An NRI can send money abroad from India, but the rules depend on the account. NRE and FCNR balances are freely repatriable with no ceiling. Money in an NRO account — Indian rent, interest, property-sale proceeds, inheritance — can be repatriated up to USD 1 million per financial year. Every remittance from an NRO account needs a Form 15CA (your declaration) and, in most cases, a Form 15CB — a chartered accountant's certificate that the tax due has been paid (now the new Form 145 and Form 146). Pay the tax first, get the certificate, and the money moves cleanly.
Repatriation simply means moving your money from India to your country of residence — and for an NRI it is entirely allowed, provided you follow the route the law lays down. The confusion usually comes from mixing up the account types and skipping the paperwork. The two things that decide everything are: which account the money sits in, and whether the tax on it has been paid. Balances in your NRE and FCNR accounts are already foreign-origin money and are freely repatriable without any cap. Money in your NRO account is India-earned, and you can send up to USD 1 million per financial year abroad from it, but only after the applicable Indian tax is settled and a chartered accountant certifies it through Form 15CB, with your own declaration in Form 15CA. Get those two steps right — pay the tax, obtain the certificate — and your bank will remit the funds without fuss. Skip them, and the transfer stalls at the bank.
Every NRI holds one or more of three account types, and each has its own repatriation rule:
So the first question in any repatriation is simply: which account is the money in? If it is NRE or FCNR, you are almost done; if it is NRO, the USD 1 million limit and the certificate process apply.
From your NRO account, you may repatriate up to USD 1 million (or its equivalent) per financial year — the year running 1 April to 31 March. This limit is generous: it covers the vast majority of individual situations, including the proceeds of selling a property, drawing down accumulated rent and interest, or bringing an inheritance abroad. The USD 1 million ceiling is per financial year, per person, so a couple who each hold NRO accounts effectively have double the headroom by remitting from their own accounts. If you need to move more than USD 1 million in a year — for example on a very large property sale — the excess generally waits for the next financial year, or requires specific approval from the Reserve Bank of India. For most NRIs, though, USD 1 million a year is ample, and the practical constraint is not the limit but the paperwork.
The centre of NRO repatriation is a pair of forms that together tell the tax department and your bank that the money is clean and the tax is paid:
Under the Income-tax Act, 2025 these are carried forward as the new Form 145 (the old Form 15CA) and Form 146 (the old Form 15CB). In practice the flow is: your CA reviews the source of the money and the tax, issues the Form 146 (15CB) certificate, you then file the Form 145 (15CA) declaration quoting that certificate, and you hand both to your bank (the authorised dealer) which executes the remittance. For most NRO remittances above the small-value threshold, both forms are required; for certain small or specified remittances, a reduced version of Form 15CA alone may suffice. Your CA will tell you which part applies to your remittance.
The single most important principle in repatriation is that the tax comes before the transfer. The Form 15CB certificate exists precisely to confirm that the Indian tax on the money being sent has been paid — whether that is TDS the payer already deducted, or self-assessment tax you pay before remitting. So if you are repatriating the proceeds of a property sale, the capital-gains tax must be dealt with first; if you are sending accumulated rent, the tax on that rent must be paid. A chartered accountant cannot honestly certify Form 15CB for untaxed income, and the bank will not remit without it. This is why repatriation and tax filing are really one joined-up exercise: settle the Indian tax, get the certificate, then move the money. Trying to send funds first and sort out tax later simply doesn't work — the transfer is blocked at the certificate stage.
The largest repatriation most NRIs ever make is the proceeds of selling Indian property, and it deserves special care because the amounts are big and the tax is significant. When you sell, the buyer deducts TDS, ideally at the reduced rate authorised by a lower-TDS certificate; the sale proceeds land in your NRO account; you file your Indian return and settle the capital-gains tax; and then you repatriate up to USD 1 million per year with the 15CA/15CB certificate. If the property was bought with foreign funds or held in an NRE context, some or all of the proceeds may enjoy easier repatriation, but the common case is NRO-routed proceeds within the USD 1 million limit. Because the tax, the lower-TDS certificate, and the repatriation all interlock, the smart approach is to plan the whole chain before the sale — compute the gain, secure the lower-TDS certificate, and line up the 15CB — so the money isn't trapped after the sale. See our detailed guide on TDS when an NRI sells property.
