SETU
Filing on DGTR SETU: registration, questionnaires and submissions
Registration by role, questionnaire responses and submissions, confidential versus non-confidential versions, and the filing paths from DGTR's own user manual.
By Aaryan Kakani · · 9 min read
What is DGTR's SETU portal and which trade-remedy filings go through it?
SETU (setu.dgtr.gov.in) is the Directorate General of Trade Remedies' unified online document filing and management portal. Every stage of an anti-dumping, anti-subsidy (countervailing) or safeguard investigation runs through it. The petition, registration of parties, questionnaire responses, confidential and non-confidential submissions, queries from the investigation team and the final judgement copy. It is open to domestic producers, importers, exporters and foreign governments, and applications for AD/CVD/safeguard investigations can now be filed online through it. Promoted on the DGTR homepage as "SETU - Filing of Application".
The portal is the procedural front-end to a specific legal framework: anti-dumping under Sections 9A/9B of the Customs Tariff Act 1975 read with the AD Rules 1995, countervailing duties under Section 9 of the CTA read with the CVD Rules 1995, and safeguards under Section 8B of the CTA and the Safeguard Duty Rules 1997. For the substantive investigation stages behind these filings, see our guide to the DGTR anti-dumping investigation process and the primer on anti-dumping duty in India .
One honest scope note: the SETU user manual defines exactly two portal roles (Applicant and Interested Party) and does not document an embassy- or foreign-government-specific flow, even though the portal's About text names foreign governments among the stakeholders. In practice a foreign government participating in a case registers and files as an interested party.
How do you register on SETU, and what changes between the Applicant and Interested Party roles?
Registration is a three-beat sequence. You fill the New Registration form on the portal, receive an email OTP to verify the address, and then receive a mailed temporary password to use for your first sign-in. From there the portal splits by role.
An Applicant is the petitioner. The domestic industry filing for an AD, CVD or safeguard measure. An Interested Party is anyone responding to a case: a producer-exporter in the subject country, an importer, or a user of the product. The role-specific requirements differ in two ways: an Interested Party must upload a mandatory Upload Authorisation Letter at registration, while an Applicant can spawn Secondary Accounts so team members can work in the same case. Usefully, one login can switch between roles. A company that is a petitioner in one case and a respondent in another does not need two accounts.
The portal step sits on top of a legal clock. Interested parties must request registration in the investigation within 40 days of initiation under Trade Notice 11/2018. And a party that files a questionnaire response within the prescribed period is deemed registered even without a written request (Manual of SOP paras 6.16 and 6.26). The questionnaire is itself an act of registration.
| Portal role | Who uses it | Role-specific requirement | Legal deadline that bites |
|---|---|---|---|
| Applicant (petitioner) | Domestic industry filing for AD/CVD/safeguard | Can create Secondary Accounts for team members | Application must state POI (normally 12 months, not older than 5 months at application) and 3-year injury period (FAQ Q.21) |
| Interested Party | Exporter/producer, importer, user responding to a case | Mandatory Upload Authorisation Letter at registration | Register within 40 days of initiation (Trade Notice 11/2018); questionnaire response deemed registration (SOP 6.16, 6.26) |
How does signing in to SETU work. Passwords, captcha and the one-minute OTP?
The sign-in sequence, taken literally from the SETU user manual: enter your username, password and the on-screen captcha, then complete a second factor. An OTP sent to your registered email that is valid for only 1 minute . Your first-ever login uses the mailed temporary password from registration, which you then change.
One minute is short. Have your inbox open and refreshed before you click sign in, not after. All system emails come from "ARTIS", so that is the sender name to whitelist and search for when the OTP does not appear in time.
The practical failure mode: an expired OTP means going back and re-triggering the sign-in to generate a fresh one. If authentication problems persist (OTPs never arriving, temporary password not accepted, account locked) the route is the helpdesk: setuhelp-dgtr[at]gov[dot]in, +91-9013961074, with technical lines at +91 9807065400 and 9990030004.
How do you file a new application on SETU as the petitioner (literal click-path)?
The click-path from the manual is: Add New Case → Petitioner Application → New Case Registration . The form then demands the case skeleton: Case Title, Subject Country(ies), Product Name, HS Code, Category/Sub Category, and an import-volume table for each subject country.
Before those fields, the application must already stand on its legal legs. Standing is the twin test of Rule 5(3)(a) of the AD Rules, applied on production volume: producers expressly supporting the application must account for at least 25% of total domestic production, and more than 50% of the production of those expressing either support or opposition. The application must state a period of investigation (POI) (normally 12 months, and not older than 5 months at the date of application) plus injury data for the 3 preceding years (FAQ Q.21).
