Rendered from the All Frontier Global FTA registry · researched from official sources, August 2026 · every figure below carries a numbered source
IN FORCE
The India–EFTA Trade and Economic Partnership Agreement (TEPA) — India, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland — was signed in New Delhi on 10 March 2024 and entered into force on 1 October 2025[1][2]. This record corrects a stale spine that had labelled it ‘signed-pending-ratification, target 2026’ — TEPA was already roughly ten months into force when this record was built.
Note: 21-round and '16 years' figures are corroborated by the official Swiss Federal Council/admin.ch release and by EFTA's own signing announcement; the 2008 start year is sourced only to Wikipedia (secondary) and was not independently confirmed against a primary EFTA/Indian government document in this pass — treat as lower confidence.
Chapters
Count per India PIB: 14
Count per EFTA Factsheet Listing: 15
PIB's 'to come into effect' release states the accord 'comprises 14 chapters.' The official EFTA chapter-by-chapter factsheet lists 15 named parts (Preamble, General Provisions, Trade in Goods [incl. Rules of Origin and Trade Facilitation as sub-parts], Trade Remedies, SPS, TBT, Trade in Services, Investment Promotion and Cooperation, Intellectual Property, Government Procurement, Competition, Trade and Sustainable Development, Dispute Settlement, Institutional Provisions, Final Provisions). The discrepancy is almost certainly a counting-convention difference (front/back matter and RoO/Trade-Facilitation sub-parts counted differently), not a substantive dispute — recorded as a minor conflict rather than resolved to one number.[3][12]
List per EFTA Factsheet: Preamble, General Provisions, Trade in Goods (incl. Rules of Origin, Trade Facilitation), Trade Remedies, Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, Technical Barriers to Trade, Trade in Services, Investment Promotion and Cooperation, Intellectual Property, Government Procurement, Competition, Trade and Sustainable Development, Dispute Settlement, Institutional Provisions, and Final Provisions
Status in detail
IN FORCE
The netcup skeleton spine (accessed as the chapter-spine source for this record) labels TEPA 'signed-pending-ratification' with entry-into-force 'target 2026'. That is STALE/INCORRECT as of 2026-08-20: TEPA entered into force on 2025-10-01, roughly ten months before this record was built. This is the single most important correction this record makes — see conflicts[0].
Signed Date: 2024-03-10
Signed Location: New Delhi
Entered Into Force Date: 2025-10-01
Entry Into Force Event: Marked by the 'Prosperity Summit 2025' high-level event held in New Delhi on 2025-10-01.
Approving Body: Federal Assembly (Bundesversammlung)
Approval Date: 2025-03-21
Implementing Step: Federal Council adopted implementing ordinance amendments on 2025-09-03, ahead of the 2025-10-01 entry into force.
Referendum: No referendum is reported to have been triggered; the official Swiss Federal Council release moves directly from parliamentary approval to entry-into-force preparation with no mention of a referendum process. A secondary blog source states explicitly that ratification 'completed without triggering a national referendum' — flagged as lower-confidence since it is not an official source, though it is consistent with the official timeline.
Confidence: high (dates), medium (referendum non-occurrence)
Norway
Storting (Parliament), on recommendation of the Business and Industry Committee (næringskomiteen)
Timeline:
Proposal Submitted: 2024-11-29
Referred to Committee: 2024-12-03
Written Submission Deadline: 2025-01-09
Committee Recommendation Issued: 2025-02-13
Storting Debate: 2025-03-17
Storting Consent Vote: 2025-03-18
Confidence: high — full procedural timeline sourced directly to Stortinget.no, the official Norwegian Parliament site[20]
Iceland
Approving Body: Alþingi (Parliament) — presumed, since Iceland is a full TEPA party and TEPA entered into force for all parties on 2025-10-01
Confidence: unresolved — no Alþingi document specific to TEPA ratification was located; the one Alþingi document found (report 698/157) is a routine annual EFTA/EEA committee report that mentions India only in passing
Note: see unsourced_gaps
Liechtenstein
Approving Body: Regierung (government) issued a 'Bericht und Antrag' (report and motion) for the Landtag; final Landtag vote date not confirmed
Confidence: low — official llv.li government press-release metadata confirms a government-level approval step and a March visit by Foreign Minister Dominique Hasler to India, but full article text and the Landtag's final vote date could not be retrieved in this pass
Note: see unsourced_gaps
India:
Approving Body: Union Cabinet approval prior to signature; domestic implementation via CBIC Customs Notification No. 59/2025-Customs (N.T.), dated 2025-09-29, effective 2025-10-01
Confidence: high for the customs-implementation step; the underlying Cabinet approval date was not independently pinned down in this pass
Friction and Implementation Notes
2026-05-06/07
India's Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal visited Switzerland and met Swiss State Secretary for Economic Affairs Helene Budliger Artieda to discuss 'measures to expand trade and investment, strengthen regulatory cooperation, address non-tariff barriers and promote deeper business linkages.'
