Repatriating Money From India as an NRI

An NRI or a person of Indian origin may remit up to USD one million per financial year out of balances in a non-resident ordinary (NRO) account, out of sale proceeds of assets, and out of assets acquired in India by way of inheritance or legacy. That figure comes from paragraph 3.2 of the Reserve Bank of India's Master Direction No. 13/2015-16 on Remittance of Assets. Money in an NRE or FCNR(B) account is a different matter and is freely repatriable. Before any of it moves, a second gate has to be cleared: the tax reporting under the Income-tax Act, 2025, which in most cases means Form 15CA and, above the prescribed threshold, a certificate in Form 15CB from a chartered accountant.

Part of the NRI succession and inheritance practice at S Jain & Attorneys, Bangalore.

Two gates, then, and they are independent. Clearing exchange control does not clear tax, and clearing tax does not clear exchange control. Almost every remittance that stalls at a Bengaluru branch stalls because the client prepared for one gate and not the other.

Start with the account, because the account decides the route

Clients often describe their problem as "getting my money out of India". The bank does not see it that way. The bank sees a specific account, funded in a specific way, and applies the rule attached to that account. Three accounts matter.

Rent from a flat in Bengaluru, the sale price of an ancestral site, a share of a deceased parent's fixed deposit, a maturity payout on an old LIC policy: all of that is Indian source money and all of it lands in the NRO account. That is the account the USD one million scheme was written for.

The USD one million scheme, stated accurately

Paragraph 3.2 of Master Direction No. 13/2015-16 permits an NRI or PIO to remit up to USD one million per financial year out of balances in NRO accounts, out of sale proceeds of assets, and out of assets acquired in India by way of inheritance or legacy. The financial year runs from 1 April to 31 March, which is not the calendar year most overseas clients are working to. A remittance sent on 2 April draws on a fresh limit; the same remittance sent on 28 March does not.

Three features of the scheme are worth fixing in your mind before you plan around it.

First, it is a per person limit, not a per account or per transaction limit. Two remittances of USD 600,000 each in the same financial year by the same person do not fit, even from two different banks, and the undertaking the bank takes from you is designed to catch exactly that.

Second, the Master Direction requires the authorised dealer to obtain an undertaking from the account holder that the funds represent legitimate receivables and are not the proceeds of borrowing or of transfers from another person's NRO account. Signing that undertaking loosely is not a formality. A contravention of the exchange control law carries a penalty under Section 13 of the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 of up to three times the sum involved where the amount is quantifiable, and the amount is always quantifiable in a remittance case.

Third, a remittance beyond the annual limit is not impossible. It requires the prior approval of the Reserve Bank, which is an application, not a form, and it takes time. Plan the sale around the limit rather than planning an application around the sale.

Sale proceeds of immovable property: a second, narrower route

There is a route for sale proceeds of property that sits outside the NRO scheme, and it is worth checking whether you qualify for it before you default to the annual limit. Paragraph 8.2 of the Reserve Bank's Master Direction No. 12/2015-16 on Acquisition or Transfer of Immovable Property permits repatriation of the sale proceeds of immovable property where the property was acquired in accordance with the foreign exchange law in force at the time of acquisition, and where the amount paid for the acquisition came in as foreign exchange through banking channels or out of funds held in an FCNR(B) or NRE account. For residential property, the facility is restricted to not more than two such properties.

So the question is not what the flat is worth today. The question is how it was paid for. A flat in Whitefield bought in 2014 with money wired from Dubai into an NRE account and paid to the builder from that account sits inside this route, up to the amount that came in as foreign exchange. A flat bought with rental income accumulated in an NRO account does not, and its proceeds go through the annual limit like everything else.

The Master Direction also flags a category that catches people out. Where a person acquired immovable property in accordance with Section 6(5) of the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999, which covers property held by a person resident outside India that was acquired while he was resident in India or inherited from a person resident in India, the sale proceeds cannot be repatriated without the prior permission of the Reserve Bank, although the general remittance of assets facility remains available. If you inherited the property, read that sentence twice.

Inherited property and the paperwork that comes before the money

Remitting the proceeds of inherited assets is where most files stall, and rarely for exchange control reasons. The bank will not process a remittance until it is satisfied that the person remitting is entitled to the money. That means title, and title after a death in India is a documentary exercise before it is a banking one.

Depending on the asset and the family, that means a will and probate, a succession certificate for debts and securities, or a legal heir certificate for the simpler cases. The differences matter and are set out in our note on a succession certificate compared with a legal heir certificate, with the procedure itself in obtaining a succession certificate in India. Where the asset is a house or a site held by several heirs, the further problem is that no single heir can convey the whole, which we deal with in whether one legal heir can sell property without the others.

The cheapest fix for all of this is preventive. An NRI who owns Indian assets should have a will that deals with those assets and is capable of being acted upon in India, which is the subject of an NRI will for Indian assets and, more generally, how to make a will in India. Where the plan is to transfer during the owner's lifetime, the choice of instrument changes the tax and stamp duty position entirely, and that comparison is in a gift deed compared with a will and a settlement deed.

