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IDPMS: Checking Your Bill of Entry Status at RBI
The post-login ICEGATE enquiry that shows RBI error codes against your Bill of Entry, why nobody notifies you when one appears, and how the BE, the bond and the warehouse return feed one import record.
By Aaryan Kakani · · 13 min read
What is IDPMS and why does your Bill of Entry end up there?
IDPMS is the Reserve Bank of India's system for tracking imports. It is the import-side mirror of EDPMS, the system that tracks whether your export shipping bills were paid for. Where EDPMS asks "money came in for goods that went out?", IDPMS asks the opposite: money went out. Did goods come in, and does the entry that recorded them match?
The flow is mechanical and it runs whether or not you are watching it. A Bill of Entry filed on ICEGATE is transmitted onward to RBI. Your AD bank, which executes the outward remittance to the overseas supplier, reports that payment into the same system. RBI looks for a match between the outward remittance and the import entry. Where the two agree, the entry is closed. Where they do not (or where the entry data itself is defective) the entry stays open and a code comes back.
| Attribute | IDPMS (import side) | EDPMS (export side) |
|---|---|---|
| Customs document | Bill of Entry (BE) | Shipping Bill (SB) |
| Money direction | Outward remittance to the overseas supplier | Inward remittance from the overseas buyer |
| Who transacts with the system | Your AD bank, against the import entry | Your AD bank, against the shipping bill |
| ICEGATE enquiry | Customer Support → Track Filing → Status of BE in RBI - IDPMS, post login only | SB EDPMS status publicly available; rectification and FE realisation post login |
| Governing advisory | Advisory for BE IDPMS Enquiry, DG Systems & Data Management, CBIC, November 2025 | Advisory for SB EDPMS Enquiry, ICEGATE |
An unclosed import entry is not a cosmetic problem. It sits in your AD bank's outstanding Bill of Entry reporting, which is the bank's own regulatory obligation, not yours. Which is precisely why the bank will eventually chase you for it. Until it closes, the remittance against it counts as unmatched, and banks routinely become reluctant to process further outward remittances for an importer with a growing pile of open entries. The importer is almost always the last party to find out.
Where on ICEGATE do you check BE status at RBI?
The path is not where most people look for it. It is not under a customs, duty or document menu. Per the Advisory for BE IDPMS Enquiry issued by the Directorate General of Systems and Data Management, CBIC in November 2025, the enquiry sits at:
The enquiry path
ICEGATE Website → Customer Support → Track Filing → Status of BE in RBI - IDPMS
The advisory states the functionality is available post login only . There is no anonymous or public version of this enquiry.
| Enquiry | Login needed? | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Status of BE in RBI - IDPMS | Yes. Post login only | Advisory for BE IDPMS Enquiry, Nov 2025 |
| SB EDPMS status | No. Publicly available | Advisory for SB EDPMS Enquiry |
| SB EDPMS rectification and FE realisation | Yes. Requires ICEGATE login | Advisory for SB EDPMS Enquiry |
That asymmetry is worth stating plainly, because it costs importers time. On the export side you can query a shipping bill's EDPMS status without logging in at all, and only rectification and foreign exchange realisation details sit behind a login. On the import side there is no public equivalent. If you are hunting for a "check my BE at RBI" box on the public site, stop. It does not exist. Log in first.
What are the RBI error codes shown against a Bill of Entry?
The mechanism is simple. Bill of Entry data is transmitted to RBI. RBI returns error codes where the data does not process cleanly. Those codes are displayed on ICEGATE at the enquiry described above. That is the whole loop, and the advisory describes it in those terms.
Here is the honest part, which most write-ups on this topic skip: the advisory does not publish the list of codes, and it does not map any code to a remedy. Anyone showing you a decode table for IDPMS error codes is either quoting a bank's internal circular or inventing it. So the guidance that can responsibly be given is procedural rather than a lookup.
What to do when a code appears
- 1 Capture the entry, not just the code Record the Bill of Entry number, the BE date and the port code alongside the status. A code without its entry is useless to the bank and to the port.
- 2 Take the code exactly as displayed Verbatim. Do not paraphrase it, do not normalise the spacing, do not translate it into what you think it means. The bank will match on the literal string.
- 3 Raise it with the AD bank that handled the remittance The bank is the party actually transacting with IDPMS against your import entry. It can see the entry from the other side and can tell you whether the remittance leg reported, partially reported, or failed to attach.
