Dimensions per package, which is what your forwarder uses to sanity-check the volume against the container you’ve booked.
• Shipping marks and numbers — how the packages are physically identified on the floor.

If you’ve already planned the container, you have all of this. The cargo list you built to work out whether the load fits is the packing list, one step later. That’s the handoff most teams do by retyping.

Why documents bounce

In practice, rejections cluster:

1. A 6-digit HS code where 8 was required.
2. No INR value on a foreign-currency invoice.
3. A LUT-route declaration with no LUT number (or an expired one).
4. Gross weight below net weight — a column transposed somewhere upstream.
5. Missing AD code, so the bank can’t tie the remittance to the shipment.
6. Buyer and consignee collapsed into one when the shipment actually ships elsewhere.

None of these are hard problems. They’re all attention problems — which is why a checklist beats care.

Do it from the cargo list you already have

If you planned the container in ContainerMath, the item data is already there: descriptions, quantities, net weights, dimensions. One click sends a finished load plan’s items into Export Documents, and you add prices and HS codes on top rather than retyping the shipment from scratch.

From there:

• A live compliance checklist scores the shipment as you type against the mandatory content above — IEC, GSTIN, the 8-digit codes, the exchange rate, the LUT declaration — and jumps you to whatever’s still open. Errors are the ones that block; warnings are the strong recommendations.
• Smart import takes a messy packing list, an email, or a spreadsheet and turns it into structured line items.
• Every document carries your letterhead, logo and bank details, so it looks like your paperwork.
• Generate each document on its own, or download all four as a ZIP.

You can build a shipment, run the compliance check and download every document on any plan. Saving shipments to your workspace and AI smart import are Pro Plus features.

A note on scope: the checklist reflects the mandatory content of an Indian export Commercial Invoice and Packing List — Rule 46 of the CGST Rules, the GST zero-rated-supply rules, DGFT requirements and customs/FEMA practice. It’s built to stop documents bouncing, and it is guidance rather than legal advice. Your CHA or customs consultant remains the authority on your specific shipment.

Frequently asked questions

Is a Commercial Invoice the same as a tax invoice?

No. A domestic tax invoice charges GST. An export invoice records a zero-rated supply — you either export under a LUT without paying IGST, or pay IGST and claim it back. The invoice must carry the declaration saying which route you’ve taken, and that declaration is what makes it an export invoice rather than an ordinary one.

Do I need an 8-digit HS code, or is 6 enough?

Eight. Six digits is the internationally harmonised part of the code, but Indian export filings are made at the 8-digit ITC-HS level, and a 6-digit code on a line is one of the most common causes of a document being sent back. Every line needs its own.

What happens if I invoice in USD but don’t show an INR value?

GST law requires the INR-equivalent value on the export invoice, so a foreign-currency invoice needs the exchange rate you converted at — the RBI reference rate for the invoice date. Without it the document is incomplete, and it’s a routine reason for a rejection at filing.

Can a Packing List and Commercial Invoice be one document?

Yes — the Invoice-cum-Packing-List is a widely used single-sheet format that carries the invoice’s value columns and the packing list’s weight and package columns together. Many Indian shipments file exactly this. It’s generated from the same shipment data as the separate documents.

What’s the difference between net weight and gross weight?

Net weight is the goods alone. Gross weight is the goods plus their packing — carton, pallet, dunnage. Gross is therefore always greater than or equal to net; if a packing list shows otherwise, a column has been transposed. Your forwarder will use gross to work out the freight.

Do I need an AD Code on the invoice?

The AD (Authorised Dealer) code identifies your bank branch and is registered at the port you file from — it’s what ties your shipment to the account that will receive the payment. It’s strongly recommended on the document, and you’ll need it registered at the port regardless of whether it’s printed.

Can I generate these from my container load plan?

Yes. That’s the point of the handoff: the cargo list you built to check whether the load fits already holds the descriptions, quantities, net weights and dimensions a packing list needs. One click carries them into Export Documents pre-filled, and you add the commercial fields — prices, HS codes, terms — on top.

Related reading

• How to make a container loading plan — the step before the paperwork.
• How to calculate CBM for shipping — the volume figure your forwarder checks the packing list against.
• Dangerous goods container loading & segregation — when your cargo needs more than an invoice.