Rules & Regulations
FEMA and RBI rules, residential status, passports, OCI and visas, citizenship and property.
At a glance
- NRI (Non-Resident Indian): an Indian citizen who lives outside India. Income tax and FEMA each decide residence in their own way, so you can be a non-resident for one and not the other.
- For income tax, residence turns mainly on the days you spend in India in the financial year (April to March): 182 days or more makes you resident. A shorter stay can count for citizens with high Indian income, and a citizen taxed nowhere else can be treated as resident. The Income Tax Department's NRI pages give the current tests.
- For FEMA (banking, property and investment), what matters is why you are abroad: leaving for work, business or an indefinite stay makes you a non-resident from the day you go.
- OCI cardholders are foreign citizens of Indian origin: a lifelong visa and most of an NRI's economic rights, but no vote and no government office.
- Property: NRIs and OCI cardholders may buy homes and commercial property in India, but not farm land, plantations or farmhouses.
- On becoming an NRI, tell your bank: resident savings accounts must become NRO accounts, and money from abroad goes into NRE or FCNR accounts.
Rules change. Read the official pages below before you act.
- RBI — FEMA Notifications
- Passport Seva at Missions Abroad
- MADAD Consular Grievances
- RBI Master Directions
- Passport Seva
- Ministry of External Affairs