There are two different questions people mean by "IEC status", and they are answered in two different places.
- "Is this IEC valid?" — DGFT's Know Your IEC lookup
- "Has my application gone through?" — the status view inside your DGFT dashboard
There is also a third, narrower question — whether an IEC is live in the customs system for filing — which shows up separately at ICEGATE.
Verifying any IEC (Know Your IEC)
DGFT publishes a public lookup. Enter the IEC (or the PAN, since they are the same number) and it returns the entity name, address, status, and the date of the last update.
Two fields matter more than the rest:
- Status — anything other than active means the holder cannot currently clear consignments
- Last updated date — if it predates the most recent April-to-June window, the IEC may be heading for deactivation even if it still reads active
Why you would verify someone else's IEC
This is the part most guides skip. Checking a counterparty's IEC is a cheap, thirty-second piece of due diligence, and it tells you things a website cannot:
- The entity name on the IEC matches the name on the purchase order — a surprising number of times it does not
- The business is real and registered, not a trading name with no standing
- The address matches what they have told you
For a first-time buyer asking for goods on credit, or a supplier asking for an advance, this is the least you should do. It is not a credit check — it confirms existence, not solvency — but an IEC that does not resolve, or resolves to a different name, is a reason to slow down.
Checking your own application status
Log in to the DGFT portal and open your dashboard. Applications move through submitted, under process, and issued. If yours has stalled, the reason is almost always a document query raised against it — check the notifications rather than reapplying, because a duplicate application does not jump the queue.
If you see a status referring to a pending acknowledgement from your authorised dealer bank, that is your bank's action, not DGFT's. Chase the bank's trade desk.
Checking an IEC at customs
An IEC being active at DGFT and being usable at ICEGATE are not quite the same thing. If your IEC is fine on Know Your IEC but shipping bills are failing, the issue is usually the linkage between the IEC, your AD code and the specific port — the AD code has to be registered at each port you file from. That is a bank-and-customs-broker task, not a DGFT one.
Our ICEGATE tracking guide covers what can be checked there.
If your IEC comes back inactive
The most common cause by a distance is a missed annual updation. It is fixable, usually quickly, and it does not require a fresh application — see IEC annual updation and deactivation.
Verify against dgft.gov.in — portal layouts change.
Eximly stores each party's IEC alongside their orders and flags a document raised against a party whose credentials have not been checked. Start free.
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