The tax gate: Form 15CA and Form 15CB

The Income-tax Act, 1961 was repealed by Section 536 of the Income-tax Act, 2025, which came into force on 1 April 2026. The reporting obligation survived the change of statute. Section 397(3)(d) of the Income-tax Act, 2025 requires every person responsible for paying to a non-resident, not being a company, or to a foreign company, any sum, whether or not chargeable to tax under the Act, to furnish information relating to that payment in the prescribed form and manner. That is the provision behind Form 15CA. Failure to furnish the information, or furnishing inaccurate information, attracts a penalty of Rs 1,00,000 under Section 462.

The structure of Form 15CA, as published by the Income Tax Department, turns on a threshold of Rs 5 lakh of remittance or aggregate remittance in the financial year.

Part D looks attractive and is the part most often filed wrongly. A remittance of your own after tax money out of an NRO account is not automatically outside the charge, and a bank that has seen the argument before will ask what the money represents. Where the remittance carries any capital gains element, expect to be pushed into Part C and to need Form 15CB.

What the authorised dealer bank will actually ask for

Banks differ at the margins, but the core file is predictable. Assembling it before you approach the branch saves weeks, particularly if you are doing this from overseas through an attorney holder.

1. Proof of your status. Passport, visa or residence permit, and where relevant an OCI card. The bank is confirming that you are a person resident outside India for exchange control purposes.
2. The account history. NRO account statements showing the credits you now want to remit, and an explanation of each material credit. Unexplained credits are the single commonest reason a file goes back.
3. Source of funds documents. The registered sale deed and the buyer's payment trail for a sale; the will, probate, succession certificate or legal heir certificate for an inheritance; the rent agreement and TDS certificates for rental income.
4. The tax file. Form 15CA of the correct part, Form 15CB where required, PAN, and any certificate obtained from the Assessing Officer.
5. The undertaking. The declaration the Master Direction requires, confirming the funds are legitimate receivables and not borrowed or transferred in from another person's NRO account.
6. Form A2 and the bank's own remittance application. Signed by you or by your attorney holder under a power of attorney the bank has accepted in advance.

Where remittances get stuck in practice

The first sticking point is the power of attorney. An NRI selling from abroad usually acts through a relative in Bengaluru. A power of attorney that is good enough for the sub registrar is not automatically good enough for the bank, because banks apply their own acceptance rules and often want the instrument to name the banking acts specifically. Get the bank's confirmation on the draft before it is executed and adjudicated abroad, not after.

The second is a mismatch between the title documents and the revenue records. If the khata still stands in a deceased parent's name, or the property is on a B khata, the buyer's own lender will stall long before the remittance stage. Those two problems are addressed in e khata transfer in Bengaluru and B khata to A khata conversion in Karnataka, and the wider pre sale check list is in the property verification checklist.

The third is the deduction of tax at source on the sale itself. Where the seller is a non-resident, the buyer's obligation is not the one per cent that applies to a resident seller, and getting that wrong creates a liability for the buyer that is often discovered only when the sale is already done. That subject has its own note, TDS when an NRI sells property in India, and it should be read before the agreement to sell is signed, not after. The difference between that agreement and the deed is explained in a sale agreement compared with a sale deed.

The fourth is timing across the year end. Remittances initiated in the second half of March frequently land in the next financial year at the correspondent bank, and the drawdown against the limit is disputed afterwards. If a large remittance has to straddle the year end, split it deliberately and document the split.

What goes wrong when the rule is ignored

The Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 is civil in character, which lulls people into treating it casually. Section 13(1) provides for a penalty on adjudication of up to three times the sum involved in the contravention where that amount is quantifiable, up to Rs 2,00,000 where it is not, and a further penalty of up to Rs 5,000 for every day a continuing contravention continues. Section 13(2) allows the adjudicating authority to direct that the property in respect of which the contravention took place be confiscated, and to direct that foreign exchange holdings be brought back into India.

The exposure is rarely the result of anyone setting out to break the rule. It comes from routing sale proceeds through a relative's resident account to avoid paperwork, from remitting twice in the same financial year through two banks, or from repatriating the proceeds of property acquired under Section 6(5) without the approval the Master Direction requires. All three are avoidable at the planning stage and expensive afterwards.

A sequence that works

1. Fix your residential status for the tax year before anything else, because the whole analysis turns on it and it is decided by day counts, not by where you feel you live.
2. Establish clean title and complete any probate, succession certificate or khata correction while the sale is being negotiated, not after.
3. Agree the deduction of tax at source with the buyer in writing in the agreement to sell, including who applies for what certificate and by when.
4. Open or identify the NRO account that will receive the consideration and tell the bank in advance what is coming.
5. Have the capital gains computed by a chartered accountant and obtain Form 15CB before the remittance application, not alongside it.
6. File the correct part of Form 15CA and submit the remittance file with the undertaking and Form A2.
7. Keep the whole file for at least eight years. Questions about a 2026 remittance tend to arrive in 2031, and by then the bank branch staff have changed twice.

Frequently Asked Questions

This article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Consult a qualified advocate for advice on your specific situation.

Related Guides

If a sale, a succession or a remittance is already in motion, our NRI succession and inheritance practice, our NRI legal services and our property and real estate practice act for clients across Bengaluru and overseas. These guides go further on the points above.

• TDS When an NRI Sells Property in India
• An NRI Will for Indian Assets
• Succession Certificate Compared With a Legal Heir Certificate
• Can One Legal Heir Sell Property Without the Others?
• Property Verification Checklist Before You Buy
• E Khata Transfer in Bengaluru
• Gift Deed, Will and Settlement Deed Compared
• Wills, Probate and Succession in Bengaluru