Gifts

Any money, immovable property, or movable property received without consideration, or for inadequate consideration, gets taxed as Income from Other Sources in the recipient’s hands, once it crosses ₹50,000 for the year.

What triggers taxability

Gift type	Threshold	What gets taxed
Money without consideration	Aggregate over ₹50,000/year	The entire amount
Immovable property, no consideration	Stamp duty value over ₹50,000	The stamp duty value
Immovable property, inadequate consideration	Gap exceeds the higher of ₹50,000 or 10% of consideration	Stamp duty value minus consideration paid
Movable property, no consideration	Fair market value over ₹50,000	The fair market value
Movable property, inadequate consideration	FMV exceeds consideration by over ₹50,000	FMV minus consideration paid

Movable property here means: shares and securities, jewellery, bullion, archaeological collections, drawings, paintings, sculptures, and other works of art. Quoted shares use the stock exchange price for FMV; unquoted shares and other assets use prescribed valuation rules or open market price.

When gifts stay exempt regardless of value

Received from a relative, on the occasion of marriage, under a will or inheritance, in contemplation of the donor’s death, from a local authority, from certain trusts and educational or medical institutions, or under specific COVID related provisions the government introduced for medical treatment or death of a family member.

Relative, for this purpose, means: spouse, siblings of you or your spouse, siblings of either parent, lineal ascendants or descendants of you or your spouse, and the spouses of all the above.

A gift being exempt from this provision doesn’t mean the income it later generates is exempt too. A common pattern: gifting money to a spouse or minor child avoids the gift tax rules explained here, but any income the gifted amount then earns, interest, dividends, capital gains, usually gets added back to your own income under clubbing of income provisions rather than taxed in their hands. See our Clubbing of Income page for exactly when this applies.

A rule specific to NRIs and RNORs

A gift of money sent by a resident Indian into your overseas bank account, if it exceeds ₹50,000 and isn’t covered by the exceptions above, can be taxed in India. This applies to NRIs from 5 July 2019 onward, and was extended to cover RNORs from 1 April 2023.

Who pays the tax, and who withholds it

The recipient pays tax at their own slab rate on the taxable gift amount. Separately, whoever is giving the gift to a non-resident is required to deduct TDS at 30%, the highest applicable rate, on the amount gifted.

Three situations worth double-checking against these rules

• Receiving over ₹50,000 from friends or relatives into your NRO or NRE account that isn’t genuinely repayable and doesn’t fall under an exception
• Receiving similar amounts into your overseas account from a resident Indian
• Buying immovable property or unlisted shares at a price that doesn’t match prescribed valuation rules, since the gap itself can become a taxable gift