Selling perfumes online in India: the spirit problem

Perfume is a cosmetic, and the Fourth Schedule names it twice

A fragrance is a cosmetic under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940, and it is governed by the Cosmetics Rules, 2020. That much is settled, and it is also where most sellers stop reading. The useful detail sits in the Fourth Schedule to those Rules, the list of categories of cosmetics for import drawn up under rule 12(6). Entry 40 is hydro alcoholic perfumes. Entry 41 is non hydro alcoholic perfumes. The Rules sort fragrance by whether there is spirit in the bottle before they say anything else about it, and that split decides how much of the rest of this applies to you.

The two tracks are familiar. A domestic manufacturer holds a licence from the state licensing authority. An importer registers first: rule 12(1) says no cosmetic shall be imported into India unless the product has been registered by the Central Licensing Authority. Under rule 12(2) the Form COS-1 application may be filed by the overseas manufacturer, by an authorised agent, by the importer in India, or by an Indian subsidiary the manufacturer authorises. The certificate is Form COS-2, and rule 13(4) lets one certificate cover several cosmetics from the same manufacturer at one factory, which is how a fragrance range should be filed. We covered that machinery in depth for selling grooming products online in India.

The Ninth Schedule names cologne, not perfume

Rule 39(1) is the operative sentence on quality. No cosmetic shall be imported or manufactured unless it complies with the specifications prescribed under the Ninth Schedule or any other standards of quality and safety applicable to it. If the cosmetic is not in the Ninth Schedule, it shall meet the requirements under these Rules and the specifications and standards applicable to it in the country of origin.

So read the Ninth Schedule. It carries 37 finished cosmetics against named Indian Standards. Entry 11 is Cologne, IS 8482. Skin creams, hair oils, shampoos, toilet soap, lipstick and aftershave lotion are all there. Perfume is not. Eau de parfum is not. Eau de toilette is not. Attar is not.

So the word you print on the bottle decides which standard binds. Sell a cologne and IS 8482 becomes a specification you must meet. Sell an eau de parfum and you land in the second half of rule 39(1), where the test is this ruleset plus whatever applies in the country of origin. The Schedule also notes that any new or amended BIS standard becomes mandatory six months after publication, so the list is not frozen.

No quality control order covers fragrance

This needs saying plainly, because the first page of search results will tell you otherwise. There is no Quality Control Order in force covering perfume, fragrance or cosmetics generally. Perfume and cologne do not appear in the products under compulsory BIS certification. A cosmetics QCO has been publicly discussed, but a proposal is not a notification and a draft is not a mandate. If a certification agency tells you a perfume QCO exists, ask for the gazette number and the date. If it cannot produce one, there is nothing to comply with.

There is a related gap on the manufacturing side, and it cuts the other way. The schedule that prescribes plant, machinery and floor area for cosmetic manufacture closes with a note saying other cosmetics items, attars and perfumes among them, are not covered by it, and that the Licensing Authority has discretion to examine the adequacy of premises, space, plant and equipment. For a fragrance line there is no published equipment checklist to build against. The standard is the inspector judgement, so budget for a conversation rather than a tick list.

Alcohol is a state subject, and that is a separate queue

Here is the instrument that actually sets your launch date, and it is not CDSCO. Older guidance still points at the Medicinal and Toilet Preparations (Excise Duties) Act, 1955, which taxed toilet preparations containing alcohol and expressly reached perfumes. That Act was repealed by section 174(1) of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017. The duty is gone. The spirit is not.

Alcohol itself sits with the states. In State of U.P. v. M/s Lalta Prasad Vaish and Sons, 2024 INSC 812, decided on 23 October 2024, a nine judge bench of the Supreme Court held by eight to one that intoxicating liquor in Entry 8 of List II of the Seventh Schedule includes industrial alcohol, overruling the 1990 position in Synthetics and Chemicals. Permission to buy, hold, move and use spirit for perfumery is therefore a state excise matter, applied under state law by a state department.

We looked for a single national instrument naming the perfumery spirit permit and did not find one, because there is not one. The form and the fee differ by state. Treat it as absent from the central rulebook rather than estimating it.

Where cosmetic labelling and Legal Metrology part company

Fragrance has its own labelling carve-outs, and they do not travel. Under the Cosmetics Rules, 2020, the net contents declaration need not appear on a package of perfume, toilet water or the like where the net content does not exceed 60 ml. The ingredient list, otherwise mandatory in descending order of weight or volume, also need not appear for packs of 60 ml or less of liquid. Imported unit packs must carry the import registration certificate number preceded by RC or RC No, with the importer name and address.

Set that against rule 26 of the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules, 2011, which lifts those Rules only from packages of ten gram or ten millilitre or less. A 30 ml eau de parfum sits inside the cosmetic relief and outside the Legal Metrology one. It owes net quantity on the pack and on the listing, and marketplace suppression comes from the second instrument, not the first. For the general declarations, use our post on Legal Metrology labelling for ecommerce in India.

Two things to settle before launch. Whether your eight digit tariff line is free or restricted is an import licensing and restricted goods question and sits upstream of all of this. And if there is spirit in the bottle, read the companion post on perfume shipping and dangerous goods in India, because what shrinks your serviceable pincodes is not in the cosmetics rulebook.