The pact could also be a tipping point for British alcohol and spirits companies.
The reduction of customs duties on Scotch whisky from 150% to 75% immediately and then gradually to 40% over 10 years is a “real shift, not a small tweak”, says Avneet Singh of Modern Drinks Pvt Ltd, an import house based in the capital Delhi.
How much this boosts imports will become clearer in the coming months, says Singh, though he sees momentum building ahead of the new terms of trade taking effect.
“The focus has been on getting the operational side ready. That means working closely with UK suppliers to ensure certificates of origin and other trade documentation are in place, reviewing customs and compliance requirements, and co-ordinating with logistics and clearing partners so shipments can benefit from the revised tariff structure from day one,” Singh said.
So far, it’s been a period of “careful preparation rather than rapid expansion”, he says. Bigger changes will come once businesses see the actual savings on imported goods.
Beyond these few pockets of the industry though, the overall impact of the deal could be “incremental rather than transformational”, according to trade experts.
Data from the Delhi-based Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI) think-tank shows India exported $13.4bn worth of goods to the UK in the financial year 2025-2026, yet more than half of these exports entered the country duty-free under its most favoured nation regime.
On the import side, India imported $11.7bn from the UK, and over 45% consisted of silver, which remains on India’s exclusion list and is outside the agreement.
“The real test is whether products that previously faced UK tariffs of 4-16% – such as textiles, garments, footwear, carpets, cars, seafood, grapes and mangoes – see higher export orders, larger export volumes and better profit margins. Those indicators will provide the clearest evidence of the agreement’s success. The FTA’s impact should become visible over the next one to three years,” Ajay Srivastava of GTRI told the BBC.
But several unresolved challenges, such as the UK maintaining tariffs on steel imports above a specific quota to protect domestic producers, could prove to be impediments to utilising the full scope of the deal, according to Srivastava.
The UK’s proposed carbon tax (called CBAM, external) could also reduce some of the FTA gains, he adds, because even if tariffs “fall to zero under the FTA, carbon-related border charges could increase the effective cost of Indian exports in sectors covered by the CBAM, creating new trade frictions”.
