P1108 Purpose Code: Health services

P1108 is the RBI purpose code for: Health Service (Receipts on account of services provided by Indian hospitals, doctors, nurses, paramedical and similar services etc. rendered remotely or on-site). It sits in group 11, Personal, Cultural and Recreational Services, of the receipt purposes RBI uses to classify foreign exchange coming into India.

P1108 at a glance

Can a P1108 remittance become an eBRC?

DGFT's guidelines do not name P1108. They say that for a service export the exporter can attach only invoices whose SAC code matches the description of the service, and that no two purpose codes may be clubbed in one eBRC except with P0103. So where P1108 is the right description of a service you exported, the eBRC is generated with P1108 on its own, or clubbed with P0103, against an invoice whose SAC code matches that service.

The rule is DGFT’s, from its General Guidelines for Generating eBRC (last updated 26 March 2024). The full list, and what each rule means when you map remittances, is in how to generate an eBRC on the DGFT portal.

What this code says about the money

A purpose code is your bank speaking, not you. When a foreign payment reaches your account, the AD bank reports it with a purpose code that states the RBI classification of the transaction, and that report is the Inward Remittance Message, the IRM. A remittance carrying P1108 has been classified as: Health Service (Receipts on account of services provided by Indian hospitals, doctors, nurses, paramedical and similar services etc. rendered remotely or on-site).

In FETERS reporting

FETERS is the Foreign Exchange Transactions Electronic Reporting System, the system under which Authorised Dealer banks report their foreign exchange transactions to the RBI, and its receipt purpose list is where P1108 is defined. That list, Annex I to A.P. (DIR Series) Circular No. 84 dated 29 February 2012, places P1108 in group 11, Personal, Cultural & Recreational services, and describes it as: Health Service (Receipts on account of services provided by Indian hospitals, doctors, nurses, paramedical and similar services etc. rendered remotely or on-site). That is the wording a bank’s reporting desk works from, so it is the wording to match when you ask the bank what a remittance was reported as.

Service exporters, freelancers included, will find the whole route from remittance to certificate in eBRC for freelancers and service exporters.

P1108 or a neighbouring code

The codes below are the ones most easily confused with P1108. The difference is in RBI’s wording, so the table quotes it, with what DGFT allows for each.

If the code on your remittance looks wrong

The code is attached at reporting time by the bank, so the fix runs through the bank, not through DGFT. Ask the AD branch that received the payment to confirm the classification; an amended report shows up as a revised IRM. What each IRM status means, and what you can do with a remittance in each state, is in the IRM explainer, and the errors DGFT returns when a code does not fit the filing are in IRM mapping errors on DGFT. Exporters who agree the purpose code with their buyer's bank once, at onboarding, rarely meet this page twice.

Other codes in group 11

• P1101Audio-visual and film production servicesService export, not named
• P1103Radio and television servicesService export, not named
• P1104Entertainment servicesService export, not named
• P1105Museum, library and archival servicesService export, not named
• P1106Recreation and sporting servicesService export, not named
• P1107Educational servicesService export, not named
• P1109Other personal, cultural and recreational servicesService export, not named

All 8 Personal, Cultural and Recreational Services purpose codes