Specifics Disclosed: No
Reporting explicitly states the specific issues were not disclosed. Recorded as a genuine open friction point, not a resolved one.[10][9]
as of ~2026-04-19 (200 days post-implementation)
Reporting on the same Switzerland visit noted that within 200 days of TEPA taking effect, 'new Indian product lines have entered the Swiss market, services trade has gained momentum, and investment interest has strengthened' — a positive, if qualitative and unquantified, implementation signal.[10]
No formal TEPA dispute-settlement case (under the agreement's Dispute Settlement chapter) was identified as filed or active within this research pass. Absence of evidence is not treated as confirmed absence of disputes — see unsourced_gaps.
Confidence: gap, not a finding
Investment
USD 100 billion in EFTA-origin FDI into India over 15 years from entry into force, alongside facilitation of 1 million direct jobs in India.
Structure:
Tranche 1: USD 50 billion within the first 10 years of entry into force (i.e., by 2035-10-01)
Tranche 2: an additional USD 50 billion in the succeeding 5 years (years 11–15, i.e., by 2040-10-01)
Jobs Target: facilitation of 1 million direct jobs in India, within the same 15-year window
Skeleton Claim: The netcup skeleton describes this chapter as 'Investment Protection' with 'standard national-treatment + MFN + expropriation provisions' sitting alongside the commercial commitment.
Verified Finding: This is materially wrong. Independent legal analysis of the actual chapter text (Kluwer Arbitration Blog; SNR Law, an Indian law firm) confirms the chapter contains NO investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), and NO national treatment, most-favoured-nation, fair-and-equitable-treatment, or unlawful-expropriation provisions of the kind found in a traditional BIT. The USD 100B/1M-jobs target is explicitly an 'obligation of conduct' (a best-endeavours commitment) rather than a binding result requirement.
Confidence: high — two independent legal-expert secondary sources agree, and neither the official EFTA factsheet nor SECO's page mentions NT/MFN/FET/expropriation language for this chapter either
Enforcement Mechanism
A government-to-government consultation mechanism (legal analyses cite it as Article 7.7) applies only to the EFTA states' investment/jobs obligations, not to any obligation of India's. If EFTA states are found not to have made adequate efforts, India can unilaterally and proportionately withdraw or reduce tariff concessions (cited as Article 7.8, a 'rebalancing' provision), but only after a consultation process.
Seco Claim: The official Swiss government (SECO) page states: 'If targets unmet, India may suspend trade concessions after 20 years.'
EFTA Factsheet Claim: The official EFTA chapter-by-chapter factsheet describes a consultation procedure 'triggered after 15 years' if investment targets are unmet, with any resulting suspension of concessions required to be 'proportionate and temporary.'
Legal Analysis Claim: SNR Law's reading of the treaty text describes the 15-year target followed by a consultation process that could itself run approximately 5 years before remedial measures apply.
Reconciliation: These are plausibly describing the same mechanism at different levels of detail (15-year target + up to ~5-year consultation ≅ 20 years to possible suspension), but no single source in this research pass lays out the full chain in one place, so this is recorded as an unresolved precision conflict rather than compressed into one number.
Institutional Support:
India-EFTA Desk launched within Invest India, operational since February 2025, to assist investors.
A separate EFTA-side 'Business Support Desk' was established in February 2025 to help EFTA companies use TEPA.
An 'investment facilitation mechanism to monitor implementation and progress' was referenced at the Prosperity Summit 2025 (2025-10-01), alongside 'several investment announcements by companies from EFTA countries' in maritime, renewable energy, biochemical, and manufacturing-automation sectors — named qualitatively, with no aggregate USD figure disclosed.
