Repatriation of Income and Assets Held in India

Repatriation means moving funds from your NRO account to your NRE account or overseas bank account. Your funds in India generally come from one of four sources: what you migrated with, what you inherited, remittances sent from abroad, or income earned on assets held here, and the source matters because the repatriation rules differ by category.

What you can repatriate, and the limits

Category	Limit
Current income (dividend, interest, rent, salary)	No limit
Sale of property acquired via forex remittance, FCNR, or NRE balance	Fully repatriable, capped at 2 residential properties, the 3rd onward falls under the USD 1 million scheme
Sale of property acquired otherwise (rupee funds, inheritance)	USD 1 million per financial year
Sale of other assets in NRO account (FDs, shares, mutual funds, inherited assets)	USD 1 million per financial year

A caveat on non-repatriable investments: if you bought shares or securities as an NRI specifically on a non-repatriable basis, some banks are now restricting repatriation of the sale proceeds, even though it was previously allowed under the USD 1 million scheme. Check with your bank before assuming you can move the proceeds.

Agricultural land is a special case: NRIs can’t purchase agricultural land, farmhouses, or plantation property in India, but can continue to hold such property if it was inherited or acquired while you were still resident. Repatriation of illegally acquired property is not permitted at all.

Documents your bank will need

• Form 15CA: your own undertaking, filed online on the e-filing portal and e-verified by you
• Form 15CB and UDIN: a CA’s certificate confirming due tax has been paid on the amount being repatriated, filed by the CA on their own e-filing portal
• Form A2 and Outward Remittance Form: needed for NRO to overseas bank account transfers
• FEMA Declaration and Transfer Request: needed for NRO to NRE transfers specifically

Going beyond the USD 1 million limit

You can apply directly to RBI for special permission, generally granted for genuine hardship like medical treatment or education abroad. This is a separate process from the standard USD 1 million route.

Rules worth knowing before you plan a large repatriation

• Every repatriation requires applicable Indian taxes to have been paid first
• Your NRO balance must come from your own legitimate dues, borrowed funds or transfers from another person’s NRO account cannot be repatriated, even between spouses
• An unused portion of the USD 1 million yearly limit does not carry forward to the next year
• No cap on the number of individual remittances, only the total for the year, and all NRO-to-NRE or NRO-to-overseas transfers in a given year must route through a single AD Bank
• Gifts from resident close relatives into your NRO account are capped at USD 250,000, which effectively caps how much of such a gift you can later repatriate too
• NRE account balances are freely repatriable with no limit at all, unlike NRO funds