India Revamps Customs Duty Structure to Accelerate Electronics Manufacturing

The Indian Ministry of Finance has moved to lower input costs for domestic electronics and battery manufacturing, issuing three customs notifications  Nos. 25, 26, and 27 of 2026-Customs  on July 8, 2026. Together, the notifications exempt or reduce Basic Customs Duty (BCD) on select components and capital goods used to make display assemblies, wireless charging modules, and lithium-ion cells.

Two of the three measures are outright duty exemptions valid until March 31, 2029. The third recalibrates and expands an existing concessional-duty scheme for battery manufacturing machinery, with no expiry date attached. The government frames the package as support for its goal of growing electronics manufacturing to $500 billion by fiscal year 2030  a sector that has expanded rapidly, with smartphone production in India rising 28-fold over the past decade to 5.45 trillion rupees ($57 billion) in 2024/25.

Manoj Mishra, a partner at Grant Thornton Bharat, said the measures should boost cost competitiveness and encourage greater domestic value addition, and could accelerate localisation of high-value smartphone and electronics manufacturing. He added that the expanded exemption for lithium-ion cell manufacturing inputs is likely to draw further investment into domestic battery production, benefiting both consumer electronics and electric mobility.