ASCI influencer guidelines, explained: a 2026 checklist.

If you work with influencers in India, the Advertising Standards Council of India’s influencer guidelines are the rulebook. They’re short, specific, and enforced: between April and September 2025 alone, ASCI investigated 1,173 influencer ads, and 98% of them needed changes.

This is a plain-English guide to what the guidelines require in 2026, for brands and creators alike, with a checklist at the end. It’s practical guidance, not legal advice.

Who do ASCI’s influencer guidelines apply to?

Anyone with an audience and the power to influence what that audience buys or thinks, on any digital platform. That covers creators of every size, celebrities and virtual influencers, and the brands and agencies that work with them. The guidelines apply to posts published on or after 14 June 2021, and ASCI has updated them since, most recently for finance and health influencers in April 2025.

When does a post need a label?

Whenever there’s a material connection between the influencer and the brand: anything that might affect how people weigh what the influencer says. That includes:

• Payment of any kind, including affiliate commissions.
• Free products or gifts.
• Discounts, trips, hotel stays, and contest or sweepstakes entries.
• Awards, coverage or other benefits from the brand.
• Family, employment or close personal relationships with the brand.

If an influencer bought something with their own money and simply likes it, with no connection to the brand, that isn’t an ad and needs no label.

Which labels count?

ASCI lists seven: Advertisement, Ad, Sponsored, Collaboration, Partnership, Employee and Free gift. Pick the one that fits the relationship. Platform tools such as Instagram’s “Paid partnership” label are welcome, but ASCI treats them as an addition to the influencer’s own label, not a replacement for it.

Where does the label have to go?

Up front, where the average person can’t miss it. A label only in the bio, at the end of a long caption, behind a “more” link or buried in a pile of hashtags doesn’t count. It should be in English or in the language of the post. Format by format:

What extra rules apply to finance and health influencers?

ASCI added rules for these categories in 2023 and refined them in April 2025, so they now turn on one question: is the influencer giving technical advice?

• Investment advice requires registration with SEBI, with the registration number shown prominently alongside the influencer’s name and qualifications. Other financial advice calls for relevant credentials, such as an insurance licence from IRDAI or a chartered accountancy qualification.
• Technical health and nutrition advice, such as preventing, treating or curing a condition, requires relevant qualifications: a medical degree, or certification in nursing, nutrition, dietetics, physiotherapy or psychology, depending on the advice.
• Credentials go up front: on screen or at the start of a video, before the main content in a text post, and at the very beginning of audio.
• Generic promotion is fine without qualifications. ASCI’s own examples: an insurance company using an influencer to talk about annual health check-ups, or a health-food company working with a chef to promote a meal service.

Two government rules sit alongside these. The Department of Consumer Affairs’ August 2023 guidelines require anyone presenting themselves as a health expert or medical practitioner to add a clear disclaimer that their endorsement isn’t a substitute for professional medical advice. General wellness tips that aren’t tied to a product are exempt. And since August 2024, SEBI has barred the entities it regulates, such as brokers, mutual funds and advisers, from working with unregistered influencers who give financial advice or make performance claims. Finance brands should check registrations before they cast anyone.

What about virtual influencers, AI and filters?

• Virtual influencers must tell people they aren’t interacting with a real human, on top of the usual ad label.
• Realistic AI content now has to be labelled under India’s IT Rules, amended in February 2026. More in our guide to AI influencers.
• Filters that exaggerate what a beauty or cosmetic product does aren’t allowed in posts promoting it.

Who is responsible: the brand or the influencer?

Both. The brand is responsible for the ad meeting ASCI’s code: honest claims it can back up. The influencer is responsible for the disclosure, and is expected to check that the brand can substantiate any technical or performance claims before repeating them.

The law adds teeth. Under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, the Central Consumer Protection Authority can fine an endorser of a misleading ad up to ₹10 lakh, or ₹50 lakh for a repeat offence, and bar them from endorsing anything for up to a year, or three years for a repeat. An endorser who did due diligence on the claims has a defence. And it isn’t only small accounts: in the same six months, ASCI found that 76% of India’s top digital stars on the Forbes list had broken disclosure rules.

Source: ASCI half-yearly complaints report, November 2025; ASCI guidelines update, April 2025.

The ASCI checklist

1. Is there a material connection? Payment, free product, trip, discount or relationship. If yes, it needs a label.
2. Use an ASCI label: Ad, Advertisement, Sponsored, Collaboration, Partnership, Employee or Free gift.
3. Put it up front, in the visual and at the start of the caption, in the language of the post.
4. Keep it on screen long enough: 3 seconds, a third of the video, or the whole brand section, depending on length.
5. Say it out loud at the start and end of lives and audio, and around breaks.
6. Turn on the platform’s tool too, such as “Paid partnership”.
7. Finance or health? Check SEBI registration or qualifications for technical advice, and show them up front.
8. Virtual influencer or realistic AI? Say so, clearly.
9. No exaggerating filters on beauty products.
10. Check every claim before it’s made, and keep the brand’s proof on file.

Every campaign we run builds this in from the brief onward, so creators never have to guess. For the bigger picture, read our guide to influencer marketing in India, or talk to us.