- 4 In parallel, test whether the BE itself is wrong Do not wait on the bank to do this. Pull the BE as filed and check invoice value, quantity, IGM linkage and supporting documents against reality. If the entry is defective, a BE amendment is your job, not the bank's.
Who tells you when an IDPMS error appears?
Nobody. That is the whole answer, and it is worth sitting with for a moment. RBI does not notify importers of IDPMS errors. ICEGATE does not email you. The portal displays the code, and the display is passive. It waits for you to come and look.
The operative instruction in the November 2025 advisory is that all ICEGATE users should regularly review the error codes displayed on the portal and undertake appropriate corrective action as required. That single sentence is the entire notification design. It is a pull system dressed as an instruction, and the only sane response is to convert it into a habit with a date on it.
The monitoring routine
- Fix a day. Weekly, or fortnightly at the outside. Put it in a calendar with an owner's name against it, not on a "when someone remembers" basis.
- Cover every BE filed since the last review. Not a sample, not just the large ones. A small entry with a defect blocks just as effectively as a large one.
- Keep a register. BE number, BE date, port, status seen, code seen verbatim, date reviewed, action taken, date closed. Five minutes of typing per review beats reconstructing six months later.
- Pair it with the ECL payment status check. Duty payment failures and IDPMS defects both surface as "the entry did not complete", and catching them in the same pass means one login and one register instead of two workflows nobody does.
Why not monthly? Because the clock that matters is not ICEGATE's. It is the bank's. Your AD bank is running its own reporting cycle on outstanding entries and its own follow-up on unmatched outward remittances. A defect found on day five leaves you room to amend the BE or answer a bank query before it becomes an escalation. The same defect found on day thirty-five arrives at the same time as the bank's chase letter, and you are now responding rather than acting.
When does an IDPMS defect mean you have to amend the Bill of Entry?
There are only two families of remedy, and picking the wrong one wastes the most time. Either the Bill of Entry itself carries bad data, in which case the fix is an amendment on ICEGATE, or the entry is fine and the remittance leg is what does not match, in which case the fix sits with the AD bank against that same import entry.
| Symptom | Where the defect lives | Remedy |
|---|---|---|
| Invoice value on the BE does not match the supplier invoice | BE data | BE amendment on ICEGATE, message type A (change) |
| Quantity declared differs from what actually arrived | BE data | BE amendment, message type A (change) |
| Wrong IGM linkage on the entry | BE data | BE amendment, message type A (change) |
| A supporting document was never attached | BE data | BE amendment, message type S (add). Auto-approved |
| A document was attached in error and must come off | BE data | BE amendment, message type D (delete). Needs officer approval |
| Remittance value does not equal the entry value | Remittance data | AD bank, against the same import entry |
| Payment made to the wrong beneficiary or beneficiary name mismatch | Remittance data | AD bank |
| Part payment made, balance still outstanding | Remittance data | AD bank. Entry stays open until the balance attaches |
| Message type | What it does | Approval |
|---|---|---|
| A | Change the value of an existing field on the entry | Per the applicable amendment rules for the field concerned |
| S | Add a new item, such as an additional supporting document | Adding supporting documents is auto-approved |
| D | Delete an existing item, such as a wrongly attached document | Requires officer approval |
The asymmetry between S and D is deliberate and it shapes how you should sequence a fix. Adding is cheap; removing is not. If you are unsure which of two documents is the right one to attach, attaching both and then deleting one is a worse plan than checking first, because the deletion pulls an officer into a workflow that was otherwise automatic.
What are your options once the goods are already cleared?
Once the goods have left, your options narrow, and they narrow in a specific way that is worth understanding before you promise anyone a fix.
Under Section 149 of the Customs Act 1962, after imported goods have been cleared for home consumption or deposited in a warehouse, amendment of a document is permitted only on the basis of documentary evidence which was in existence at the time the goods were cleared or deposited. That is the contemporaneous-evidence gate, and it is the single most misunderstood provision in post-clearance work. A document created after clearance to explain the error does not open the gate. A document that already existed at the time and simply was not put on the file does.
