India's Directorate General of Trade Remedies has recommended definitive anti-dumping duties of USD 460 to USD 681 per tonne on titanium dioxide from China PR, closing a remand proceeding that had left the market duty-free since September 2025. For buyers who have spent the last eleven months sourcing Chinese TiO2 without a levy, the reprieve is over.
The final findings, issued on 3 August 2026 under Case No. AD (OI)-03/2024, follow the Calcutta High Court judgment of 22 September 2025 in Indian Paint Association v. Union of India, which quashed both the original February 2025 findings and Customs Notification No. 12/2025-ADD on procedural grounds relating to confidentiality and disclosure. The Authority has now cured those defects and arrived at the same conclusion.
What the duty schedule means at the buying desk
Rates are producer-specific. LB Group entities, including Henan Billions Advanced Material, LB Sichuan, LB Lufeng and LB Xiangyang, draw the lowest levy at USD 460 per tonne. Shandong Jinhai and Shandong Xianghai face USD 563, and the Anhui Gold Star entities USD 609. Twelve non-sampled cooperating producers, among them Pangang Group units, Jiangxi Tikon, Shandong Doguide and Ningbo Xinfu, attract USD 510. Everyone else pays USD 681.
Against a POI landed value of roughly Rs 2.05 lakh per tonne, or about USD 2,466, those figures translate into an effective cost addition of approximately 19 percent for LB Group material and close to 28 percent at the residual rate. The spread between the best and worst rate is USD 221 per tonne, or nearly 9 percent of landed cost, which makes supplier selection a direct margin decision rather than a procedural one.
Two structural details deserve attention. First, the residual rate also applies to Chinese-origin goods routed through any third country, and to any goods exported from China regardless of stated origin, closing the transhipment option. Second, the individual rates are conditional on a signed manufacturer declaration on the commercial invoice naming the producer and address. Missing that document means the USD 681 rate applies by default. Procurement teams should build the declaration into purchase order terms now rather than discovering the gap at assessment.
Timing is the immediate variable
The Authority explicitly rejected the domestic industry's request to backdate the levy to the withdrawal date, holding that duties can take effect only when notified by the Ministry of Finance. That leaves a window between the recommendation and the customs notification. Buyers with near-term requirements have a defined, and probably short, opportunity to clear consignments at current landed cost.
Sulphate rutile stays inside the net
The most consequential product-scope outcome is the retention of rutile-sulphate TiO2 within the product under consideration. Users had argued that domestic capacity for this grade is negligible, roughly 3,500 to 4,000 tonnes against demand near 300,000 tonnes, and that coated sulphate rutile has no domestic equivalent. The Authority disagreed, holding that rutile-sulphate and rutile-chloride are like articles, that Travancore Titanium's production and sales are established, and that a domestic producer need not supply every market segment. Coating cost adjustments have been applied in the margin calculation. Practically, there is no grade-based escape route for masterbatch, ink or economy paint formulators.
Exclusions remain unchanged and cover food, pharma, skin-care, textile, fibre applications and nano grades below 100 nm. The request to clarify whether toilet soaps fall under the cosmetics exclusion was declined as outside remand scope, so that classification ambiguity persists at clearance.
With Chinese imports at 226,869 tonnes in the POI and 57 percent of Indian demand, and duties already active in Brazil, the EU, Saudi Arabia and the Eurasian Economic Union, alternative non-Chinese supply will price accordingly. Contract negotiation windows are narrowing.
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