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Repatriating money from India: NRO, NRE, the USD 1 million scheme and Form 15CA/15CB.

Getting money into India is easy. Getting it out is a system — three account types with different rules, a USD 1 million per year ceiling on one of them, a certification regime the banks apply more strictly than the statute, and a tax question hiding under every transfer. Here is the whole path, in order.

July 2026 12 min read By the partnership

Repatriation is a system, not a transfer

Most NRI repatriation problems are not tax problems and not FEMA problems — they are sequencing problems. The money is sitting in the wrong account type, or the tax trail on the underlying income is incomplete, or the certification the bank wants was never obtained, and a transfer that should take a week stalls for months. The framework itself is settled law: the Foreign Exchange Management (Remittance of Assets) Regulations, 2016 and the deposit regulations under FEMA define exactly what moves freely, what moves within a ceiling, and what needs the Reserve Bank of India's specific blessing. Once your affairs are arranged to match that framework, repatriation is routine. Arranged against it, every transfer is a negotiation with your bank's compliance desk.

The three-account architecture

Everything starts with where the money sits. An NRI's Indian banking runs on three account types, and repatriability is decided at the account level before any form is filled:

NRE (Non-Resident External) — rupee account funded from foreign earnings remitted into India. Principal and interest are freely repatriable with no ceiling, and interest is exempt from Indian tax while you are a non-resident under FEMA.
FCNR(B) (Foreign Currency Non-Resident) — term deposits held in foreign currency (USD, GBP, EUR and others). Freely repatriable like NRE, with no currency-conversion risk on the principal, and interest similarly tax-exempt for non-residents.
NRO (Non-Resident Ordinary) — the account for money that arises in India: rent, dividends, interest, pension, sale proceeds of property and shares, inheritances and gifts. Interest is fully taxable in India (TDS at 30% plus cess applies by default, subject to treaty relief), and repatriation is capped — this is where the USD 1 million scheme operates.

The practical consequence: the moment you become an NRI, your old resident savings accounts must be re-designated as NRO, and new foreign earnings should flow into NRE — not NRO. Money that lands in NRO unnecessarily has walked itself into the capped lane. This single piece of account hygiene, done early, is worth more than most later structuring.

What moves freely, what moves within the cap

Two categories of money leave India without touching the USD 1 million ceiling:

NRE and FCNR(B) balances — repatriable in full, at any time, with minimal documentation, because the money was foreign to begin with.
Current income — rent, dividends, interest and pension arising in India are remittable in addition to the capped amounts, provided Indian tax on them has been paid or provided for. Banks will ask for a chartered accountant's certification of the income and tax trail.

Everything else — the capital side of your Indian financial life — moves through the remittance-of-assets framework, which is where the famous ceiling lives.

The USD 1 million scheme

Under the FEMA (Remittance of Assets) Regulations, 2016, an NRI or OCI may remit up to USD 1 million per person, per financial year (April to March) out of NRO balances and the sale proceeds of Indian assets — property, shares held on a non-repatriable basis, mutual funds, and assets received by inheritance or gift. The essentials:

Per person, per financial year. Jointly held assets give each holder their own ceiling against their own share. A couple can move up to USD 2 million a year between them, and a large corpus can be sequenced across March and April to use two financial years' headroom within weeks.
No RBI approval within the limit. Your Authorised Dealer bank processes the remittance on documentation: Form 15CA, Form 15CB where required, the bank's own application (Form A2) and source-of-funds evidence. RBI specific approval is needed only above USD 1 million in a year — sought with justification, and granted case by case.
Tax-paid funds only. The regulations assume the underlying income has met its Indian tax. An inheritance needs the succession trail (will, probate or legal-heir certificate); property proceeds need the TDS and capital-gains trail; share sales need the broker and demat trail. The documentation burden is really a tax-history burden.

Form 15CA and 15CB: the certification layer

Nearly every NRO-side remittance passes through the Section 195 certification machinery — Form 15CA (the remitter's online declaration) and Form 15CB (the chartered accountant's certificate). How the parts map, broadly:

Situation	What is filed
Taxable remittance, ≤ ₹5 lakh aggregate in the FY	Form 15CA Part A only — no CA certificate
Taxable remittance, > ₹5 lakh, with an AO order or certificate (Section 195(2)/(3)/197)	Form 15CA Part B
Taxable remittance, > ₹5 lakh, no AO order	Form 15CB (CA certificate) + Form 15CA Part C
Remittance not chargeable to tax	Form 15CA Part D
Rule 37BB specified list (certain personal remittances)	Neither form, by statute — though banks often still ask

The 15CB is not a rubber stamp: the chartered accountant certifies the nature of the remittance, its taxability under the Income-tax Act and the applicable treaty, the rate applied, and the deduction actually made. Advisory Monks prepares the underlying tax position and remittance file, with the Form 15CB certificate issued by chartered accountants on our panel — the same advisory-plus-credentialed-certification model we use across the practice. Expect the bank to apply the framework conservatively: a remittance the statute treats as exempt will often still be asked for a Part D filing, and sometimes a 15CB. Fighting the bank's checklist is usually slower than satisfying it.

Property sale proceeds: TDS first, then the cap

The single largest repatriation event in most NRI lives is a property sale, and it runs through two gates in sequence. First, withholding: the buyer must deduct TDS under Section 195 on the full sale consideration, not the gain — for long-term holdings transferred on or after 23 July 2024, at 12.5% plus surcharge and cess, without indexation. On a ₹6 crore sale that is upwards of ₹87 lakh withheld regardless of what you actually gained, unless you obtain a Form 13 lower-deduction certificate under Section 197 in advance, aligning the withholding to tax on the true gain. We cover this mechanism in detail in Form 13 LDC for NRIs: when it works, when it doesn't, with a worked example in our property-sale guide.

