Banks
How do I get a FIRC or NOC from my bank? Bank by bank
Fourteen AD banks, the trade channel each takes the request through, the four separately priced things a bank NOC can be, and the seven fields that get the credit matched on the first pass.
By Aaryan Kakani · · 10 min read
Which document are you actually asking your bank for?
Four artefacts get called "the FIRC" in ordinary conversation, and only two of them are things an AD bank issues. Settling which one the asker needs takes a minute and removes the commonest failure on this whole page. A request a bank is not able to grant, repeated politely for weeks.
| Document | Who produces it | What the request is |
|---|---|---|
| FIRC | Your AD bank | A certificate of a specific inward remittance. Several banks no longer issue a physical certificate for export receipts and issue an advice instead. Which is not a refusal. |
| FIRA / inward remittance advice | Your AD bank, or a platform's partner bank | The document most e-commerce exporters actually hold. Usually self-service on the trade channel rather than a request at all. |
| eBRC | You, on the DGFT portal | Not issuable by a bank. The bank's part is the IRM; you map it to the shipping bill and self-certify. |
| NOC / bank certificate | Your AD bank | A transaction-specific permission or confirmation. See section 2. There are several, priced separately. |
Your bank prices four different NOCs. Which one do you need?
This is the part that surprises people. Read any Indian bank's trade services schedule of charges and the no-objection certificates are not one line. They are several, on different lines, at prices that differ from each other by a multiple rather than a margin. A request that says only "please issue an NOC" is priced and processed as whichever one the desk assumes you meant, and if it assumes wrong you pay for a certificate that does not unblock anything.
| Schedule line | What it is for | Ask for it when |
|---|---|---|
| NOC for discounting or negotiating an export bill with another bank | Lets a bank other than the one holding the bill finance it | A second bank has offered you finance against a bill your AD bank holds |
| NOC for shifting the AD / capital-account NOC | Releases the relationship so another AD bank can take the transaction on | You are moving your export banking, or an entry has to move with it |
| NOC in EDPMS for regularisation | The bank's confirmation attached to closing a shipping bill in EDPMS | This is the one most exporters mean, and the one they least often name |
| NOC to another bank for buyer's credit | Permission for an import-side credit facility with a different bank | Import financing. Not an export realisation document at all |
Where does the request go at your bank?
Every bank below routes export trade instructions through a named trade channel rather than through the branch counter or your relationship manager. Lodging the request on that channel gives you two things a phone call does not: a reference number, and a timestamp. Both are what section 6 escalates with. Where this site has a walkthrough of a bank's channel it is linked in the middle column; the right-hand column goes to that bank's own published rate card, which is where the charge for your certificate should be read.
| Bank | Trade channel | Its published charges |
|---|---|---|
| HDFC Bank | TradeOnNet | Rate card |
| ICICI Bank | Trade Online | Rate card |
| Kotak Mahindra Bank | fyn | Rate card |
| Axis Bank | TF Connect | Rate card |
| State Bank of India | eTrade in YONO Business | Rate card |
| IDFC FIRST Bank | BXP | Rate card |
| Canara Bank | FX4U | Rate card |
| YES Bank | YES Transact Smart Trade | Rate card |
| Bank of Baroda | BarodaINSTA SmartTrade | Rate card. Does not state a FIRC line |
| Federal Bank | FedOne | Rate card |
| DBS Bank India | IDEAL Trade | Rate card |
| Standard Chartered | Straight2Bank | Rate card. Prices the BRC, not the FIRC |
| IndusInd Bank | Trade services desk. No channel walkthrough on this site | Rate card |
| Deutsche Bank India | Trade services desk. No channel walkthrough on this site | Rate card |
Two rows in that table are worth reading as findings rather than as gaps. Bank of Baroda's published trade schedule carries no FIRC line at all, and Standard Chartered's prices the Bank Realisation Certificate without pricing the FIRC. Neither silence means the document is free. It means the price is settled at the desk, so ask for it in writing before you lodge the request rather than after the debit appears.
If your bank is not among the fourteen, the thirty-eight-bank charges comparison covers a far wider set, and the FIRA download guide covers the self-service route where one exists.
What goes in the request so the desk can find the credit?
A trade desk is matching your request against a remittance record. Everything below exists to make that match happen on the first pass, because each field you leave out is one more round trip, and round trips are where the weeks go.
- The inward remittance reference. The IRM number, or the bank's own reference from the credit advice. This is the field that does the work; supply it and most of the others are confirmation.
