The EDF Is Now a Monthly Filing. Here's Your Calendar.

If you bill a foreign client from India, you now have a monthly filing with your bank. It's called the Export Declaration Form (EDF). Goods exporters have filed EDFs for years. From 1 October 2026, every exporter of services does too, freelancers included.

It is not difficult. It is easy to forget, because nothing reminds you and the first one isn't due until the end of November.

Not legal or tax advice. This is based on Regulation 3 and Regulation 18 of the FEMA (Export and Import of Goods and Services) Regulations, 2026. Banks are setting up their own processes for this. Your bank's process is the one you follow.

The rule, in one paragraph

Regulation 3(2): an exporter of services must give the specified authority (for most freelancers, the bank where export payments land) an EDF stating "the amount representing the full export value of services, within 30 days from the end of month in which invoice for services has been raised." If you exported to several clients in a month, one EDF can cover all of them. The bank enters it into EDPMS, the RBI's export monitoring system, within five working days. When the client pays, the bank matches the payment to the entry and closes it.

Your due dates

Count from the invoice date, not the payment date and not the delivery date.

The pattern: the 30th of the following month, give or take a day or two. EDFs due in March, June, September and December land in the same month as GST quarter-end work, so put those in the calendar first.

What goes in it

The EDF format is in the Annex to the regulations, and banks may present it through their own portal or form. Whatever the layout, it's built around the same facts already on your export invoice:

• Your details as exporter (name, address, IEC if you have one, bank account)
• Each invoice: number, date, value, currency
• The overseas client: name and country
• The nature of the service
• A declaration that the values are true and that you'll realise them as required

If your export invoices are complete and consistent, the EDF is copying, not research. If they aren't (a missing client address, a currency you can't confirm, an invoice number you reused), the EDF is where it shows.

The one-EDF-a-month shortcut

Regulation 3(2)(a): "the exporter of services who has exported services to one or more recipients in a month, may submit a single EDF for all such exports."

So five clients and twelve invoices in October is still one filing. That makes the monthly rhythm simple: close the month, pull every export invoice dated in it, file once.

The pay-day option, and who can't use it

Regulation 3(2)(b): an exporter of services other than software may submit the EDF "on or before the date of receipt of payment."

That lets a consultant file when the money lands instead of at month end. It does not apply to software exporters. And under these regulations "software" includes programs, databases, drawings, designs and audio/video, so developers, designers and video editors are on the month-end rule. More on that in SOFTEX is gone.

If you're not sure which side you're on, use the month-end rule for everything. It's never late.

Running late?

Regulation 3(2)(c) lets your bank extend the EDF deadline "on a request from the exporter citing reasons for delay," if it finds the request reasonable. Ask before the due date if you can, in writing.

Regulation 19(3) also says banks may not charge you a fee or penalty for your own regulatory delay. That doesn't make lateness free under FEMA, but it does mean your bank shouldn't be the one billing you for it.

If you're paid through a platform

Many freelancers don't receive export payments straight into their own bank. They use a cross-border payment platform, or a marketplace that pays out through one.

The EDF still exists. What changes is who handles it. The platform settles into your account through a partner bank, and that bank (or the platform for it) holds your EDPMS entries. Some platforms have already published how they will help with EDF filing; at least one says certain partner banks will want an EDF reference before payment is captured.

Ask your platform three things:

1. 1.Which bank holds my EDPMS entries?
2. 2.Do you file the EDF, help me file it, or expect me to file it with that bank?
3. 3.Will you need anything from me before you accept a payment?

If you use more than one platform, or a platform plus a direct bank wire, you may have EDPMS entries at more than one bank. Keep a note of which invoices went where. And remember Regulation 10(1): an advance and its balance must go through the same bank unless you've told both banks about the switch.

A month-end routine that takes ten minutes

1. 1.On the 1st, list every export invoice dated last month.
2. 2.Check each one has the client's country, currency and amount, and that the numbering is clean.
3. 3.File one EDF with the bank (or through the platform) for that list. The free EDF form generator builds it from the list.
4. 4.Save the acknowledgement next to the invoices.
5. 5.When payments arrive, check the FIRA against the invoice. For invoices up to ₹10 lakh, you can close outstanding entries by declaration, quarterly if you like.

How this connects to the rest of your paperwork

• GST. The same invoices go into GSTR-1 as zero-rated exports under your LUT. Same numbers, different filing.
• Purpose codes. The bank codes each inward remittance. Your EDF describes the service. If those disagree, the mismatch is now easier to spot.
• Realisation. Each invoice on the EDF has 9 months from its invoice date to be paid. What happens after that.

Where Mavoin fits

The monthly EDF is a filtered list of your export invoices. Mavoin keeps every export invoice with its number, date, client, currency and rupee value, and exports the list as CSV, so month end is a download rather than a search through PDFs. ₹199/month, 30-day trial, no card.

Start your 30-day trial.

Mavoin is not a Chartered Accountant service. Verify FEMA specifics with your bank and CA.