Selling toys online in India: the licence trap
Toys are one of the few consumer categories in India sitting under a full certification order. The obligation does not land where most teams assume. Here are the order numbers, the four exits, and the two changes in 2026 that moved the ground.
- The instrument is the Toys (Quality Control) Order, 2020, S.O. 853(E) of 25 February 2020, and it commenced on 1 January 2021 after S.O. 3146(E) of 15 September 2020 substituted the date.
- A Scheme-I licence goes only to a manufacturer and only for specific premises, so a brand owner, an importer and a reseller can never hold one for themselves.
- There are four exits and they are narrow: export, artisans registered with DC Handicrafts, GI registered proprietors and authorised users, and 300 research pieces a year. There is no micro enterprise exemption for toys.
- DGFT deleted the per consignment NABL test for toys in March 2026 and DPIIT opened a Scheme-II sourcing route in June 2026. Neither touches the ISI requirement itself.
One order, and it moved before it ever started
The instrument is the Toys (Quality Control) Order, 2020, notified by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade as S.O. 853(E) on 25 February 2020 under sections 16, 17 and 25(3) of the Bureau of Indian Standards Act, 2016. It was written to start on 1 September 2020. It did not. S.O. 3146(E) of 15 September 2020 substituted a new commencement of 1 January 2021, and that is the date the obligation actually bites.
Read the application clause before the table. The order covers any product or material “designed or clearly intended, whether or not exclusively, for use in play by children under 14 years of age”. Whether or not exclusively is what catches the figurine free with a snack pack, the plush keyring, and the collectible your deck calls an adult product. The order also applies to the toy after reasonably foreseeable normal use and abuse, so what the sample looks like after the lab is the thing certified.
The table names IS 9873 parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 7 and 9 for non-electric toys and IS 15644 for electric toys. It also carries a note that the latest version of each standard, as notified by the Bureau, applies from the date of that notification. The year printed in the 2020 gazette is not the year you test to. IS 9873 (Part 1) has been revised since, and the current edition and its transition dates sit in the BIS product manual.
The licence cannot be yours unless you own the factory
BIS answers this in its own certification FAQ for toys. Under Scheme-I of Schedule-II of the BIS (Conformity Assessment) Regulations, 2018, a licence to apply the Standard Mark goes only to the manufacturer. A marketer or distributor cannot hold one, and one licence cannot cover a group, because the Bureau grants against specific premises. A brand with three units files three applications.
There is a second split most people miss. For certification BIS treats toys as two types with two primary standards, IS 9873 (Part 1) for non-electric and IS 15644 for electric, and a maker of both files separately for each. A domestic unit applies through the Manakonline portal. An overseas factory applies to the Foreign Manufacturers Certification Department at BIS headquarters, the route we set out for helmets.
If you resell, stop looking for a licence of your own. Your obligation is custody and match, the artefact discipline that every baby and kids SKU needs: the CM/L number on the pack, a scope covering that exact model, and a licence live the day the carton is in the warehouse.
Four ways the order does not reach you
The principal order carries one exit on its face. Nothing in it applies to goods or articles meant for export, so an exporting factory answers to that market instead.
Two more arrived with the Toys (Quality Control) Second Amendment Order, 2020, S.O. 4514(E) of 11 December 2020. It exempts goods manufactured and sold by artisans registered with the Office of the Development Commissioner (Handicrafts) under the Ministry of Textiles, and goods manufactured and sold by the registered proprietor or authorised user of a product registered as a Geographical Indication. Both turn on a registration someone specific holds, and both attach to the maker and the article, not to the channel.
The fourth came with the Toys (Quality Control) Amendment Order, 2024, S.O. 4277(E) of 30 September 2024. A manufacturer certified by the Bureau, or one who has applied, may import up to 300 pieces a financial year, at most five of each type, for research and development. They cannot be sold commercially, must be scrapped, and the manufacturer keeps a record by year and files a declaration. It is a sampling allowance for a product team, not an import route.
What is absent matters as much. Newer quality control orders stagger dates for micro and small enterprises under the MSME Development Act, 2006. The toys order has no turnover threshold and no small unit grace period.
The 2026 order that changes the importer’s answer
DPIIT notified the Transition Facilitation (Quality Control) Order, 2026 as S.O. 3417(E) on 25 June 2026, and the Toys (Quality Control) Order, 2020 sits in its annexure of covered orders. A company incorporated under the Companies Act, 2013 can seek permission from an implementation committee to source from suppliers certified under Scheme-II of Schedule-II, which is registration on self declaration of conformity, in place of the Scheme-I factory licence. Approval turns on technical capability, quality systems, compliance history and commitment to building supply in India, and three years of uninterrupted compliance qualifies on its own. Applications run for twenty four months from commencement and the order runs five years.
If your supply base is small overseas factories that will never clear a Scheme-I assessment, this is the first door to open since 2021. Read the annexure before you plan on it.
The port stopped asking, the Bureau did not
Until this year every toy consignment carried a second check. Policy Condition 2(iii) to Chapter 95 of the ITC (HS) required a random sample from each import consignment to go to an NABL accredited lab, with clearance contingent on the result. DGFT deleted it by Notification No. 64/2025-26 dated 18 March 2026. If you planned around consignment testing after our note on restricted imports, that line is out of date. Nothing else moved: the order stands and the ISI mark is still mandatory. The enforcement point simply landed later.
The check happens inside the fulfilment centre now
Answering in the Lok Sabha on 11 February 2026, the Minister of State for Consumer Affairs said that of 344 samples procured under quality control orders, 142 were without valid BIS certification, and that sellers were directed to recall 515 toys sold in violation of the toys order. In FY 2024-25 there were 22 search and seizure operations at e-commerce warehouses, 14 at Amazon, seven at Instakart and one at Blinkit. In a March 2025 statement the Consumer Affairs Ministry put 215 uncertified toys at an Amazon warehouse in Lucknow and 134 at an Instakart warehouse in Gurugram.
None of that needed a customer complaint. It needed stock in a building and a number on a carton. Keep the licence, its scope and its expiry in the same row as the SKU, and make the pack, the listing and the licence say one thing. The age band on that pack does more work than most teams realise, which is its own subject.