Separately from amendment, ICEGATE runs a re-assessment route, documented in the Customs Process of Re-assessment manual (v1.01, 17.02.2025). The request is filed at:
Re-assessment request path
Services widget → Services → Re-assessment cum Refund → Create New Re-Assessment Request
You select the Document Type, Document Number, Document Date and Port Code, then choose a reason from the dropdown. On submission a Re-assessment Identification Number (RIN) is returned on screen, by email and by SMS.
| Element | Detail |
|---|---|
| Identifying the document | Document Type, Document Number, Document Date, Port Code |
| Reason dropdown | Re-determination under Section 149 or 154; closures under 28(2), 28(6) or 125; settlement commission; adjudication finality; payment under Section 143 for bonds; Other |
| Uploads | Digitally signed PDFs, maximum 1.5 MB each, no more than 5 documents |
| Acknowledgement | RIN issued on screen, by email and by SMS |
| RINIG | Importer-initiated request filed on ICEGATE |
| RINIC | Officer-initiated request raised on ICES, appearing in the IEC's dashboard |
| Statuses | Submitted → Approved or Rejected → then Eligible for Refund or Challan Generated |
The prefix tells you who started the process, and that matters operationally. A RINIC appearing in your dashboard that you did not file means an officer has already opened a re-assessment on that document. Filing your own RINIG against the same entry at that point is duplication, not diligence.
One practical note on the upload limits. Five documents at 1.5 MB each gives you 5 × 1.5 MB = 7.5 MB of total headroom, and that is a hard ceiling, not a guideline. Scanned import documents routinely exceed 1.5 MB per file at high scan resolutions, so compress before you upload and consolidate related pages into a single signed PDF rather than trying to attach a sixth file.
How does IDPMS interact with warehoused and bonded consignments?
Warehoused consignments are where import entries live longest, and long-lived entries are exactly the ones that drift out of view. The structural reason is Section 15 of the Customs Act 1962: for warehoused goods, the rate of duty and the valuation applicable are those in force on the date the bill of entry for home consumption is presented under Section 68. The ex-bond entry can therefore sit a long way from the original import date, and the two entries relating to the same consignment can be months apart.
Running alongside the entries is a returns rhythm with two different shapes, and mixing them up is the most common warehouse filing error. Per the ICEGATE Warehouse Monthly Return manual (v1.04, 11.08.2025):
| Return | Covers | Due | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|
| Form-A | The month that has just closed | Within ten days after the month closes, filed with the bond officer | Backward-looking |
| Form-B | Bills of Entry whose warehousing period expires the following month | On or before the 10th of the month immediately preceding the expiry month | Forward-looking |
Read the Form-B row twice. It is not a report on what happened; it is a declaration of what is about to expire. If a consignment's warehousing period expires in March, the Form-B listing it is due on or before 10 February. A month before the event. Teams that treat both returns as month-end housekeeping file Form-B a month late by construction.
On the bond side, warehousing bonds run through the e-Bond route on ICEGATE, per the ICEGATE eBond and eBG User Manual (v1.18, 02.06.2026):
| Bond scenario | Use |
|---|---|
| E | Warehousing |
| F | MOOWR private warehouse under Section 65 |
| G | Special warehouse |
| Upload limits | Bond scenario documents limited to 1.0 MB per PDF, maximum 5 additional documents |
Note that the e-Bond ceiling is 1.0 MB per PDF while the re-assessment ceiling is 1.5 MB per PDF. Same portal, different modules, different limits. A file that uploaded fine against a re-assessment request will be rejected against a bond scenario if it sits between the two.
Worked example: bond amount under provisional assessment
Section 18(2)(b) of the Customs Act 1962 requires that warehoused goods under provisional assessment be covered by a bond equal to twice the amount of the excess duty. The arithmetic below is an illustration using assumed figures. Substitute your own assessed amounts.
- 1 Duty assessed provisionally on the warehousing entry: INR 3,54,000
- 2 Duty the officer estimates may finally be payable: INR 4,20,000
- 3 Excess duty = 4,20,000 − 3,54,000 = 66,000
- 4 Bond required = twice the excess duty = 2 × 66,000 = INR 1,32,000
- 5 Filed as bond scenario E (warehousing) on e-Bond, with each supporting PDF kept under 1.0 MB and no more than 5 additional documents.
The point of writing it out is step 3. The bond is twice the excess, not twice the duty. Here INR 1,32,000, not INR 8,40,000. Getting that wrong by a factor of six is a surprisingly common way to over-commit working capital.
IDPMS monitoring checklist
Every review cycle
- Log in to ICEGATE and open Customer Support → Track Filing → Status of BE in RBI - IDPMS, on a fixed weekly schedule with a named owner.