Progress to Date
No source found in this pass gives a running USD total of investment actually realized against the USD 100B target as of 2026-08-20. Only qualitative 'strengthened investment interest' language was found. Recorded as a gap, not a zero.
EFTA Side: EFTA extends improved market access on 92.2% of tariff lines, covering 99.6% of India's exports. EFTA eliminates customs duties on ALL industrial products plus fish and other marine products originating in India, effective from entry into force — officially described as '100% coverage of non-agricultural products.'
India Side: India extends concessions on 82.7% of tariff lines, covering 95.3% of EFTA's exports (i.e., India keeps full duty protection on the remaining ~17.3% of its tariff lines, concentrated in agricultural/sensitive sectors).
Confidence: high — these percentages recur identically across at least four independent official releases (EFTA factsheet-adjacent PIB releases dated Nov 2024, and PIB releases at EIF and at the 2-year mark)
India Tariff Elimination Categories
Official EFTA explanatory note, 'EFTA-India, Trade in Goods, Further Information to India's Tariff Commitments' (dated to the Sept 2025 EFTA upload; refers to India's Customs Tariff Act as of 2023-05-01)
Basic Customs Duty (BCD) + Agriculture Infrastructure and Development Cess (AIDC) + Health Cess + Social Welfare Surcharge (SWS)
Categories:
EIF: Duty eliminated immediately at entry into force
E5: Progressive duty elimination over 5 years
E10: Progressive duty elimination over 10 years
R0to2.5%: Duty reduced to a flat 2.5% end-duty as of entry into force
R5to50%: Progressive duty reduction to 50% of the original duty over 5 years
This is the classification scheme, not a per-product table; the underlying product-by-product Appendix 2C schedules were not retrieved in this pass (see unsourced_gaps).[13]
Finding: Gold is treated as an exception: Swiss/EFTA official messaging explicitly excludes gold from its '~95% of Swiss exports gain improved access' headline figure, and a secondary source states gold 'remains outside effective duty changes' with no reciprocal duty reduction. No source in this pass gives a specific before/after duty rate for gold on either side.
Confidence: medium — qualitative exclusion is well corroborated; no quantified rate found
Finding Swiss Side: ~74% of chemical products (Swiss tariff lines, i.e. Indian chemical/pharma exports entering Switzerland) qualify for duty exemption.
Finding India Export Side: ~95% of India's chemical exports (to EFTA) get zero or reduced tariffs, per a separate PIB press note; India's chemical exports to EFTA cited at ~USD 49 million in FY2024-25, projected toward USD 65–70 million.
Direction Note: These two percentages (74% vs 95%) describe DIFFERENT flows — one is the Swiss-tariff-line view, the other an India-export-value view — and should not be read as contradictory without noting the directional difference. Flagged in conflicts to prevent conflation.
Pharma Specific: A separate PIB release states generally that 'the agreement improves market access for Indian pharmaceuticals, engineering goods, and services' without a pharma-specific percentage.
Finding: Basmati and non-basmati rice get duty-free access to EFTA markets without reciprocal Indian concessions.
Confidence: medium — secondary source (India Briefing), not independently confirmed against the primary tariff schedule
Textiles and Apparel:
Finding: No textiles/apparel-specific percentage or timeline was independently verified from an official source in this pass. Textiles/apparel would generally fall under the official '100% coverage of non-agricultural products' EFTA-side commitment, but that is an inference from the general industrial-goods commitment, not a textiles-specific citation.
Confidence: low — recorded as a gap rather than asserting the skeleton's unverified textiles claim
Finding: Norway's parliamentary committee stated the agreement gives duty-free market access for 'more than 90% of the goods Norway currently exports to India.'
Source: Storting Business and Industry Committee (official)
Sectors Covered per Official Factsheet: business services, telecommunications, environmental services, insurance, banking, and maritime transport
Mode4:
Finding: Official EFTA factsheet describes a 'horizontal commitment for different categories under Mode 4' (temporary entry and stay of key professionals/business persons) without itemizing specific numerical commitments in the summary document reviewed.
