India floats draft Digital Trade Facilitation Bill for e-trade documents’ legal recognition

New Delhi: The government Monday sought comments on the draft Digital Trade Facilitation Bill, 2026, a bill that seeks to provide legal recognition, validity and enforceability to electronic trade documents and to regulate the use, management and cross-border recognition of digital identity and trust services.

The draft text, released by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), seeks to create a statutory framework for recognising electronic trade documents and digital signatures.

It proposes an “identity management system” or a set of processes and technologies used to identify, authenticate, and verify the identity of a person, system, or device, using reliable methods for cross-border recognition.


“An electronic trade document shall not be denied legal effect, validity or enforceability on the sole ground that it was issued or used outside India,” it said.

For cross-border recognition, it also proposes an identity management service, identity credential or trust service. An “identity management service provider" means a person who has been granted an authority to provide identity management services.

“Provided that the Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, recognise specific foreign digital trade documentation frameworks, identity management systems, or trust services as equivalent for the purposes of this Bill, including under any bilateral, plurilateral or multilateral arrangements, and such recognition shall be binding on all authorities recognised under any law for the time being in force,” the DGFT said.

India’s trade deals such as with the UAE require such digital recognition, said a trade expert.

The draft bill also provides to make rules for standards for reliability, security and operation of electronic trade documents, identity management services and trust services, procedures, standards, or criteria for the notification, supervision, certification, recognition, or accreditation of reliable identity management service providers and trust service, along with the manner and procedure for resolution of disputes arising under the bill.