What happens after you file: the application goes through pre-initiation scrutiny, and initiation generally follows within 30 days of acceptance for anti-dumping. Countervailing cases run 60. 75 days because the ASCM makes pre-initiation consultations with the subject-country government mandatory, and safeguards take about 90 days. On data: DGCI&S transaction-wise import data is the official source for the import-volume table, authorised through DGTR under Trade Notices 1/2018 and 7/2018, and is normally supplied within a week of fee payment.
What are the confidential (CV) and non-confidential (NCV) versions, and why can't you fix an NCV later?
The dual-filing rule is the heart of SETU. Every submission is filed twice: a CV (confidential) version that only the Authority sees, and an NCV (non-confidential) version that auto-publishes to the case's Public File, where every other interested party (including your competitors and opposing counsel) can read it.
The manual's warning deserves to be taken literally: "no amendment or modification shall be allowed after submission." An NCV with confidential data left inside it is publicly visible the moment you submit, and the portal offers no recall, no replacement, no versioning. That makes the pre-upload review of the NCV the single highest-stakes step in the entire filing workflow. Higher than any deadline, because a missed deadline costs you procedural standing while a leaked NCV costs you your pricing to the whole market.
What belongs in an NCV is not blank redaction but meaningful summary: indexed trends (year 1 = 100), ranges instead of point values, and narrative that lets other parties understand the substance well enough to defend their interests. This mirrors the circulation practice under Rules 6(3) and 6(7) of the AD Rules. The Public File exists precisely so the adversarial process can function.
How do interested parties file questionnaire responses and reply to GIT queries on SETU?
The questionnaire universe splits by your position in the supply chain: the Exporter Questionnaire (Parts I and II) for producer-exporters, the Importer Questionnaire, User questionnaires in the format of Trade Notice 08/2021, the Economic Interest Questionnaire (EIQ) issued to all interested parties and the concerned ministry, and a supplementary Market Economy Conditions questionnaire where paras 7. 8 of Annex I to the AD Rules are triggered. The formats live on dgtr.gov.in and must be read with the relevant Trade Notices. If you are an Indian exporter facing the mirror-image situation abroad, our guide on defending a foreign anti-dumping case as an Indian exporter covers the equivalent questionnaires; importers into India should read the importer's response playbook .
The deadline architecture: Rule 6(4) of the AD Rules gives 30 days from receipt of the notice; DGTR's general practice grants 40 days from publication of the initiation notice, extendable case by case. But the extension request must be filed before the window expires, and parties who miss the stipulated time get no additional time (Trade Notice 11/2018).
| Questionnaire track | Who files it | Format source |
|---|---|---|
| Exporter Questionnaire (Parts I & II) | Producer-exporters in the subject country | dgtr.gov.in questionnaire formats |
| Importer Questionnaire | Indian importers of the product under consideration | dgtr.gov.in questionnaire formats |
| User questionnaire | Industrial users of the product | Trade Notice 08/2021 format |
| Economic Interest Questionnaire (EIQ) | All interested parties and the concerned ministry | dgtr.gov.in, read with Trade Notices |
| Market Economy Conditions (supplementary) | Exporters where paras 7. 8 of Annex I, AD Rules are triggered | dgtr.gov.in supplementary format |
The portal mechanics for ongoing dialogue: the GIT Queries page lists queries from the investigation team by Query ID (GIT_P_Q_.. For queries to the petitioner, GIT_R_Q_.. For queries to a respondent) each with a "Last Date of Reply" days-left counter. Every reply takes text plus CV/NCV attachments, so the dual-filing discipline of section 5 applies to each query answer too.
Why cooperation pays: where three or more producer-exporters from a subject country cooperate, DGTR may sample under Rule 17(3), notifying the methodology within 80 days of initiation. Sampled exporters get individual margins; un-sampled cooperating exporters get the weighted average of the sampled margins; non-cooperating exporters get a residual facts-available margin under Rule 6(8). Typically far above the cooperating rates.
