TRAI Registration for Telecom Equipment: Foreign Company Process

India's Telecom Equipment Certification Landscape

Despite the name, TRAI does not certify telecom equipment — the certifications a foreign manufacturer actually needs are issued by TEC's Mandatory Testing and Certification of Telecommunication Equipment (MTCTE) scheme and WPC's Equipment Type Approval (ETA) for wireless gear. Under the Telecommunications (Framework to Notify Standards, Conformity Assessment and Certification) Rules, 2025 — G.S.R. 315(E) of 16 May 2025, made under section 19 of the Telecommunications Act, 2023 and superseding rules 528 to 537 of the Indian Telegraph Rules, 1951 — no equipment to which a notified standard applies may be sold, deployed in any telecom network, or otherwise used in India without a valid Certificate of Conformity Assessment (rule 8(2)).

The regulatory framework involves four distinct bodies, each with overlapping but distinct jurisdictions:

• TEC (Telecommunication Engineering Centre): Mandatory Testing and Certification of Telecommunication Equipment (MTCTE) — the primary certification for most telecom products
• WPC (Wireless Planning and Coordination): Equipment Type Approval (ETA) for all radio frequency and wireless equipment
• BIS (Bureau of Indian Standards): Safety and quality standards for electronic products under the Compulsory Registration Scheme
• NSCS (National Security Council Secretariat): Trusted Telecom Portal — trusted-source designation for equipment connected to licensed telecom networks, under the National Security Directive on the Telecommunication Sector

TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) itself sets tariff, quality of service, and consumer protection regulations rather than equipment standards — the term "TRAI registration" is used colloquially even though certifications are issued by TEC and WPC under the DoT. TRAI reported 1,282.33 million wireless telephone subscribers at the end of March 2026 (TRAI Press Release No. 53/2026, 22 April 2026).

MTCTE Certification: The Primary Framework

The Mandatory Testing and Certification of Telecommunication Equipment (MTCTE) scheme, operated by TEC under the DoT, is the central certification requirement. Under the 2025 Rules, TEC and the National Centre for Communication Security are the “Appropriate Authorities” (rule 4), and no telecom equipment to which a notified standard applies may be sold, deployed in any telecom network, or otherwise used in India without a valid Certificate of Conformity Assessment (rule 8(2)).

Equipment Categories Covered

MTCTE runs two certification schemes. The split is not “simple products versus complex products”, as is often assumed — it is about whether TEC evaluates your test reports, and the General scheme is the shorter of the two lists:

Step-by-Step MTCTE Certification Process

1. Check product listing: Verify whether your product appears in Table A.1 or Table A.2 of Annexure-A to the MTCTE Procedure and in the notified product list published at mtcte.tec.gov.in. Under rule 5(5) of the 2025 Rules a notified standard takes effect from the date specified in that notification, so there is no single fixed lead time — track TEC's phase notifications for your product rather than assuming a standard window.
2. Appoint Authorised Indian Representative (AIR): Foreign OEMs without a branch office or liaison office in India must appoint an AIR to handle the entire certification process. The AIR acts as the legal contact point for TEC communications.
3. Prepare documentation: The MTCTE Procedure asks for the AIR's company registration, an authorisation letter, the Articles and Memorandum of Association, the latest shareholding pattern (naming board members and shareholder citizenship), and an MoU between the foreign OEM and the AIR covering sale and support of the product in India. At application stage you also upload the bill of materials, the equipment data sheet and the manufacturing location details. An OEM holding a valid Trusted Source Approval from the National Security Council Secretariat is excused from filing the AoA and MoA.
4. Submit application online: Register on the MTCTE portal (mtcte.tec.gov.in) and submit the application with all supporting documents and test reports.
5. Laboratory testing: Test the product at a TEC-designated Conformity Assessment Body (CAB). Rule 6(1) of the 2025 Rules allows TEC to recognise a laboratory in India or, in the public interest, an ILAC-accredited laboratory in any country that does not share a land border with India. Separately, TEC has allowed ILAC test reports from non-border-sharing countries for a defined product list — cellular base stations including the 5G NR variants, SIM, VHF/UHF radio systems and E-band fixed radio relay systems — until 31 December 2026, provided the report is not more than two years old on the date of submission (TEC letter 5-2/2024-TC/TEC dated 30 June 2026, which extended the earlier 30 June 2026 cut-off). Tests cover:
   • Essential Requirements (ERs) — the telecom-specific parameters notified for that product
   • Safety against the applicable Indian Standard (IS/IEC 62368-1 for IT and audio-video equipment)
   • EMC/EMI testing
   • Radio frequency testing (if applicable)
6. TEC review and certificate issuance: TEC reviews the test reports and, upon satisfactory compliance, issues the Certificate of Conformity Assessment.
7. Affix TEC certification label: The manufacturer must affix the TEC certification mark on all certified products before sale in India.