- The value date. The date the funds were credited, not the date the buyer says they sent them.
- Currency and amount as received. Before bank charges and before any platform deduction. A figure net of charges will not match the record.
- Remitter name exactly as on the advice. Including the intermediary or platform entity where the money did not come straight from the buyer.
- The purpose code. And say so if you believe it is wrong, because a certificate issued on the wrong code has to be redone. The purpose code change route is a separate request from this one.
- Shipping bill number, port code and date. The three fields that let the bank tie the credit to an EDPMS entry.
- Your Importer-Exporter Code. And the AD code under which the bill was filed, where you hold more than one.
What will it cost, and how long will it take?
The charge is on the schedule and the turnaround usually is not, and that asymmetry is worth holding onto, because almost every figure you will find quoted for "how long a FIRC takes" is somebody's experience rather than a bank's commitment.
On the charge: read it on your own bank's schedule, linked in section 3 . This page does not restate the rupee figures, deliberately. Bank schedules are revised, and a figure copied onto a third page goes stale in two places at once without either noticing. Three things about how those lines are written are worth knowing before you read yours:
- The FIRC, the FIRA and the BRC are usually one schedule line. So a price that looks like it covers your document may be priced for a different one on the same line.
- Several banks price only the duplicate certificate. Silence about the original is not evidence that the original is free. It is the case to settle in writing first.
- The NOC lines sit elsewhere on the schedule from the FIRC line (often under certificates and attestations, or under capital account) so the price you found may not be the price for what you asked. See section 2 .
On the turnaround: it is not part of the published schedule of charges at any of the fourteen banks above, so this page states none of its own. Where a bank does commit to one it appears in that bank's own request instructions. YES Bank's FIRC route is an example, and the FIRA download guide records it. The useful lever, though, is not asking faster but asking completely. The fields in section 4 are what remove the round trips that make up most of the elapsed time. The published standards that do govern bank charging conduct are covered in the FEDAI rules guide .
Nothing has come back. How do you escalate?
In writing, in order, and each step carrying the reference number from the step before. An escalation that restarts the story at every level reads as a fresh complaint and is queued as one.
| Step | Where | What to carry into it |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The trade services desk, on the channel you lodged it on | The reference number, the seven fields from section 4, and the date by which you need the document |
| 2 | Branch head, or the zonal or regional trade office | Everything above, plus the EDPMS consequence of the delay stated explicitly |
| 3 | The bank's internal ombudsman or grievance redressal cell | A formal complaint through the bank's own mechanism, referencing steps 1 and 2 by date |
| 4 | The Reserve Bank's Integrated Ombudsman Scheme, at cms.rbi.org.in | Opens once the bank has held the complaint for the period the Scheme prescribes without resolving it |
What if the money never passed through your AD bank?
Then your AD bank cannot certify it, and a refusal from them is correct rather than unhelpful. Money settled through a payment platform reaches India through that platform's own banking chain, and the document covering it is issued inside that chain. Commonly as a FIRA rather than a FIRC, and commonly by a partner bank you have no relationship with.
Establish which entity actually received the foreign currency before you ask anyone for anything. Then use the platform route:
- FIRA by payment provider, compared. What each platform issues, and the eligibility conditions attached.
- Stripe exports where no FIRC is available. The settlement chain, and what closes the entry instead.
- Payoneer eFIRA eligibility. Who gets one and who does not.
- PayPal's weekly FIRA. The cadence, and how it maps onto shipping bills.
Where the bill is old enough that the platform window has closed, the guide to old shipping bills covers what is recoverable and what is not.
What does this page deliberately not state?
Four figures a reader might expect here are missing on purpose. Each is named below with the reason and, where the corpus holds it, the page that carries it with its citation.
| Not stated | Why | Where it lives |
|---|---|---|
| The rupee charge for any named bank | Restating a schedule figure on a third page is how it goes stale in two places at once | Each bank's own rate card, linked in section 3, with the schedule date the bank prints on it |
| A turnaround applying to banks generally | None of the fourteen schedules carries one, so a general figure would be anecdote dressed as policy | Where an individual bank states one in its own request instructions, in the FIRA download guide |
| The date physical FIRCs stopped being issued for export receipts | Two different issuers and two different dates are in circulation for the same change, and neither primary document has been read | Nowhere on this site, deliberately, until one of them is |
| The waiting period and clause of the Integrated Ombudsman Scheme | The Scheme text has not been read this run, so the step is described without a number attached to it | The Reserve Bank's own Scheme document, via cms.rbi.org.in |
A named bank with a wrong fee or a wrong turnaround against its name is worse than an empty cell, because a reader budgets against it. Where a cell here is empty, the bank does not publish the figure.