- List every Bill of Entry filed since the last review. All of them, not a sample.
- Record BE number, BE date, port, status and any error code verbatim, exactly as displayed.
- Where a code appears, decide first whether the defect is BE data or remittance data before contacting anyone.
- For BE data defects, file the correct amendment message type (A to change, S to add, D to delete) and keep every supporting PDF under 1.5 MB.
- For remittance data defects, take the entry to the AD bank that executed the outward remittance.
- Where duty was mis-assessed, use the Re-assessment cum Refund route on ICEGATE. And never in parallel with a manual request at the port.
- Pair the review with the ECL payment status check so payment failures and IDPMS defects surface in the same pass.
If you hold goods in a warehouse
- File Form-A within ten days after the month closes, with the bond officer.
- File Form-B on or before the 10th of the month immediately preceding the month in which the warehousing period expires. It is forward-looking.
- Remember that returns are filed sequentially and cannot be edited after submission, so verify before you submit.
- Track the warehousing entry and the later ex-bond entry as two separate documents in the register.
- Keep e-Bond supporting PDFs under 1.0 MB each, with no more than 5 additional documents. A tighter limit than re-assessment.
- Keep the register itself, because RBI will not send you a reminder.
Frequently asked questions
Where do I check my Bill of Entry status at RBI on ICEGATE?
The path is ICEGATE Website → Customer Support → Track Filing → Status of BE in RBI - IDPMS. This is set out in the Advisory for BE IDPMS Enquiry issued by the Directorate General of Systems and Data Management, CBIC, published November 2025. The enquiry sits under Customer Support rather than under a customs or duty menu, which is why most importers never find it.
Does RBI notify me when an IDPMS error is raised against my Bill of Entry?
No. Bill of Entry data is transmitted to RBI and RBI returns error codes, which are then displayed on ICEGATE. There is no push notification to the importer. The advisory's operative instruction is that all ICEGATE users should regularly review the error codes displayed on the portal and undertake appropriate corrective action as required, which means the responsibility to look is entirely yours.
Is the IDPMS BE status enquiry available without logging in?
No. The Advisory for BE IDPMS Enquiry states the functionality is available post login only. This is different from the export side, where SB EDPMS status is publicly queryable and only rectification and foreign exchange realisation details sit behind an ICEGATE login. Do not spend time hunting for a public import equivalent, because there is not one.
Does ICEGATE publish a list of IDPMS error codes and their meanings?
Not as at the date of this guide. The Advisory for BE IDPMS Enquiry confirms that error codes returned by RBI are displayed on ICEGATE, but it does not publish the code list and does not map codes to remedies. The practical approach is procedural: record the code exactly as displayed against the Bill of Entry number, date and port, and raise it with the AD bank that handled the remittance, while checking in parallel whether the underlying defect is a BE data error that needs an amendment.
Can I file a re-assessment on ICEGATE and also apply through the port officer?
No. The Customs Process of Re-assessment manual advises users not to file a manual re-assessment request through the port officer if an automated re-assessment request has already been filed from the ICEGATE portal, and equally not to file on ICEGATE if a manual request is already lodged at the port. Pick one channel per Bill of Entry and stay in it.
Sources & citations
- [Advisory for BE IDPMS Enquiry](https://www.icegate.gov.in/guidelines/BE-Status-RBI-enquiry). DG Systems & Data Management, CBIC, November 2025
- [Customs Process of Re-assessment](https://www.icegate.gov.in/guidelines/customs-process-of-re-assessment). Manual v1.01, 17.02.2025
- [Warehouse Monthly Returns](https://www.icegate.gov.in/guidelines/warehouse-related-modules/warehouse-monthly-returns). ICEGATE manual v1.04, 11.08.2025
- [eBond and eBG User Manual](https://www.icegate.gov.in/guidelines/others/e-bond-and-e-bg). ICEGATE v1.18, 02.06.2026
- [Advisory for SB EDPMS Enquiry](https://www.icegate.gov.in/guidelines/advisory-sb-edpms-enquiry). ICEGATE
- [Customs Act 1962, consolidated text](https://taxinformation.cbic.gov.in/content/html/tax_repository/customs/acts/1962_custom_act/documents/Customs_Act__1962_30-March-2022.html). CBIC, 30 March 2022 (Sections 15, 18, 68, 149)
Update history
- First published.