---
title: "Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) Reference Rate API for Accounting, Invoicing & Compliance"
description: "Automate Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC)'s official customs exchange rates notified under Section 14 of the Customs Act, 1962 for book closing, FX gain/loss, customs and audits — 22 currencies, history back to 2020, as JSON or Excel."
canonical: https://allratestoday.com/blog/cbic-reference-rate-api/
source: AllRatesToday (https://allratestoday.com/) — Markdown mirror of the page above; index of all pages at https://allratestoday.com/llms.txt
generated: 2026-10-27T15:03:32.842Z
---

![India currency — official exchange rates published by Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC)](https://images.pexels.com/photos/6901511/pexels-photo-6901511.jpeg?auto=compress&cs=tinysrgb&dpr=2&h=650&w=940)

If your business invoices, imports, or reports in a currency other than the INR, sooner or later someone will ask which rate you used — and “the one on the internet that day” is not an answer that survives an audit. For that, you want the official number: Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC)’s published customs exchange rates notified under Section 14 of the Customs Act, 1962.

## What are the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs customs exchange rates notified under Section 14 of the Customs Act, 1962?

The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) notifies the customs exchange rates for India under Section 14 of the Customs Act, 1962 — the rates at which the value of imported and exported goods is converted into rupees on a Bill of Entry or Shipping Bill, and the rates GST valuation rules borrow for imports. A notification is issued roughly every fortnight, takes effect the following day, and carries two rates per currency: one for imported goods and one for exported goods. They are set off State Bank of India card rates, so they sit a few percent either side of the Reserve Bank of India's reference rate by design.

It is published **about once a fortnight**, currently covering **22 currencies**, and the published record runs back to **2020**. Crucially it is a *published* figure, not a live market price — it does not move after it is set, which is exactly the property an accountant or an auditor needs.

Section 14 of the Customs Act, 1962 makes the CBIC-notified rate the only rate at which the value of imported or exported goods may be converted into rupees on a Bill of Entry or Shipping Bill — the notification in force on the date the declaration is presented, with a separate import and export rate per currency, and GST valuation rules borrow the same table for imports.

## Why finance teams need the official rate

### Book closing and month end

Foreign-currency balances have to be translated at a defensible rate on a specific date. Using a live market rate from an [exchange rate API](https://allratestoday.com/exchange-rate-api/) means the number changes depending on what minute you pulled it, and two people closing the same month can produce two different sets of books. The authority’s published rate for that date is fixed and reproducible forever.

### FX gain and loss

Revaluing receivables and payables needs the rate at invoice date and the rate at settlement date. Both have to come from the same series, or the gain and loss you report is partly an artefact of switching data sources mid-stream.

### Audits and compliance

An auditor does not want a screenshot. They want a rate that traces back to a named publisher and a publication date they can independently check against Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC)’s own release. That is the entire reason official rates exist.

### Management reporting

Group reporting across entities only consolidates cleanly when every entity converts at the same published rate for the same date. Left to their own devices, subsidiaries will each pick a different source.

## The problem with collecting the rate by hand

Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) publishes the data — but publishing and being easy to consume are different things. In practice teams end up copying figures off the bank’s rates page into a spreadsheet every period, which creates four familiar problems:

- **It is manual, so it gets skipped.** Someone is on leave, a period gets missed, and the gap is only discovered at close.
- **Typos are invisible.** A transposed digit in a rate looks exactly like a correct rate until the variance shows up somewhere else entirely.
- **History is awkward.** Restating a prior period, or answering an auditor about a shipment from two years ago, means digging through archives rather than making one query.
- **Non-publication days trip people up.** Weekends and public holidays have no rate at all, and every team invents its own rule about what to use instead — usually without writing it down.

## The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) rates as an API

AllRatesToday ingests Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC)’s published table shortly after each release and serves it back in a consistent shape, alongside 125 other central banks and national tax authorities on identical endpoints.