The steady streams of Indian income — rent from a let-out flat, dividends from Indian shares, interest on NRO deposits and bonds, and pension — all collect in your NRO account, and all can be repatriated within the USD 1 million annual limit. Each of these has usually already suffered TDS at source, so the tax position is often straightforward, and the 15CB certificate simply confirms it. Many NRIs let these amounts accumulate and repatriate once or twice a year in a single batch, which is efficient and keeps the paperwork to a minimum. The key is to ensure the TDS was deducted at the correct rate — often the lower DTAA rate if you provided a Tax Residency Certificate and Form 10F — because getting the rate right at source means less tax locked up and a cleaner repatriation later.
Money you inherit in India, or receive as a gift, can also be repatriated, and this is a common need for NRIs who inherit property or bank balances from parents. Inherited funds are credited to your NRO account and are repatriable within the USD 1 million per financial year limit, subject to the same 15CA/15CB process and to your bank being satisfied about the source. You will typically need to show the will, succession certificate or legal-heir documents, the source of the funds, and evidence that any Indian tax obligations are met (inheritance itself is not taxed in India, but income arising from inherited assets is). Because inheritance repatriation involves both succession documentation and tax, it is an area where getting the paperwork order right — establish title, settle any tax, then certify and remit — saves months of back-and-forth with the bank.
Done in the right order, the whole process is smooth; the delays almost always come from trying to skip the tax or the certificate step.
Banks are careful with outward remittances, so having the paperwork ready avoids repeated trips. Typically you will need: your PAN; the Form 15CA acknowledgement and the Form 15CB certificate; proof of the source of funds (sale deed for property, dividend or rent statements, bank statements, will or succession certificate for inheritance); a remittance application (Form A2) and an FEMA declaration; and your overseas bank account details. For property proceeds, the bank may also want the earlier purchase deed and evidence of how the property was originally funded. Assembling this before you approach the bank turns a multi-visit ordeal into a single clean submission.
Suppose you sell a flat in Pune for ₹1.5 crore, having bought it years ago, and the net proceeds after the buyer's TDS sit in your NRO account. First, you finalise the capital-gains position and pay any balance tax (ideally the TDS was already limited by a lower-TDS certificate so your cash wasn't over-deducted). Your chartered accountant then issues a Form 15CB certifying the remittance and the tax paid, you file Form 15CA, and you approach your bank. Because ₹1.5 crore is roughly USD 180,000 — well within the USD 1 million annual limit — the whole amount can be repatriated this year in one go. The bank remits it to your overseas account. Had the sale been ₹9 crore (about USD 1.08 million), you would repatriate USD 1 million this financial year and the small balance in the next, or seek RBI approval for the excess. The mechanics are the same; only the pacing changes with the limit.
Repatriation usually means money leaving India, but many NRIs also want to understand moving money the other way, or drawing down before a return. If you are returning to India, the sensible sequence is to bring foreign funds into your NRE/FCNR accounts while still non-resident, use the RNOR window to realise foreign gains and draw pensions with little Indian tax, and redesignate your accounts to resident status once you return. Your NRE and FCNR balances remain freely repatriable even after return for a period, and can be moved to an RFC account. Planning the direction and timing of these flows around your change of residential status is where a coordinated review pays off — it ensures you neither trap money in India unnecessarily nor bring foreign income into the Indian net a year too early. See our guide on residential status and the RNOR window.
Not all Indian investments carry the same repatriation rights, and knowing the difference before you invest saves trouble later. When an NRI invests in India, the money can be held on a repatriable basis (typically funded from an NRE account or fresh foreign remittance, with the investment and its proceeds allowed to flow back abroad) or on a non-repatriable basis (typically funded from an NRO account, with the proceeds meant to stay in India, though still movable within the USD 1 million NRO limit). The distinction runs through mutual funds, shares, company deposits and property. For example, an NRI who buys mutual funds through their NRE account on a repatriable basis can send the redemption proceeds abroad freely; one who buys through the NRO account on a non-repatriable basis routes any repatriation through the USD 1 million window. The practical lesson is to decide the basis at the time of investing, and to keep the funding trail clean, because the repatriation right of the eventual proceeds is fixed by how the investment was originally funded. NRIs who plan to take money back out one day should prefer the repatriable route from the start, funding investments from NRE balances or fresh foreign inflows rather than from accumulated Indian income.
