India and the United Kingdom opened talks on a free trade agreement in January 2022. On April 22, 2022, during a visit to India, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he wanted the deal done by Diwali that year. On October 14, 2022, Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch said: “We are no longer working to the Diwali deadline.”
The negotiations concluded on May 6, 2025. Piyush Goyal and the British business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, signed the agreement at Chequers on July 24, 2025. Dawn described “three years of stop-start negotiations.”