Confidence: medium — general structure confirmed officially; granular category-by-category detail not retrieved
Insurance: Foreign capital cap in insurance raised to 49% under commitments associated with TEPA context (India-wide FDI policy, cited by SECO in the TEPA context).
Banking: Foreign capital cap in banking cited as raised from 51% to 74% in TEPA-adjacent SECO commentary.
Confidence: medium — these are general Indian FDI-cap figures cited by SECO alongside TEPA; not confirmed as TEPA-specific binding commitments versus general Indian policy liberalization coinciding with the agreement.
Mutual Recognition of Professions:
Finding: The netcup skeleton claims a specific mutual-recognition pathway for nurses and accountants. This was NOT independently verified against any official or secondary source in this research pass.
Confidence: unverified — excluded from confirmed facts, recorded as a gap rather than repeated as fact
Finding: The EFTA-India joint communiqué on entry into force notes: 'trade in goods has increased steadily over time and trade in services has roughly doubled in the last decade' (qualitative, no percentage or base year given).
India Services Exports to Switzerland: USD 6.884 billion in 2024 (calendar year)
Services Trade Surplus With Switzerland: USD 4.255 billion
Confidence: medium — Switzerland-only, not EFTA-4 total; sourced via IANS wire report, calendar-year basis distinct from India's FY-basis goods figures
Rules of origin
Based on EFTA's standard bilateral RoO model (per the official EFTA factsheet), using bilateral cumulation and EUR.1 movement certificates. Origin is conferred if a good is either (a) 'wholly obtained' in a Party, or (b) made from non-originating materials that have undergone 'sufficient working or processing' as defined by product-specific rules.
Non-originating materials may make up to 10% of FOB value / ex-works price without needing to satisfy the product-specific rule.
Change in Tariff Classification Tiers:
CC: Change of Chapter — 2-digit HS level change required
Note: Product-specific rules in Annexure-A apply CC/CTH/CTSH selectively by product, sometimes combined with a value-added/regional-value-content threshold ('VNM' — value of non-originating materials) — confirming the skeleton's general 'CTH + RVC-style dual qualification' characterization at the structural level, though exact per-product VNM percentages were not itemized in the source reviewed.
Certificate of Origin Validity: 12 months from date of issuance
Issuing Authority: Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), Ministry of Finance, Government of India
Notification Date: 2025-09-29
Effective Date: 2025-10-01
Confidence: high for notification number/dates (via TaxGuru's summary, which mirrors the official CBIC text) — the primary gazette PDF itself was not directly fetched in this pass
The Trade Remedies chapter is a separate but adjoining chapter (per the official factsheet), preserving WTO-consistent anti-dumping, countervailing-duty, and safeguard rights, plus a bilateral safeguard mechanism specific to TEPA preferential imports causing 'possible economic injury.' The skeleton's claim of a specific '4-year application' window for the bilateral safeguard was NOT independently verified in this pass — recorded as a gap, not repeated as fact.[12][22]
Trade flows
Three non-reconcilable trade-value series were found; per the provenance rule they are recorded separately below and NOT averaged or blended. They differ in scope (EFTA-4 total vs. Switzerland-only), currency (USD vs EUR), and basis (Indian fiscal year vs calendar year vs an undated EFTA page figure).
India–EFTA(4) total merchandise trade, FY2024-25 — India Briefing (Dezan Shira & Associates), citing Dept. of Commerce & Industry, Government of India[11]
Measure
Value
Total Trade
USD 24.4 billion
India Exports to EFTA
USD 1.96 billion
India Imports From EFTA
USD 22.45 billion
Basis: Indian fiscal year (April 2024–March 2025), USD, goods only · accessed 2026-08-20
Import figure is dominated by Switzerland-sourced gold, consistent with known India-Switzerland trade structure. This is the record's PRIMARY headline trade series because it is full-year, EFTA-4-wide, and fiscal-year-labeled — but note it reaches me via a secondary aggregator, not a direct Dept. of Commerce page fetch (that direct fetch failed on a weak-cipher TLS error from itj.dgciskol.gov.in). Confidence: medium-high.