On 1 July 2026 DGTR initiates an anti-dumping investigation on a specialty chemical, and an Ahmedabad producer-exporter finds its subject country named in the initiation notice published on dgtr.gov.in. The company has never used SETU and must decide what to file, by when. </> } result= >
| Day / date | What happens on SETU | Clock it satisfies |
|---|---|---|
| Day 0 (1 Jul) | Initiation notice published; exporter downloads the notice and the Exporter Questionnaire (Parts I and II) formats from dgtr.gov.in | Both 40-day clocks start |
| Day 3 | SETU New Registration as Interested Party (form, email OTP, mailed temporary password) plus the mandatory Upload Authorisation Letter signed by a director | Registration deadline 10 Aug 2026 (40 days, Trade Notice 11/2018). 37 days to spare; questionnaire filing would in any case be deemed registration (SOP 6.16, 6.26) |
| Day 25 | Files an extension request through SETU (before expiry) because consolidated costing and export-transaction data are not ready | Questionnaire window = 40 days from publication = 10 Aug 2026; extensions are case-by-case, and late parties get no additional time |
| Filing day | Uploads the Exporter Questionnaire as CV (full transaction-level prices and costs) and NCV (indexed trends and ranges), both PDF/Excel; the 55MB transaction Excel fits within the 70MB Excel allowance; NCV reviewed by a second manager | 20MB per-file cap (70MB Excel); NCV auto-publishes to the Public File and cannot be amended after submission |
| Day 78 (17 Sep) | DGTR notifies its sampling decision; with five cooperating exporters from the subject country, the company is sampled | Sampling methodology due within 80 days of initiation (Rule 17(3)) |
| Day 92 | A GIT query lands (Query ID GIT_R_Q_..) with a 7-day counter; the company replies with text plus CV/NCV attachments | "Last Date of Reply" days-left counter |
| Day ~120 onwards | Oral hearing (~day 120); disclosure statement (~day 160) with a comment window of days, answered on SETU | Final findings within the statutory 1 year of initiation |
What are SETU's file limits, case lifecycle gates, withdrawal route and helpdesk contacts?
Upload limits from the manual: the per-file cap is 20MB , with Excel files allowed up to 70MB . The on-screen allowed formats are PDF and Excel. The manual's narrative text inconsistently also mentions JPG and Word, but the safe practice is to stick to PDF and Excel.
The case lifecycle on the portal runs through fixed gates: CV/NCV upload → GIT initiation → Final CV/NCV request and approval → queries → case closure, at which point a "View Judgement Copy" link appears. Withdrawal of a filing is done via the red x with a stated reason, and is subject to GIT approval. It is a request, not a self-service delete.
Behind these gates runs the investigation timeline the portal is servicing: preliminary findings targeted at day 90, oral hearing around day 120, disclosure statement around day 160 (210 where foreign verification is involved), and final findings within the statutory 1 year from initiation, extendable by 6 months, with internal targets of day 180/240 for AD/CVD. Safeguard cases run to 8 months.
| Portal stage | What happens | Watch-out |
|---|---|---|
| CV/NCV upload | Both versions filed; NCV auto-publishes to Public File | No amendment after submission |
| GIT initiation | Case taken up by the investigation team | Registration clock (40 days from initiation) running for interested parties |
| Final CV/NCV request & approval | GIT calls for and approves final versions | 20MB per file cap (70MB Excel) |
| GIT queries | Query IDs GIT_P_Q_/GIT_R_Q_ with days-left counter | Reply by "Last Date of Reply"; attach CV + NCV |
| Closure | "View Judgement Copy" available | Appeal to CESTAT within 90 days of duty imposition (s.9C CTA) |
| Withdrawal | Red x with reason | Subject to GIT approval |
What should be on your SETU filing checklist before you hit submit?
Before registration
- Confirm which role you are: Applicant (petitioner) or Interested Party (respondent)
- Interested Party: Upload Authorisation Letter signed by a director/authorised signatory and scanned
- Email inbox accessible and fast enough for the 1-minute ARTIS OTP
Before an application (Applicant)
- Standing twin test computed on volume: supporters ≥25% of total domestic production AND >50% of the production of those expressing support or opposition
- POI of 12 months, not older than 5 months at the date of application
- 3-year injury period data compiled
- DGCI&S transaction-wise import data authorisation obtained via DGTR (Trade Notices 1/2018 and 7/2018)
- Case fields ready: Case Title, Subject Countries, Product Name, HS Code, Category/Sub Category, per-country import-volume table
Before any submission (both roles)
- CV and NCV prepared as separately named files
- NCV scrubbed and second-person reviewed: no prices, customer names or costing data; indexed trends and ranges instead
- Files in PDF/Excel, under 20MB per file (Excel ≤70MB)
- Remember: the NCV publishes to the Public File and cannot be amended after submission
Deadlines diarised
- 40 days from initiation to register (Trade Notice 11/2018)
- 30/40-day questionnaire window, with any extension request filed BEFORE expiry
- Every GIT query's "Last Date of Reply" counter
- Disclosure-statement comment windows. These can be as short as days
- CESTAT appeal window: 90 days from duty imposition (Section 9C, Customs Tariff Act)
- Helpdesk numbers and setuhelp-dgtr[at]gov[dot]in kept on file
Update history
- First published.