EXWEx Works

EXW is the lowest number a supplier can quote, and in India it's the one term we tell foreign buyers not to sign. Here's what it is, why it fails at the Indian border, and the two cases where it still works.

In September 2024 a small UK business owner posted a problem most first-time buyers from India will recognise. The vendor in India, he wrote, had "no idea on exports" and would "just handover to logistics provider and rest i've to take care" (r/smallbusinessuk, September 2024). Nobody had written EXW on anything, but that's what he'd bought. We'll follow his situation through the page, because it shows the trap better than the rulebook does. The honest caveat - EXW isn't a bad rule. It's a domestic rule, and India's export system makes it close to unworkable for a buyer abroad.

1. What EXW Means

Ex Works. The seller delivers by placing the goods at your disposal at its premises or another named place, not loaded on any vehicle and not cleared for export. Everything after that is yours: loading, export formalities, carriage, insurance, import, duties.

It's the minimum a seller can take on under the Incoterms rules. The ICC's own guidance says it suits domestic trade, and that a buyer who can't complete export formalities in the seller's country should use FCA instead. The rules quoted are Incoterms 2020, in force since 1 January 2020. As of 25 September 2026 the ICC has published no newer edition.

Who does what

2. Where The Risk Passes

Risk passes when the goods are placed at your disposal at the named place, on the agreed date or within the agreed period. They're usually still on the factory floor at that point. If the seller helps load them onto your truck, the loading is at your risk unless the contract says otherwise.

So a forklift dropping a pallet at the factory gate is your loss under EXW. Under FCA at the same gate it would be the seller's. That one detail is often the whole argument for switching.

3. Why It Fails At The Indian Border

Only an Indian holder of an Importer Exporter Code can file the shipping bill, so a foreign buyer can't clear export in its own name (see exporting from India). The ICC's January 2025 paper on national regulatory barriers lists exactly this risk for EXW, where goods cross a customs border and the buyer can't act as exporter. India is one of the places it bites.

That's why the UK buyer was stuck. His vendor's logistics provider could move the goods, but someone Indian still had to be the exporter, and it wasn't going to be him. A logistics reply on another forum put the warning sign neatly: if the other side can only get the goods to the port and can't arrange the rest, that's your first clue it isn't set up to export (r/logistics, November 2025). A US seller found the same thing the slow way, when pickups from an inexperienced Indian maker slipped until the goods left 40 days late (r/FulfillmentByAmazon, April 2025).

There's a second cost, and the seller feels it. Under EXW the maker is no longer the exporter of record, so it has no shipping bill in its name, no zero-rated export invoice, no rebate claim and no bank record of the proceeds. A supplier that understands this will price EXW higher than you expect, or agree to EXW and then quietly file the export in its own name anyway, which leaves you with a term nobody is performing.

4. How To Write It, If You Must

EXW [seller's address], Jaipur, Incoterms 2020, with the loading point inside the premises named if the site is large. If you want the seller to load, don't write "EXW loaded" and hope. It's a private variation, not a rule. Either put a loading clause in the contract with the risk of loading spelt out, or use FCA, which already makes the seller load at its own premises. "Ex-godown", which you'll see from wholesale-market traders, is EXW by another name and carries the same problem.

5. The Two Buyers It Does Fit

EXW works for a buyer who has its own Indian entity, agent or exporter of record that can file the export in an Indian name. It also works for someone buying inside India for use inside India, which isn't our reader.

For everyone else it doesn't fit. And the tell is usually in the first reply. From our reading, EXW shows up in Indian quotes from two kinds of seller: wholesale-market traders who don't export at all, and makers answering a first enquiry with the lowest number they can put in a message. Neither is offering you a workable international term (Indicative). If a supplier insists on EXW, ask why. It usually means they don't hold an export code or don't want the paperwork, and that's a supplier signal worth knowing before you commit (verify suppliers).

6. What Else Nobody Checks Under EXW

Under EXW nobody upstream has any reason to check ISPM-15 pallets or origin marking, because the seller's job ended on the floor. Specify packaging in the PO regardless of term.

Certificates of origin are the bigger loss. The certificates for Australia's ECTA, the UK's CETA and India's other agreements come from Indian bodies to the Indian exporter. If there's no Indian exporter then there's no certificate and no preference, so your 0% becomes the general rate. Which proof each agreement takes is on certificate of origin.

7. What It Means For Your Landed Cost And Duty

The EXW price is the floor. Everything else sits on top: loading, inland haul, export clearance, port charges, freight, insurance, destination charges, duty and tax. The landed cost calculator starts from any term, but if you start from EXW then fill every line.

Customs value moves too. Where value is set on an FOB basis (New Zealand, and Australia on the ABF's stated approach), inland freight and export costs in India are added to your EXW price (NZ Customs valuation guide, May 2025, ABF valuation fact sheet (opens in a new tab)). The UK and the EU add all delivery costs to the border or point of entry (GOV.UK Method 1). The US takes the price paid and leaves out international freight and insurance, but your broker will still ask about the Indian inland charges you paid to reach the port. On paper EXW gives you total control. In practice you can only use it through someone in India, so what you really control is your choice of that someone.

EXW Next To Its Neighbours

FCA is the ICC's suggested swap. It makes the seller clear export and load at its premises, and passes risk at handover to your carrier. FOB puts export clearance, the inland haul and loading on board with the seller, and for India it's the usual reply to an EXW quote: "Please requote FOB Nhava Sheva." DDP sits at the other end of the scale, where the seller does everything.

How The UK Buyer's Story Ends

The best advice in that corner of the forum came from a UK importer who runs a company in India: "A good exporter will always have an option of giving you FOB" (r/smallbusinessuk, February 2026). That's the payoff. If a vendor can only hand goods to a truck then you've learnt something about the vendor, not about Incoterms. Ask for FOB or FCA, and if the maker really can't export, bring in an Indian exporter of record.