EFTA–India trade, as published on EFTA's own India country page — European Free Trade Association (EFTA Secretariat)[5]
Measure
Value
Imports to EFTA States
EUR 3,213 million
Exports From EFTA States
EUR 2,329 million
Basis: EUR, year NOT stated on the source page · accessed 2026-08-20
Official primary source, but the page does not label which year these figures represent. Do not assume it matches FY2024-25 above — recorded separately and flagged in conflicts.
India–Switzerland bilateral trade (Switzerland only, not full EFTA-4) — Reported by IANS, attributing figures to Indian government context around the Commerce Secretary's May 2026 Switzerland visit[10]
Measure
Value
India Goods Exports to Switzerland Fy2025 26
exceeded USD 1.2 billion (approximate/floor figure as reported, not exact)
India Services Exports to Switzerland Cy2024
USD 6.884 billion
Services Trade Surplus With Switzerland
USD 4.255 billion
Basis: Mixed: goods on Indian FY2025-26 basis (a complete fiscal year as of this record's 2026-08-20 access date), services on calendar-year 2024 basis · accessed 2026-08-20
Milestones
2008
EFTA-India FTA negotiations begin (per Wikipedia; not independently confirmed against a primary source in this pass).
Confidence: low
2024-03-10
TEPA signed in New Delhi, after 21 negotiating rounds over 16+ years.
Confidence: high
2025-02
India-EFTA Desk (within Invest India) and EFTA's own Business Support Desk both become operational, ahead of entry into force.
Confidence: high
2025-03-17/18
Norway's Storting debates (17th) and votes to approve (18th) ratification, on the Business and Industry Committee's recommendation.
Confidence: high
2025-03-21
Switzerland's Federal Assembly approves TEPA.
Confidence: high
2025-09-03
Swiss Federal Council adopts implementing ordinance amendments ahead of entry into force.
TEPA enters into force for India and all four EFTA states; marked by the 'Prosperity Summit 2025' event in New Delhi.
Confidence: high
2026-02-11
EFTA publishes its 'TEPA-2026 Sectoral Webinar Programme' for EFTA businesses.
Confidence: high
2026-05-06/07
India's Commerce Secretary visits Switzerland to press for resolution of undisclosed TEPA implementation issues; also holds an investment-focused roundtable covering pharma, biotech, precision engineering, machinery, clean energy, plastics, medtech, and advanced manufacturing.
Confidence: high
2026-08-19
EFTA-India TEPA sectoral webinar on India's chemicals sector.
Confidence: high
~2026-08 (two-year mark from signing)
PIB publishes 'India–EFTA TEPA Marks Two Years' release, reaffirming the 92.2%/99.6% and 82.7%/95.3% tariff-coverage figures and noting India now has FTAs with 38 partner nations.
This anniversary is dated from SIGNING (March 2024), not from entry into force (October 2025) — the release title is potentially misleading if read as '2 years since TEPA took effect.'
Confidence: high
2026-09-16
EFTA-India TEPA sectoral webinar on oil and gas opportunities in India's energy value chain.
Confidence: high
~2028 (3 years post-EIF)
Official EFTA factsheet specifies a review of Government Procurement chapter cooperation within 3 years of entry into force.
Confidence: high
~2035-10 (10 years post-EIF)
First USD 50 billion investment tranche checkpoint.
Confidence: medium — derived from the stated 10-year structure, not itself an announced 'review date' in any source
~2040-10 (15 years post-EIF)
Full USD 100 billion / 1 million jobs target checkpoint; consultation mechanism on EFTA investment shortfalls becomes available per the official factsheet.
Confidence: medium — derived; see investment.enforcement_mechanism.timing_conflict for the unresolved precision issue around when actual suspension could follow
Sources disagree
Recorded exactly as the registry states each disagreement — the conflicting values, the organisations behind them, and how this record handles it.
Sources disagree
Status Stale Skeleton
The netcup skeleton (spine source) describes TEPA as 'signed-pending-ratification' with entry-into-force 'target 2026.' Verified reality: TEPA entered into force on 2025-10-01. The skeleton is roughly 10+ months stale as of this record's access date (2026-08-20) and should not be used as a factual source for status.
How this record handles it: Use entered_into_force_date = 2025-10-01 (multiply corroborated by EFTA, PIB, and Norway official sources).