Questions exporters ask about bank certificates
Which desk at my bank issues a FIRC or a FIRA?
The trade services or trade finance desk, not the branch counter and not your relationship manager. Every major Indian AD bank routes export trade instructions through a dedicated trade channel. HDFC TradeOnNet, ICICI Trade Online, Kotak fyn, Axis TF Connect, SBI eTrade in YONO Business, IDFC FIRST BXP, Canara FX4U, YES Transact Smart Trade, BarodaINSTA SmartTrade, Federal Bank FedOne, DBS IDEAL Trade and Standard Chartered Straight2Bank among them. A request lodged at a branch counter is usually forwarded to that same desk by internal mail, which adds days and loses the audit trail. Lodging it on the channel gives you a reference number, which is the thing you escalate with.
What should I put in the request so the bank can actually find my remittance?
Seven fields, and the inward remittance reference is the one that does the work. Give the IRM number or the bank's inward remittance reference, the value date the funds were credited, the currency and amount as received before charges, the remitter's name exactly as it appears on the credit advice, the purpose code, the shipping bill number with its port code and date, and your Importer-Exporter Code. A trade desk matching on name and approximate amount alone will come back asking for the reference, which is one full round trip lost. If the credit arrived through a payment platform rather than a wire, the platform's settlement or transaction reference takes the place of the wire reference.
Why does my bank quote a different charge for the NOC than the one I expected?
Because an NOC is not one product. Indian bank trade schedules price several distinct no-objection certificates on separate lines: an NOC for discounting or negotiating an export bill with another bank, an NOC for shifting the AD or for a capital-account transaction, an NOC issued in EDPMS for regularising a shipping bill, and an NOC to another bank for buyer's credit. They carry materially different prices on the same schedule, and a request that just says NOC will be priced as whichever one the desk assumes you meant. Name the transaction the certificate is for, not the certificate.
Will my bank give me an eBRC if I ask for one?
No, and a bank saying so is being accurate rather than obstructive. The eBRC is generated by the exporter on the DGFT portal by mapping bank-reported inward remittance messages to shipping bills. The bank's part is to report the IRM, not to issue the certificate. So the productive request to a bank is that the IRM be reported or corrected, after which you self-certify the eBRC yourself. Asking a bank repeatedly for a document it cannot issue is one of the commoner ways a fortnight disappears.
The bank has not replied to my FIRC request. What is the escalation path?
Four steps, in writing, each with the reference number from the step before. First the trade services desk on the channel you lodged it on, with a stated date by which you need it and the EDPMS consequence if you do not get it. Then the branch head or the zonal or regional trade office. Then the bank's internal ombudsman or grievance redressal cell. Then the Reserve Bank's Integrated Ombudsman Scheme at cms.rbi.org.in, which opens once the bank has had the complaint for the period the Scheme prescribes and has not resolved it. Frame the ask as a compliance matter rather than a service one: the bank has its own reporting obligation attached to the same remittance.
The money came through Stripe, PayPal or Payoneer. Which bank do I ask?
Usually none of them, because the document you need is issued by the platform's own partner bank rather than by the AD bank you hold a current account with. Each platform has its own route and its own eligibility rules, and several issue a FIRA rather than a FIRC. Asking your own bank for a certificate covering money that never passed through it produces a refusal that is correct and that costs you the time it took to get it. Establish which entity actually received the foreign currency first, then ask that chain.
How long does a FIRC or NOC request take, and what does it cost?
The charge is on the schedule; the turnaround usually is not. Indian bank schedules of charges price the certificate and are silent on how long it takes, so a single number quoted as applying to all banks is somebody's experience rather than a commitment. Where a turnaround does exist it is stated inside that bank's own request instructions rather than on its rate card. YES Bank's FIRC request route is one that does state one, and it is recorded in the FIRA download guide . Read the charge on your own bank's schedule rather than from a third-party table, and read the wording: the FIRC, the FIRA and the BRC usually share one schedule line, several banks price only the duplicate certificate, and silence about the original is not evidence that the original is free.
What should I read next?
Ask the bank once, with everything it needs
Seasaw keeps the remittance reference, value date, purpose code and shipping bill beside every open export entry. So a request to your bank goes out complete the first time instead of collecting one missing field per round trip.
Update history
- First published.