Sixteen areas of Indian law touch your business. We handle six of them.

In practice sixteen areas come up: FDI policy, FEMA, the Companies Act, income tax, GST, labour and payroll law, immigration, data protection, consumer protection, e-commerce rules, intellectual property, contract law, competition law, product and standards regulation, environmental law, and property law. Not all apply to every business. Which ones bite depends on your sector, whether you employ people, whether you sell to consumers, and whether physical goods cross the border.

Six: FDI policy and reporting, FEMA, the Companies Act compliance side, income tax, GST, and the compliance side of employing people — provident fund, insurance, professional tax and payroll tax. The other ten are real law practised by other professions, and we would rather send you to the right person than give you a confident answer we are not qualified to give.

Whether you can own the Indian company at all, and on what terms. Most sectors allow 100% foreign ownership under the automatic route with no prior approval, only reporting afterwards. Some are capped, a few are prohibited outright, and a separate rule applies to ownership traceable to a country sharing a land border with India — relaxed in 2026 so that a small, non-controlling indirect interest no longer forces the approval route. This is the first question to settle, because it determines the structure.

At least two directors with one resident in India, a statutory auditor appointed within 30 days of incorporation, a board meeting each quarter, an annual general meeting, statutory registers kept up to date, and annual filings — AOC-4 for accounts, MGT-7 for the annual return, and DIR-3 KYC for every director. An Indian company is audited every year whatever its size, including a dormant one. Penalties for late filing accrue daily and attach to the directors as well as the company.

Two routes. A company that has not traded can be struck off by the Registrar on an application in Form STK-2, provided it has no liabilities and its filings are up to date. Anything else goes through voluntary liquidation, which is a formal insolvency-code process with a liquidator. Either way the company must be current on its filings first, so a company abandoned for three years has to be brought up to date before it can be closed — which is usually more expensive than closing it properly at the time.

On crossing the turnover threshold for your state and supply type, but also immediately and regardless of turnover in several cases — inter-state supply of goods, supplies through an e-commerce operator, liability under reverse charge, and where a non-resident makes taxable supplies in India. Registration is state by state, so a business with premises in three states needs three. Exports are zero-rated, which allows a refund of input tax rather than an exemption.

Corporate income tax on its profits, at the rate applying to a domestic company — a branch of a foreign company is taxed at a materially higher rate, which is why most trading businesses choose a subsidiary. On top of that sit tax deducted at source on a wide range of payments the company makes, GST on its supplies, and withholding on dividends, interest, royalties and technical fees paid abroad, reduced where a treaty applies.

Yes, and the export side is generally simpler than the domestic side. You need an Import Export Code, exports are zero-rated for GST with a refund route for input tax, and there are duty and incentive schemes for exporters including duty-free import of inputs and remission of embedded duties. Whether a particular scheme fits depends on the product and the volumes; the customs classification and clearance itself is work for a customs broker rather than for us.

Not our field, and worth taking seriously rather than guessing. Broadly, a business visa covers visiting India for business, and an employment visa is what allows a foreign national to be employed and paid by an Indian company — the distinction matters and is enforced. You can be a director of an Indian company while living abroad without any Indian visa at all. For anything beyond that, use an immigration specialist.

Consumer protection law, e-commerce rules and advertising standards all apply, and the e-commerce rules in particular impose specific disclosure, grievance and returns obligations on anyone selling online into India. These are not compliance filings and we do not advise on them — they need a lawyer who practises consumer and technology law. We mention them because foreign sellers frequently do not know they exist.

The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, which governs consent, notice, security and cross-border transfer of personal data. If you run a SaaS product, an app or a consumer website touching Indian users, it applies to you whether or not you have an Indian entity. This is a specialist area with its own advisers, and we do not hold ourselves out as qualified in it.

No. Trademark rights are territorial, so a registration in your own country gives you nothing in India, and there is nothing to stop an unrelated Indian party registering or using the same name here in the meantime. India is not part of a system that extends your home registration automatically — you either file here, or you rely on proving prior use, which is slower, costlier and far less certain.

File an Indian trademark under the Trade Marks Act 1999 in the classes that match your goods or services. Registration lasts ten years and is renewable indefinitely. If you filed at home within the previous six months you can usually claim that earlier priority date under the Paris Convention, which is worth checking before the window closes. We file and follow through trademark applications. Patents, copyright enforcement and litigation when someone copies you are for an IP attorney.

Yes. A foreign owner can licence a trademark to an Indian company, and the licence can be recorded with the trademark registry so the Indian user is on the record. The part people underestimate is the money: royalty paid out of India is a remittance with tax withheld at source, reduced where a treaty applies, and it has to be at arm's length if the two companies are related — which brings it into transfer pricing. Get the licence and the royalty rate reviewed together, not separately.

Contracts are enforceable, and Indian arbitration has improved considerably, but enforcement through the courts can be slow and that reality should shape how you draft — governing law, seat of arbitration, and how payment is secured. This is contract and dispute practice, not compliance, and it should be drafted by an Indian commercial lawyer before you sign, not after a dispute starts.

All real and all potentially binding. An acquisition above the prescribed thresholds needs clearance from the competition regulator. A factory needs consent from the state pollution control board before it operates. Many products cannot be sold in India without BIS certification or sector-specific approval, and food, cosmetics, electronics and medical devices each have their own regulator. Each of these needs its own specialist — we flag them, we do not advise on them.

An Indian company with foreign shareholding can generally acquire commercial premises for its own business, subject to FEMA and to the state property rules. Agricultural land, plantations and farmhouses are off limits. The FEMA side of the transaction is ours; the title diligence, stamp duty and registration are conveyancing work for a property lawyer.

It is a fair worry and the honest answer is that it depends entirely on what you have signed and who holds what. A nominee director is a real director with real statutory powers, and a nominee shareholder holds real legal title — so the protection is documentary. Ask three questions of anyone you appoint: is the beneficial interest in any nominee-held share formally declared and recorded in the company's registers; who holds the digital signature tokens and the portal credentials; and is there an undated resignation and an indemnity in place. And keep the registered office and the bank mandate in your own control. A provider who describes a nominee directorship as a formality has told you something useful about the provider.

An Indian company with foreign shareholding can acquire immovable property for its own business, industrial land included, subject to the exchange-control rules and to state land law. Agricultural land, plantations and farmhouses are off limits. In practice most manufacturers do not buy at all: state industrial development corporations allot plots in industrial areas on long leases, which is the normal route and usually the faster one. A foreign national personally is in a different position — a person resident outside India generally cannot buy Indian property other than on a short lease, with non-resident Indians and overseas citizens of India being the exception for residential and commercial property. The exchange-control side of the transaction is ours; title diligence, stamp duty and registration are for a property lawyer.

Partly, and it is worth being precise about where the line falls. From public records we can confirm that a company is registered and active, pull its filing history and audited accounts, list its directors and check whether any of them is disqualified, see the charges registered against its assets, verify that a GST number is valid and in the name claimed, check an importer-exporter code, and look for insolvency proceedings. That is usually enough to tell a real trading business from a shell. What we do not do is search court records for litigation, run credit or fraud investigations, or give you a commercial view on whether to trust somebody — those are for a litigation lawyer and a diligence firm, and we would rather say so than produce a reassuring document outside our competence.

Because a foreign founder cannot easily tell an Indian firm that is genuinely competent in an area from one that will take the work anyway. We would rather be the firm that says where its expertise stops. It costs us a few enquiries and it means the ones we do take, we can actually deliver.