Sources disagree
Investment Chapter Mischaracterization
Skeleton calls the investment chapter 'Investment Protection' with 'standard national-treatment + MFN + expropriation provisions.' Verified: the official chapter name is 'Investment Promotion and Cooperation,' and it contains no ISDS, NT, MFN, FET, or expropriation provisions per two independent legal-analysis sources.
How this record handles it: Use the corrected characterization in investment.legal_character_correction; do not carry forward the skeleton's BIT-style framing.
Sources disagree
Suspension Timeline 15 vs 20 Years
SECO states suspension of concessions could occur 'after 20 years'; the official EFTA factsheet says the consultation procedure is 'triggered after 15 years'; a legal-analysis source implies a ~5-year consultation tail after the 15-year mark.
How this record handles it: Not fully reconciled to one figure in this pass — recorded as parallel source statements in investment.enforcement_mechanism.timing_conflict. A page build should present the mechanism narratively (15-year target → consultation → possible suspension) rather than citing a single bare year count.
Sources disagree
Trade Figure Three Series
Three trade-value series exist (India-EFTA FY2024-25 via India Briefing/Dept. of Commerce; EFTA's own undated EUR figures; India-Switzerland-only FY2025-26/CY2024 figures via IANS). They differ in scope, currency, and basis and must not be blended into one number.
How this record handles it: All three retained separately in trade.series, each labeled with org/basis/accessed date.
Sources disagree
Chemicals Percentage Directionality
SECO's '~74% of chemical products duty-exempt' (Swiss tariff lines applied to Indian imports) and PIB's '~95% of India's chemical exports get zero/reduced tariff' could be misread as contradicting each other if the direction of trade is not kept explicit.
How this record handles it: Both retained in goods.sector_detail.chemicals_and_pharma with an explicit directionality note.
Sources disagree
Chapter Count 14 vs 15
PIB states TEPA 'comprises 14 chapters'; the official EFTA chapter-by-chapter factsheet's own list of named parts totals 15 when Preamble and Final Provisions are counted as separate items.
How this record handles it: Likely a front/back-matter counting-convention difference; both counts retained in agreement.chapters rather than forcing one number.
Not yet verifiable
What the registry could not source, listed exactly as it states it — not gaps filled from memory or inference.
Iceland's specific TEPA ratification date and approving body — no Althingi document specific to TEPA ratification was located (the one candidate document found was an unrelated routine annual EFTA/EEA report).
Liechtenstein's Landtag final ratification vote date — only a government-level 'Bericht und Antrag' approval step was confirmed via llv.li metadata; full article text and Landtag vote date were not retrieved.
Formal WTO RTA notification status/date for TEPA (GATT Article XXIV / GATS Article V) — not confirmed against rtais.wto.org in this pass.
Product-line-level tariff schedules (the actual Appendix 2C.1/2C.2/2C.3 annexes) — not retrieved; all sector-level tariff claims in this record rely on official summaries (SECO, EFTA factsheet) or secondary compilations, not the line-item schedules themselves.
Precise gold customs duty rate (before/after, either side) — only a qualitative 'excluded from headline liberalization' finding was sourced; no numeric rate found.
Mode 4 category-by-category numerical commitments (e.g., specific quotas, stay durations by professional category) — only the general 'horizontal commitment' framing was confirmed officially.
Mutual recognition arrangements for specific professions (nurses, accountants, etc.) as claimed in the skeleton — could not be independently verified; excluded from confirmed facts.
Bilateral safeguard mechanism's specific duration/application window (skeleton claimed '4-year application') — not independently verified.
Any running/actual USD figure for investment realized so far against the USD 100B target — only qualitative 'strengthened interest' language found as of the May 2026 Switzerland visit reporting.
The specific substance of the 'implementation issues' raised by India's Commerce Secretary in Switzerland in May 2026 — explicitly undisclosed in all reporting found.
Confirmed absence or presence of any formal TEPA dispute-settlement proceeding as of 2026-08-20 — none found, but this is an absence-of-evidence finding, not a confirmed zero.
Textiles/apparel sector-specific tariff treatment and export figures — no official source with textiles-specific percentages or timelines was found; only the general '100% non-agricultural coverage' figure applies by inference.
The year that EFTA's own published EUR trade figures (imports EUR 3,213M / exports EUR 2,329M) actually refer to — not stated on the source page.