Everything follows from this, and most people get one threshold wrong.

The primary test. You are resident in India for a year if you were physically in India for 182 days or more during that financial year, which runs April to March. It is a pure day count — it does not matter why you were here, who paid you, or whether you own a home anywhere. If you meet it, you are resident, and none of the other limbs need to be considered.

No, and this is the most common mistake. There is a second limb: you are also resident if you were in India for 60 days or more in the year AND for 365 days or more across the four preceding years. Someone who visits India regularly can fail the 182-day test comfortably and still be resident under the second limb. The 60-day figure is extended in certain cases, which is where it gets involved — but you cannot stop at 181 and assume you are safe.

In two situations. First, for an Indian citizen who leaves India during the year for the purpose of employment outside India, or as a member of the crew of an Indian ship. Second, for an Indian citizen or a person of Indian origin who is outside India and comes to India on a visit. In both, the 60 becomes 182, which effectively removes the second limb for them. The important exception is the next question.

For an Indian citizen or person of Indian origin visiting India, the extended 182-day figure drops to 120 days where their total income other than income from foreign sources exceeds ₹15 lakh in the year. So a visiting NRI with substantial Indian income becomes resident at 120 days plus the 365-day condition, rather than 182. Someone below the ₹15 lakh threshold keeps the 182-day figure. This is the rule that changed the planning for a lot of NRIs with Indian rental or business income.

No — and this is stated wrongly more often than it is stated correctly. The threshold is total income other than income from foreign sources. Your salary abroad, your foreign rental income, your overseas investment income are all excluded from the count. What counts is essentially your Indian income. Someone earning a large foreign salary and modest Indian rent is usually well under the threshold, even though a straight reading of "total income above ₹15 lakh" would suggest otherwise.

An Indian citizen whose total income other than from foreign sources exceeds ₹15 lakh, and who is not liable to tax in any other country or territory by reason of domicile, residence or a similar criterion, is deemed to be resident in India regardless of days spent here. It was aimed at people arranging their affairs so as to be tax resident nowhere. Two points: it applies only to Indian citizens, not to persons of Indian origin who have taken another citizenship; and a person who is deemed resident is classified as not ordinarily resident, so it does not bring worldwide income into charge.

Resident and ordinarily resident, resident but not ordinarily resident, and non-resident. An ROR is taxed on worldwide income and must disclose foreign assets and foreign income in the return. An RNOR is taxed on Indian income and on income from a business controlled in or a profession set up in India, but not on other foreign income — and does not have the foreign asset disclosure obligation. A non-resident is taxed only on income that accrues, arises or is received in India. The practical difference between ROR and RNOR is very large, which is why the RNOR window matters so much to people returning.

They decide whether a resident is ordinarily resident or not ordinarily resident. You are not ordinarily resident if you were a non-resident in India in nine out of the ten preceding years, or if you were in India for 729 days or fewer during the seven preceding years. Satisfying either one is enough. Separately, the 120-day category and the deemed-resident category are treated as not ordinarily resident by specific provision. For a returning NRI these tests are what create the two or three year window before worldwide income comes into charge.

Your status, no — your days count the same whoever pays you and wherever the work is for. What it affects is what happens once the days make you resident, because a resident is taxed on worldwide income including that foreign salary, whether or not it ever reaches India. People who spent an extended period in India working remotely and assumed their status was unaffected because their employer was abroad have had an unpleasant discovery. Track the days in real time.

Yes. Status is personal and is determined individually for each taxpayer on their own days of presence. A family that moved at different times, or where one spouse travels more, can easily have different statuses in the same year — and there is no concept of a household status or a joint return in India. Each person's day count has to be worked out on their own passport.

Passport stamps are the usual evidence, supported by boarding passes, tickets and travel bookings. Where stamps are missing, illegible, or where you travelled on a route without exit stamps, the immigration record can be obtained from the authorities and is stronger evidence than a reconstruction. Build the record as you go: a simple spreadsheet of arrival and departure dates kept through the year is far more convincing than one assembled two years later in response to a notice.

Yes, and it does, particularly where the status claimed is non-resident and the day count is close to a threshold or the evidence is thin. The department has access to immigration data and to bank and investment reporting, so an inconsistent picture is visible to it. The defence is documentary and contemporaneous: travel records, a clear day count, and a status determination that was made on the facts rather than arrived at because it produced a better answer.

Not by day count at all. A company is resident in India if it is incorporated in India, or if its place of effective management is in India in that year — meaning the place where key management and commercial decisions necessary for the conduct of the business as a whole are in substance made. So a foreign company owned and run by NRIs who make its real decisions from India can be treated as Indian resident and taxed on its worldwide income. It is a substance test, and board minutes recording meetings elsewhere do not settle it.