MTCTE Cost Breakdown

TEC's own fees are fixed by product group in Annexure-C of the MTCTE Procedure; laboratory and advisory charges are not, and are usually the larger part of the bill.

The administrative fee is fully exempt for applications by government R&D institutes such as C-DOT and C-DAC until 31 March 2028.

Certificate Validity

A regular MTCTE certificate is generally valid for ten years from the date of issue (para 5.13 of the MTCTE Procedure), up from the earlier five-year validity. Provisional certificates — issued where TEC grants a time-bound relaxation — run for two years. Renewal is charged at the administrative fee for the product group, and TEC may amend, withhold, suspend or cancel a certificate if it learns of a breach of the Rules.

Startup and MSE Reimbursement

TEC's scheme for reimbursement of testing and certification charges (letter 6-35/2024-CA/TEC dated 5 March 2025) refunds part of the charges paid at TEC or NCCS designated and recognised labs — or at a NABL-accredited lab where no designated CAB exists for that test facility. The rates are tiered, not a single figure: 75% for start-ups, 60% for micro enterprises and 50% for small enterprises. Applications are made at tec.gov.in/tcrs. The scheme was implemented for two years from 5 March 2025 or until the allocated INR 25 crore is exhausted, whichever comes first, so confirm it is still funded before relying on it in a budget.

WPC Equipment Type Approval (ETA)

WPC describes Equipment Type Approval as the certification required for the import, sale and use of wireless devices that operate in de-licensed frequency bands or otherwise involve radio frequency transmission. In practice that catches Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ZigBee, LoRa, RFID and short-range devices, and also the finished consumer products WPC names explicitly — mobile handsets and smart phones, laptops and electronic notepads, smart watches, microphones, speakers, headphones, printers, scanners and cameras — operating in the licence-exempt bands permitted in India.

WPC ETA Process for Foreign Companies

1. Confirm ETA is the right route: ETA covers equipment operating in de-licensed (licence-exempt) bands. Since the WPC office memorandum of 9 September 2024, all ETA applications for licence-exempt wireless devices are granted on a self-declaration basis. Four categories are excluded from the self-declaration route: radar, jamming devices, drones, and satellite equipment (anything that transmits to a satellite, such as a VSAT).
2. Appoint an Authorised Indian Representative: as with MTCTE, a foreign manufacturer without an Indian office applies through an Indian representative, who submits the manufacturer's authorisation.
3. Assemble the documents: WPC lists three — the RF test report, the manufacturer's authorisation for the Indian representative, and technical literature.
4. File on the Saral Sanchar portal: apply at saralsanchar.gov.in (now served from eservices.dot.gov.in/saral-sanchar), pay the fee through Bharatkosh, upload the signed undertaking, and download the ETA certificate from the portal. Because the grant is by self-declaration, there is no review queue to wait out.
5. Clear the import separately: the 2024 memorandum is explicit that an ETA certifies compliance with RF regulations only. The holder must still obtain any No Objection Certificate or other clearance from the DGFT before importing the equipment, and remains solely responsible for import compliance.

WPC ETA Cost and Timeline

Possession and Import Authorisations: the Regime Changed in 2026

Possessing and importing radio equipment needs authorisation separate from the ETA, and this is the part of the framework that moved most recently. WPC has stopped accepting all applications, including renewals, for Dealer Possession Licences (DPL), Non-Dealer Possession Licences (NDPL) and manufacturing and testing licences under the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885 from 3 July 2026 — neither Saral Sanchar nor the National Single Window System accepts them. Possession of radio equipment for manufacture, sale, hire, repair, testing and demonstration is now authorised under the Telecommunications (Radio Equipment Possession Authorisation) Rules, 2026, for which applications opened on the DoT Authorisation Portal on 6 August 2026; a company or LLP may apply subject to compliance with the FDI policy. WPC's Import Licence remains separate — a fee of INR 500 per licence, valid for one year, with the application asking for copies of the relevant ETAs. Check the current position on the portal before planning an import.

BIS Certification: Safety Standards

The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) — which sits under the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, not the DoT — operates the Compulsory Registration Scheme (CRS) under Scheme II of Schedule II of the BIS (Conformity Assessment) Regulations, 2018. The products caught are those notified by MeitY under the Electronics and Information Technology Goods (Requirements for Compulsory Registration) Order, 2012, expanded repeatedly since. Several items shipped alongside telecom equipment fall under that order and need BIS registration in addition to TEC and WPC certification.