- **Official figures, unmodified** — served with Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC)’s own publication date on every response.
- **22 currencies** against the INR.
- **History back to 2020** — query any past date, or pull a full time series.
- **Honest holiday handling** — non-publication dates resolve to the most recent published table and say so, rather than silently interpolating.
- **Formats finance actually uses** — JSON, CSV, XML and genuine Excel workbooks, so it lands in a spreadsheet, Power BI or an ERP without a conversion step.
- **Published vs derived is labelled** — a pair Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) did not print itself is computed from its table and flagged, never passed off as an official quote.

### Sample response

A real response for USD to INR, from Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC)’s publication of 2026-10-16:

```
{
  "bank": "cbic",
  "name": "Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC)",
  "rate_date": "2026-10-16",
  "source": "USD",
  "target": "INR",
  "rate": 95.9,
  "rate_type": "import",
  "derived": false,
  "method": "published",
  "disclaimer": "Official rates as published by the named central bank. On weekends/holidays the most recent published rate_date is returned."
}
```

The `rate_date` is the authority’s own publication date — the date you cite in the ledger — and `derived` tells you whether Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) printed this pair itself.

## Who this is for

- **Exporters and importers** converting invoices and customs values at a rate that has to hold up later.
- **Finance and accounting teams** closing books across currencies.
- **Auditors and advisors** who need to reproduce a client’s conversion months after the fact.
- **ERP, accounting and invoicing platforms** that need an official rate feed their own customers can defend.
- **Fintech and payments teams** that price on market rates but must *report* on official ones.

## What it actually saves

- **Time** — no one copies rates into a spreadsheet each period again.
- **Accuracy** — the figure is whatever Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) published, with no retyping in between.
- **Audit risk** — every number carries its publication date, so “where did this come from?” has an answer.
- **Consistency** — every entity, report and invoice converts from the same series.

## Getting started

1. [Create a free account](https://allratestoday.com/register/) — no card.
2. Call `/api/v1/central-bank/cbic/latest`, or download the table as Excel from the [Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) coverage page](https://allratestoday.com/tax-authority-rates-api/cbic/).
3. Wire it into your close, your invoicing, or a scheduled spreadsheet refresh.

Developers who want the endpoints, SDK and code samples should read the [Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) API guide](https://allratestoday.com/blog/cbic-exchange-rate-api/) instead — this page is the business case; that one is the integration.

## FAQ

### Where do Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) exchange rates come from in this API?

Directly from Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC)'s own published customs exchange rates notified under Section 14 of the Customs Act, 1962. Rates are stored unmodified with the authority's publication date attached, so the figure in your ledger is the figure Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) printed, going back to 2020.

### Can I get the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) rate for a past date, like an invoice or shipment date?

Yes. Ask for any past date and you get the rate in force then, back to 2020. If the authority did not publish that day — a weekend or a public holiday — the API returns the most recent published table and flags that it did, so your audit trail stays honest instead of silently guessing.

### Do I need a developer to use this?

Not necessarily. Every coverage page offers the latest published table as an Excel or CSV download, and finance teams commonly pull the API straight into Excel, Power BI or their ERP on a schedule. A developer helps if you want it wired into invoicing or your accounting system automatically.

## Final thought

Official rates are not a nicer version of market rates — they answer a different question. Market data tells you what a currency is worth right now. Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC)’s published table tells you what rate your books, your customs entries and your auditor are entitled to expect for a given date. Getting that second number automatically, with its publication date attached, removes an entire category of month-end argument.

## Official Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) rates, automated

Free tier: no credit card.

 [Get your free API key](https://allratestoday.com/register/)

## Related Articles

- [Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) rates — coverage page and live table](https://allratestoday.com/tax-authority-rates-api/cbic/)
- [Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) API guide for developers](https://allratestoday.com/blog/cbic-exchange-rate-api/)
- [Official exchange rate vs market rate: which do you need?](https://allratestoday.com/blog/official-exchange-rate-vs-market-rate/)
- [Which rate customs, VAT and tax filings require](https://allratestoday.com/blog/tax-authority-exchange-rates/)
- [All covered tax authorities](https://allratestoday.com/tax-authority-rates-api/)
- [Exchange rate API — live market rates for 160+ currencies](https://allratestoday.com/exchange-rate-api/)