Repatriation is governed not only by tax law but by the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), administered through your bank acting as an authorised dealer (AD). The bank is the gatekeeper of every outward remittance, and it has its own checklist quite apart from the tax certificate. It will verify that you are genuinely a non-resident with a valid NRO/NRE account, that the purpose of the remittance is permitted, that the amount is within the USD 1 million annual limit for NRO funds, and that the source of funds is documented and legitimate. It will collect an A2 form and a FEMA declaration in which you certify the purpose and confirm you are within your limit. For property and inheritance, it scrutinises the title and succession trail closely. Because the bank carries regulatory responsibility for letting money leave the country, it errs on the side of caution — which is exactly why complete, well-ordered documentation matters so much. An NRI who understands that the bank is applying FEMA, not being difficult, and who arrives with the tax certificate, the source proof and the declarations ready, gets their remittance processed quickly; one who arrives with gaps gets sent away to fill them.
Beyond the legal mechanics, there are practical decisions about when and how much to repatriate. Because the USD 1 million ceiling resets every financial year on 1 April, a very large repatriation that would breach the limit can be split across two financial years by sending part before 31 March and part after 1 April, effectively giving you up to USD 2 million across a short window without RBI approval. The exchange rate matters too: since NRO/NRE rupee balances convert to foreign currency at the time of remittance, the timing of the transfer affects how much you receive abroad, and some NRIs hold FCNR deposits precisely to lock in a currency and avoid rupee depreciation on money they intend to take out. There is also an efficiency argument for batching: rather than remitting small amounts repeatedly, each needing its own paperwork and bank charges, many NRIs accumulate income in the NRO account and repatriate once or twice a year in larger tranches. The right rhythm depends on your needs, but the general principle is to plan repatriation deliberately — around the financial-year limit, the currency view, and the paperwork cost — rather than sending money ad hoc.
It is worth being clear about the limits so there are no surprises. Amounts above USD 1 million per financial year from NRO funds cannot simply be sent out; the excess waits for the next year or needs specific RBI approval, which is granted for genuine cases but takes time. Certain assets carry restrictions on the number of properties whose sale proceeds can be repatriated, and agricultural land, plantation property and farmhouses have their own FEMA constraints on acquisition and therefore on proceeds. Funds whose source cannot be documented will not be remitted, however genuine — the bank must see the trail. And money on which tax has not been paid is effectively non-repatriable until the tax is settled, because the certificate cannot be issued. None of these is a trap for the honest, well-advised NRI; they are simply the boundaries within which repatriation operates, and knowing them in advance lets you structure large or unusual remittances the right way rather than being blocked at the bank counter.
It helps to think of the NRO account as the central hub through which almost all of an NRI's Indian money flows before it can go abroad. Rent from your flat, dividends from your shares, interest on your deposits, your Indian pension, the proceeds when you sell property, and money you inherit — all of these are credited to the NRO account, because they are India-sourced. That is by design: the NRO account is where India's tax and exchange-control systems can see and account for your Indian income before any of it leaves the country. Understanding this reframes repatriation as a two-stage journey: first your various Indian incomes collect in the NRO account, and then, once taxed, they exit through the USD 1 million window with the 15CA/15CB certificate. Keeping your NRO account tidy — with clear records of what each credit represents — makes the eventual repatriation far simpler, because the bank and your CA can trace each rupee to its source. Many NRIs run into difficulty not because repatriation is hard, but because their NRO account is a jumble of unexplained credits that then have to be reconstructed under time pressure when they want to send money out. A little discipline in labelling and documenting NRO credits as they arrive pays off handsomely when it is time to repatriate.
Overseas Citizens of India and long-settled NRIs often ask whether their status changes their repatriation rights, and the reassuring answer is that the framework is the same: repatriation depends on the account and the tax, not on the flavour of your overseas status. An OCI holder repatriates exactly as any other non-resident does — freely from NRE/FCNR, and up to USD 1 million a year from NRO after the certificate process. Where longer-term planning matters is for those who have settled abroad permanently and are gradually winding down their Indian assets: selling the family property, closing deposits, consolidating inheritances. For them, repatriation is not a one-off but a multi-year programme, and the USD 1 million annual limit becomes the pacing constraint. The sensible approach is to map the assets and sequence the repatriation across financial years, using each year's USD 1 million allowance, timing property sales so the proceeds and their tax fall in a planned year, and using both spouses' NRO limits where the assets are jointly held. Treated as a planned programme rather than a scramble, even a large Indian estate can be brought abroad smoothly over a few years entirely within the rules.