Products Requiring BIS CRS

• Power adaptors for IT equipment (IS 13252 Part 1) and for audio, video and similar electronic apparatus (IS 616)
• Standalone switch mode power supplies with output voltage up to 48 V (IS 13252 Part 1)
• UPS and inverters rated up to 10 kVA (IS 16242 Part 1)
• Set top boxes (IS 13252 Part 1)
• LED lamps and luminaires used in telecom installations (the IS 16102 and IS 10322 Part 5 series)

Two items commonly assumed to sit in CRS do not. Smart electricity meters are certified under MTCTE (Essential Requirement TEC2836), not CRS. Cables and connectors do not appear in the CRS product list at all. Work from the current notified list on crsbis.in rather than a general summary.

CRS is a self-declaration of conformity scheme. The manufacturer has the product tested by a third-party laboratory established, recognised or empanelled by BIS, files the test report with an undertaking and affidavit, and BIS grants a licence to use the Standard Mark with a unique R-number. There is no factory inspection in the grant process — BIS runs surveillance instead by drawing samples from the market or in transit. A manufacturer located outside India must nominate an Authorised Indian Representative (Form IV), and that representative furnishes the affidavit. The licence is granted initially for two years and may then be renewed for a period of not less than two years and up to five. Scheme II fees: application, annual licence and renewal application fees of INR 1,000 each; a processing fee of INR 50,000 per application; INR 20,000 for each additional test report; and a concession on the processing fee of 80% for micro enterprises and start-ups, 50% for small enterprises and 20% for medium enterprises.

Trusted Telecom Portal: Network Security Certification

For telecom network equipment sold to Indian licensed operators, the Trusted Telecom Portal (trustedtelecom.gov.in) adds a national-security layer. It is run by the Cyber Wing of the National Security Council Secretariat, not by the DoT. The governing instrument is the National Security Directive on the Telecommunication Sector, approved by the Government on 16 December 2020 and in operation from 15 June 2021.

What It Covers

Telecom Service Providers are required to connect only new devices designated as “Trusted Products”. The Designated Authority is the National Cyber Security Coordinator, who makes the determination on the approval of the National Security Committee on Telecom — a committee headed by the Deputy National Security Adviser, with members from relevant ministries plus two industry members and an independent expert. Two limits are stated in the Directive itself: it does not require replacement of equipment already inducted into operators' networks, and it does not affect ongoing annual maintenance contracts or updates to equipment already in the network as at the date the Directive took effect. Trusted sources that also meet the criteria of the DoT's Preferential Market Access scheme are certified as “Indian Trusted Sources”. The list of trusted sources and products is not published, so no public source supports naming particular vendors as designated or excluded.

Foreign Company Implications

• Registration on the portal covers OEMs, EMS and contract manufacturers, system integrators, managed service providers and distributors as well as the licensee operators themselves, and the portal carries a separate registration route for OEMs not registered in India
• A valid Trusted Source Approval from the National Security Council Secretariat also lightens the MTCTE paperwork — TEC waives the AoA and MoA filing for such applicants
• No processing timeline is published for trusted-source designation, so treat it as the long pole in a launch plan for network equipment rather than assuming a fixed window
• Keep this separate from Press Note 3, which is an FDI instrument requiring government approval for investment from entities of countries sharing a land border with India. It governs who may invest, not which equipment may be connected to a network; restrictions on bidders from those countries in public procurement come from a different instrument again

Setting Up an Indian Entity for Equipment Sales

While foreign companies can sell telecom equipment in India through an Authorised Indian Representative without incorporating locally, establishing an Indian entity offers significant advantages for sustained market access:

Entity Options

For companies planning sustained India market presence, incorporating a wholly owned subsidiary through the automatic route (100% FDI permitted in telecom equipment manufacturing) is the recommended approach. The subsidiary can hold all certifications, manage renewals, handle customer relationships, and potentially access PLI scheme incentives for domestic manufacturing.

Incorporation Process

1. Obtain Digital Signature Certificates for directors
2. File SPICe+ for company incorporation on MCA portal
3. Open Indian bank account and remit initial capital
4. File FC-GPR for foreign investment reporting within 30 days
5. Register for GST (essential for importing and selling equipment)
6. Apply for Import Export Code for customs clearance

PLI Scheme: Manufacturing Incentives for Telecom Equipment

The DoT has run a Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for telecom and networking products, paying an incentive on incremental sales of qualifying equipment manufactured in India; a foreign group accesses it through its Indian subsidiary. Applications were invited in defined windows rather than on a rolling basis, and the incentive runs for a fixed period from the scheme's base year. Confirm the current status, remaining outlay and applicable rates with the DoT before building the scheme into an India business case — do not assume the window is open.

