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Customs House Agent

Logistics

A licensed professional in India handling customs formalities on behalf of importers or exporters.

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Sources

  1. Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs — The Customs Act, 1962 (as amended to 30 March 2022) taxinformation.cbic.gov.in accessed 23 September 2026

The occupation is licensed, and section 146 states the prohibition before it states anything else: “No person shall carry on business as a customs broker relating to the entry or departure of a conveyance or the import or export of goods at any customs station unless such person holds a licence granted in this behalf in accordance with the regulations.” Note the current statutory term is customs broker; “customs house agent” is the older usage that survives in trade. The Act leaves the detail to regulations made by the Board, and lists what those may cover: the licensing authority and period of validity, the form of licence and fees, the qualifications of applicants and of the staff they employ, the conduct of the examination, and the restrictions and conditions of a licence including security to be furnished. So the obligation is statutory; the qualifying route is regulatory.

Primary legislation, and only that. The text quoted above is the Customs Act, 1962 as published by CBIC and amended to 30 March 2022. The Act repeatedly leaves the operating detail to rules, regulations and notifications — forms, rates, qualifications, time limits — so the statute tells you what is required and the subordinate instrument tells you how. Check the current rules and any later amendment before relying on a procedure, and remember that a figure or a rate in a notification changes far more often than the section that authorises it.

Related terms

From the AJG lexicon archive (July 2026).

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