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BIS Registration for Lithium Batteries in India — the Rated-Capacity Rule Nobody Budgeted For
Last updated: · Written by the Leolus Energy compliance and engineering team, Bangalore.
Read time: 9 min · Who this is for: OEMs, importers and brand owners who put a lithium battery inside a product sold in India
Why we are writing this one
We build battery packs for other people's products. That means we spend a fair amount of time on the phone with customers who have just found out, usually late, that a compliance requirement applies to them. The February 2026 order is going to generate a lot of those calls, because it is easy to miss: it does not create a new standard, it does not add a new product category, and it did not get much coverage. It just closes a gap in how an existing number gets checked.
The gap is this. Under the Compulsory Registration Scheme, a manufacturer submits a test report and gets a registration number. Rated capacity — the mAh or Wh figure on the label — was part of the declared data. In practice it was often taken at face value rather than independently measured against the procedure in the standard. Anyone who has ever bought a "10,000 mAh" power bank that delivered nowhere near that will recognise the problem.
What the standards actually cover
Two numbers come up constantly and get confused with each other, so it is worth separating them cleanly.
| Standard | What it governs | Typical products caught by it |
|---|---|---|
| IS 16046 | Safety requirements for portable sealed secondary lithium cells and batteries. Split into parts covering cells and battery packs. | Power banks, laptop and phone packs, handheld instruments, portable printers, POS terminals, survey equipment, drone packs sold as standalone products |
| IS 16047 | Performance requirements, including the test method used to establish rated capacity. Part 3 is the one that carries the capacity procedure. | The same portable products — this is the performance side of the same coin |
| IS 16893 | Traction battery packs and systems for electrically propelled road vehicles — thermal management, mechanical integrity, electrical safety. | EV packs. Not the right standard for a drone or an instrument pack, though it gets quoted at us often. |
Picking the wrong standard is the single most common mistake we see on incoming enquiries. A buyer sends a specification asking for "IS 16893 certified" packs for a surveying instrument. That standard is written for vehicle traction batteries. Certifying to it does not make the product compliant for its actual category, and it costs a great deal more.
What changed in February 2026
By an order dated 3 February 2026, MeitY closed the rated-capacity gap. Rated capacity now has to be measured and verified in line with Clause 7.3.1 of IS 16047 (Part 3):2018, at a laboratory recognised by BIS. The declared figure and the tested figure have to agree.
The transition works on two tracks:
- Registrations currently valid up to 30 April 2027 must comply by 30 April 2027.
- Registrations valid beyond that date comply by their own licence validity date.
Read that again if you hold a registration expiring in early 2027, because the practical deadline is tighter than it looks. Recognised laboratories are a finite resource, capacity testing is not a same-week turnaround, and every registration holder in the country received the same instruction on the same day. The queue at the back end of 2026 will not be pleasant.
Who carries the obligation
This is where a lot of Indian product companies get an unpleasant surprise. The obligation attaches to whoever brings the goods to the Indian market under their name. If you import finished packs from an overseas supplier and sell them with your brand on the label, you are the one who needs the registration. Your supplier's certificate from their home market does not transfer.
Three situations, three different answers:
| Your situation | Who registers |
|---|---|
| You import finished packs and sell them under your own brand | You do. As the brand owner placing the product on the market, the registration sits with you. |
| You import cells and assemble packs in India | The cell needs its own registration held by the cell manufacturer or their authorised Indian representative. Your finished pack needs registration in its own right where the product category is notified. |
| You buy finished packs from an Indian pack manufacturer | The pack manufacturer holds it, and should be able to show you the registration number against the exact model code you are buying — not a sibling model. |
Five questions worth asking your battery supplier
None of these are difficult questions. A supplier who cannot answer them quickly is telling you something.
- Which standard and which part does this model sit under, and why that one? The "why" matters. If they cannot explain why your product is a portable application rather than a traction application, they have not thought about it.
- What is the registration number, and does it name this exact model code? Registration is model-specific. A number issued against a 6S 22,000 mAh pack does not cover a 12S 35,000 mAh pack.
- Has rated capacity been verified at a BIS-recognised lab, or is it still a declared figure? As of the February 2026 order this is the live question. Ask for the date of the report.
- What is the cell source, and does the cell carry its own registration? Pack-level compliance rests on cell-level compliance. Substituting cells mid-production quietly invalidates the basis of the test.
- Who is liable if a consignment is stopped at customs? Get this in the purchase order rather than discovering it during a hold.
What this means if you buy packs rather than make them
Broadly, it pushes the calculus toward domestic pack manufacture, and not for patriotic reasons — for boring logistical ones. When the capacity report has to be produced on demand, having the manufacturer in the same country, on the same time zone, with the test report in the same filing cabinet, removes an entire class of delay. When a cell lot changes, someone has to decide whether re-testing is triggered. That conversation is faster over a phone call to Bangalore than over email to a factory that answers in eleven hours.
It also raises the floor. Compliance work costs money, and suppliers who were competing purely on price by declaring generous capacity figures have a harder route to market now. That is good for anyone building a serious product.
Where to check the primary sources
We would rather you verified this than took our word for it. Two places to look:
- BIS CRS portal — the notified product list and the registration database. Search a supplier's registration number directly.
- MeitY notifications — the orders that add products to the scheme or change testing requirements, including the 3 February 2026 order referenced here.
Compliance requirements change. This page reflects our reading of the position as of August 2026 and is written as engineering guidance, not legal advice. Confirm current requirements against the primary sources before you commit to a certification plan or a purchase contract.