Eligible Products Under PLI

• Core transmission equipment
• 4G/5G radio access network equipment
• IoT and M2M devices
• Enterprise networking equipment (routers, switches, firewalls)
• Customer premises equipment
• Optical fibre and cable

Local manufacturing also interacts with India's Preferential Market Access (PMA) policy, which favours domestically manufactured telecom products: under the National Security Directive, trusted sources that meet the PMA criteria are certified as “Indian Trusted Sources”, and the National Security Committee on Telecom is charged with increasing the use of equipment from those sources in domestic networks. For foreign equipment companies that is a structural pull away from a pure import model.

Compliance Timeline: End-to-End Process

For a foreign telecom equipment company entering India for the first time, the complete certification timeline typically runs as follows:

As an indicative planning estimate rather than a published figure, expect roughly 4-8 months from decision to first legal sale for standard equipment, and longer for network equipment that also needs trusted-source designation, where no timeline is published at all.

Common Mistakes Foreign Companies Make

• Assuming one certification is enough: Many products require both MTCTE (TEC) and WPC ETA certifications. Missing one can result in customs seizure at import.
• Assuming any accredited foreign lab will do: for MTCTE, testing must be at a TEC-designated CAB. TEC may designate a lab in India or an ILAC-accredited lab in a country that does not share a land border with India, and it currently accepts ILAC reports from such countries only for a defined product list and only until 31 December 2026. Anything outside that list still means shipping samples to India — plan for it.
• Ignoring the AIR requirement: Applications without a properly appointed Authorised Indian Representative will be rejected. TEC wants the appointment evidenced two ways — an MoU between the foreign OEM and the AIR for sale and support of the product in India, and a separate authorisation for the AIR to discharge MTCTE responsibilities — alongside the AIR's own incorporation documents and shareholding pattern.
• Underestimating BIS scope: Power adaptors, switch mode power supplies and small UPS units bundled with telecom equipment carry their own CRS registration requirement. Foreign companies frequently miss this and face import delays.
• Misreading what happens after a contravention notice: under rule 12 of the 2025 Rules, an officer who finds uncertified equipment issues a written notice to stop offering it for sale, distribution or use, and the recipient has seven days to comply. The position can still be regularised by obtaining the certificate within 180 days of that notice — but at ten times the normal fee. Miss that and the Appropriate Authority may start proceedings for seizure or destruction. The 180 days is a cure window after enforcement, not an implementation runway before it.

Ongoing Compliance After Certification

Obtaining certifications is not a one-time exercise. Foreign companies must maintain ongoing compliance:

• Annual FLA return: Due by July 15 every year for companies with foreign investment
• MTCTE renewal: Generally every ten years, charged at the administrative fee for the product group; two years for a provisional certificate
• BIS CRS renewal: The first licence runs two years; renewals are for not less than two years and up to five. There is no factory inspection — BIS monitors by drawing samples from the market or in transit
• Product modifications: Any hardware or software changes to certified products require updated test reports and potentially a new certification application
• Transfer pricing compliance: Equipment imports from parent company must be priced at arm's length under Section 161 of the Income-tax Act, 2025 (section 92 of the Income-tax Act, 1961)
• FEMA reporting: All foreign investment transactions reported per RBI requirements
• Annual ROC filings: AOC-4, MGT-7, and statutory audit for the Indian entity

Key Takeaways

• “TRAI registration” is a misnomer — the actual certifications are TEC MTCTE (telecom-specific compliance) and WPC ETA (wireless/RF equipment), both under the DoT, plus BIS CRS (safety standards) under the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, and trusted-source designation by the National Security Council Secretariat for network equipment
• Foreign OEMs must appoint an Authorised Indian Representative or establish an Indian entity to apply for any certification — direct foreign company applications are not accepted
• TEC's administrative fee runs from INR 10,000 (Group A) to INR 50,000 (Group D); the lab bill is the larger cost. A certificate is normally issued within 15 working days under the Simplified scheme or 4-8 weeks under the General scheme, and is generally valid for ten years. A WPC ETA costs INR 10,000, is granted on self-declaration, and lasts for the life of the model unless revoked
• The Trusted Telecom Portal adds a trusted-source layer for network equipment under the National Security Directive, run by the National Security Council Secretariat with no published processing timeline — and it is a separate question from Press Note 3, which governs inbound investment rather than equipment
• Two 2026 changes matter more than anything else on this page: DPL/NDPL and manufacturing and testing licences closed to new applications on 3 July 2026, replaced by authorisation under the Radio Equipment Possession Authorisation Rules, 2026 from 6 August 2026; and the DoT's PLI scheme for telecom products should be status-checked with the department rather than assumed open