Finally, the NRIs who repatriate most easily are the ones who kept good records all along. For every significant asset, hold on to the paper trail: the purchase deed and funding evidence for property (which the bank wants when you eventually sell and remit), the original remittance advices showing money you brought into India from abroad (which supports repatriable-basis claims), dividend and interest statements, TDS certificates, and succession documents for anything inherited. Keep copies of every past Form 15CA and 15CB too, because a history of clean, certified remittances makes each subsequent one easier. When the time comes to send money abroad — often years after the asset was acquired — reconstructing this trail from scratch is stressful and sometimes impossible, whereas a well-kept file turns the repatriation into a routine submission. Record-keeping is unglamorous, but for an NRI it is the difference between money that moves in days and money that is stuck for months while the bank waits for proof you can no longer easily produce.
The recurring, avoidable errors: trying to remit before paying the tax, which stalls at the 15CB stage because a CA cannot certify untaxed income; confusing the accounts and assuming NRO funds are freely repatriable like NRE; missing the USD 1 million limit and being surprised when a very large remittance can't all go in one year; not getting the DTAA rate at source, so more tax is deducted than necessary and the excess is locked up until a refund; incomplete source documentation, especially for inheritance, which the bank will insist on; and leaving repatriation until the last minute, when the certificate and bank process need lead time. Each of these turns a routine transfer into a drawn-out problem, and each is solved by doing the steps in the right order with the paperwork ready.
Repatriation sits at the intersection of income tax, FEMA and banking, and the three have to line up for the money to move. A chartered accountant not only issues the Form 15CB certificate the bank requires, but also makes sure the tax was computed correctly, the DTAA rate was applied so you didn't overpay, the capital-gains and lower-TDS steps were handled before a property sale, and the source documentation satisfies the bank. Because the amounts repatriated are often large — a property sale, a lifetime's savings, an inheritance — the cost of a mistake or a delay far exceeds the cost of getting it done properly. This is one area where doing it right the first time, with the tax and the certificate handled together, simply moves your money faster and cleaner. And because the same professional can handle the whole chain — computing the capital gain, securing the lower-TDS certificate before a sale, filing your Indian return, issuing the Form 15CB and preparing the Form 15CA — you deal with one point of contact rather than juggling a lawyer, an accountant and the bank separately. For an NRI managing this from thousands of miles away and several time zones apart, that single coordinated handling is often worth as much as the tax saving itself, because it turns a daunting cross-border process into a few clear steps someone else runs on your behalf.
From an NRO account, up to USD 1 million (or equivalent) per financial year, covering rent, interest, dividends, property-sale proceeds, inheritance and other Indian income. NRE and FCNR account balances are freely repatriable with no limit.
Form 15CA is your own declaration of a foreign remittance, filed on the income-tax portal. Form 15CB is a chartered accountant's certificate that the applicable Indian tax on the remittance has been paid (applying any DTAA rate). Under the 2025 Act these carry forward as Form 145 and Form 146. Both are usually required for NRO remittances above the small-value threshold.
Yes. The tax on the income being remitted must be settled first — through TDS or self-assessment tax — because the Form 15CB certificate confirms the tax is paid, and the bank will not remit without it. Pay the tax, get the certificate, then transfer.
Yes, up to USD 1 million per financial year from the NRO account, after settling the capital-gains tax and obtaining the 15CA/15CB certificate. Using a lower-TDS certificate before the sale keeps your cash from being over-deducted. Larger amounts are repatriated over more than one year or with RBI approval.
Yes. Inherited funds in an NRO account can be repatriated within the USD 1 million annual limit, with the 15CA/15CB process and source documents such as the will or succession certificate. Inheritance itself is not taxed in India, but income from inherited assets is, and that tax must be settled.
We settle the tax, issue your Form 15CB certificate, file Form 15CA and get your NRO funds repatriated cleanly — property proceeds, rent or inheritance.
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