India Hit $863B in Exports — But Here’s What Most Exporters Are Missing

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Chart showing India's $863.1 billion exports in FY 2025-26 with FTA-wise breakdown including UAE CEPA, UK CETA, and Oman CEPA

India Hit $863B in Exports — But Here’s

 What Most Exporters Are Missing

📌 Source: Press Information Bureau (PIB), Ministry of Commerce & Industry  |  Date: 28 July 2026

Everyone is celebrating the $863 billion export milestone.
But if you're actually in the export business, you know one thing — that number doesn’t tell the full story.

What most people are missing is this: is your business one of the ones actually benefiting from India's trade deals — or are you still paying full duty while your competitor next door pays zero?

Because that's exactly what this new government data reveals. Some Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) are quietly turning into real money for exporters. Others are barely being used. And the gap between the two is bigger than you'd think.

So what’s really going on behind these numbers?

The headline numbers first

India's total exports hit $863.1 billion in FY 2025-26 — the highest ever. Split into:

  • 🚢 Merchandise (physical goods): $441.8 billion
  • 💼 Services (IT, consulting, etc.): $421.3 billion
At first glance, nothing unusual here.

But when you go deeper, the real story starts showing up.— the government, for once, showed exactly how much of that merchandise number came from each individual trade deal. That's rare, and it tells us which agreements are actually working.

Which trade deal is making the most money right now

If you look at all the FTAs India has signed, one deal clearly stands out:

India-UAE CEPA alone brought in $37.36 billion in merchandise exports. Think about that — one single trade deal accounts for over 8% of India's total goods exports.

If you're an exporter and you're not using the UAE deal to your advantage, you're leaving money on the table that your competitors are already picking up.

Two other numbers you shouldn’t ignore:

  • 🌏 ASEAN (the older, bigger bloc) still leads overall at $38.42 billion combined (goods + services + investment)
  • 🇬🇧 The new UK deal, live for barely a year, already did $13.44 billion in its first year of merchandise exports

That UK number especially is worth sitting with. A brand-new agreement doing $13.44 billion before its first full year is over is not a slow start — it's exporters moving fast to grab the benefit.

What this actually means if you're exporting today

Let’s look at a real example.

Say you run a small business exporting textiles or handicrafts to the UAE. Under the India-UAE CEPA, eligible goods can move in at 0% duty instead of the standard rate — but only if your business is actually issuing a Certificate of Origin (CoO) for that shipment. No certificate, no benefit. You'd be paying full duty for no reason.

And the data shows most exporters ARE claiming it. Since May 2022, businesses have issued 4.45 lakh Certificates of Origin under this one deal. Even better — the number of different product categories actually being exported to the UAE grew from 7,546 to 8,053. That's 507 new product lines finding a market there, not just old exports getting cheaper.

Translation: if your product isn't on that list yet, there's still room to get in.

The one everyone's sleeping on: Oman

One deal most exporters haven’t paid attention to yet is Oman — and that might be a mistake.

India-Oman CEPA only went live on 1 June 2026. In its first month, exports jumped from $402.7 million to $622.8 million — a 54.7% jump in a single month. Compared to June last year, that's 189.6% growth year-on-year.

Why the jump? Because this deal gives duty-free access on 99.38% of India's export value to Oman. If you sell almost anything to the Gulf and haven't checked whether your product qualifies under Oman CEPA, this is the moment — deals this new rarely grow this fast.

The other deals worth a quick look

DealLive SinceCertificates IssuedWhat Changed
UAE CEPAMay 20224.45 lakh+507 new product lines exported
Australia ECTADec 20222.73 lakhCertificates went from 1,482/year to 45,527/year
Mauritius CECPAApril 20211,956+20.9% more product lines exported
Oman CEPAJune 202678354.7% growth in month one alone
EFTA TEPA (Europe)Oct 20257,885Covers 99.6% of India's exports to Europe

Look at the Australia number again — certificates went from 1,482 a year (before the deal) to an average of 45,527 a year after it kicked in. That's not a small improvement. That's exporters figuring out the paperwork is worth it and actually doing it.

If you're exporting to any of these five countries and you're NOT issuing Certificates of Origin for every eligible shipment, you're basically paying a tax you don't have to pay.

So what does this mean for you as an exporter?

If you're already exporting under one of these deals: go check your own Certificate of Origin numbers against your total shipments. If you're issuing a CoO for every eligible export, you're already capturing the benefit. If you're not sure, that's worth a 10-minute check this week — it's literally free money you might be skipping.

If you're not exporting to any FTA country yet: look at Oman and the UK first. Both are new, both are growing fast, and both still have room before every competitor catches on. Waiting six months to "see how it plays out" usually just means giving away the early advantage to someone else.

The bottom line

$863 billion is a nice headline. But the real story is that India's trade agreements are no longer just signed and forgotten — they're actually being used, tracked, and are paying off for the exporters who bother to claim them. The businesses winning right now aren't necessarily the biggest ones. They're the ones doing the paperwork.

Follow Exim News 24 for daily trade news, policy updates, and practical insights on India's export-import sector.

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Disclaimer: All information in this post is sourced from the official PIB press release dated 28 July 2026 (Release ID: 2290437), Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Government of India, based on a written reply given by the Minister of State for Commerce and Industry in Lok Sabha. This post is for informational and awareness purposes only.