A QCO Deadline Is Coming for Your Product. Here's Your 90-Day Plan
Quality Control Orders keep adding products to India's mandatory certification list. A practical countdown plan for manufacturers and importers.
When a Quality Control Order is notified, the clock starts. After the enforcement date, your product cannot be manufactured, imported, stored or sold in India without BIS certification. Here is the plan we run with clients who have about 90 days.
Days 1–10: Confirm scope
Match your exact product variants to the IS standard named in the order. This step is where most mistakes happen — a standard often has parts and sections, and your licence must cover the right one. Check the QCO status of your product on Certko first.
Days 10–30: Documentation and samples
Prepare the application: factory details, plant and machinery list, in-house test equipment, quality control plan, and trademark proof. In parallel, book a testing slot — labs get congested as deadlines approach, and slots are the bottleneck you cannot compress later.
Days 30–70: Testing and inspection readiness
While samples are in the lab, set up the in-house testing station the standard requires. BIS officers verify it during the factory inspection; a missing instrument is the most common reason for a second visit — and a second visit usually costs you 3–4 weeks.
Days 70–90: Queries and grant
Respond to BIS queries the day they arrive. Most applications that miss deadlines lose the time here, not in testing.
If you have less than 90 days
Prioritise the lab slot above everything else, and consider a consultant to run the file in parallel. Check the current enforcement dates on our QCO Alerts page — several orders have separate, later timelines for small and micro units, which may buy you room.