Second, remittance: the net proceeds land in your NRO account and leave India under the USD 1 million scheme with the 15CA/15CB file. Two refinements matter:

Property bought from NRE/FCNR funds as a non-resident: the principal originally remitted into India for the purchase is repatriable outside the USD 1 million cap, for up to two residential properties. The gain above that principal goes through the NRO route.
Property bought while you were a resident (or inherited): the entire net proceeds move through the NRO route within the annual ceiling — which is exactly where per-holder ceilings and financial-year sequencing earn their keep on larger estates.

NRO to NRE: the internal transfer

Since 2012, funds can move from NRO to NRE within the same USD 1 million per financial year ceiling, with the same tax-paid-source and 15CA/15CB requirements — the transfer counts against the cap exactly as an outward remittance would. It is often worth doing even without an immediate need to remit: once inside NRE, the money is freely repatriable at any future date, earns tax-free interest while you remain a FEMA non-resident, and never has to touch the certification machinery again.

Returning to India: the system in reverse

Repatriation planning does not end when you move back. On return, your FEMA status changes almost immediately (tax residency under the Income-tax Act follows its own day-count rules — see our residential-status checker for the NR/RNOR/ROR bands, including the 120-day and deemed-residency rules). The account architecture then reverses: NRE and NRO accounts are re-designated as resident accounts, and foreign-currency balances can move into RFC (Resident Foreign Currency) accounts, which returning NRIs may hold without limit. During the RNOR window — typically two to three financial years for someone returning after a long stint abroad — foreign-source income generally remains outside Indian tax, which makes it the natural window to realise foreign gains, restructure overseas holdings, and decide what actually comes to India. Sequencing asset sales against the RNOR clock is the single highest-leverage piece of return planning.

Where repatriations actually fail

The account was never re-designated. Sale proceeds sitting in an old resident savings account are a FEMA irregularity before they are a remittance problem. Fix the designation first.
PAN is inoperative. NRIs are exempt from Aadhaar-PAN linking, but only if the department's records reflect non-resident status — an inoperative PAN triggers higher TDS and blocks refunds until corrected.
The tax trail doesn't reconcile. TDS in Form 26AS/AIS not matching the 15CB's numbers is the most common reason a bank bounces a file.
Old cost records are missing. For long-held property, the purchase deed, improvement invoices and inheritance documents drive the gain computation — reconstructing them mid-transaction costs months.
The ceiling maths ignored joint holding. Treating a jointly held asset as one USD 1 million ceiling instead of one per holder leaves headroom unused and pushes remittances into the next year unnecessarily.

Common questions

How much money can an NRI repatriate from India in one year?

NRE and FCNR(B) balances are freely repatriable with no annual ceiling — both principal and interest. NRO balances are repatriable up to USD 1 million per person per financial year (April to March) under FEMA's remittance-of-assets framework, covering account balances, sale proceeds of assets, and inheritances. Current income such as rent, dividends, interest and pension is repatriable in addition to the USD 1 million cap, provided tax on it has been paid. Amounts above USD 1 million from NRO sources need specific Reserve Bank of India approval.

Do I need RBI permission to repatriate money from India?

Not in the ordinary course. Within the scheme limits — freely for NRE/FCNR balances and up to USD 1 million per financial year from NRO sources — your Authorised Dealer bank processes the remittance on documentation alone: typically Form 15CA, a Form 15CB chartered accountant certificate where required, the bank's Form A2, and proof of source and tax compliance. RBI approval is needed only above the USD 1 million ceiling or in exceptional fact patterns.

What are Form 15CA and Form 15CB?

Form 15CA is the remitter's online declaration that tax has been considered on a payment to a non-resident; Form 15CB is the chartered accountant's certificate supporting it, covering the nature of the remittance, its taxability under the Income-tax Act and the applicable DTAA, and the tax actually deducted. Broadly: small taxable remittances (up to ₹5 lakh aggregate in a financial year) need only Part A of 15CA; larger taxable remittances need a 15CB and Part C; remittances not chargeable to tax use Part D; and Rule 37BB exempts a specified list of personal remittances from both forms. Banks apply these rules conservatively, so the practical requirement is often stricter than the statutory one.

How do I move money from my NRO account to my NRE account?

NRO-to-NRE transfers are permitted within the same USD 1 million per financial year ceiling that governs outward NRO remittances, and they count against it. The funds must be from an eligible source with Indian tax paid or provided for, and the bank will ask for Form 15CA, a Form 15CB certificate, and source documentation. Once in the NRE account, the money is freely repatriable and earns tax-free interest while you remain a non-resident under FEMA.

How do I repatriate the sale proceeds of property in India?

The buyer first withholds TDS under Section 195 — for long-term gains on transfers on or after 23 July 2024, at 12.5% plus surcharge and cess, applied to the full sale consideration unless you obtain a Form 13 lower-deduction certificate aligning the withholding to tax on the actual gain. The net proceeds land in your NRO account and are then repatriable within the USD 1 million per financial year scheme with Form 15CA/15CB. If the property was bought while you were a resident, the NRO route is the path; if it was bought from NRE or FCNR funds as a non-resident, the principal originally remitted is repatriable outside the cap for up to two residential properties, with the balance going through the NRO route.

Is repatriation itself taxed?

No. Moving money out of India is not a taxable event — Indian tax attaches to the underlying income (the capital gain, rent, interest or dividend), not to the transfer. The compliance burden at remittance time is about evidencing that this underlying tax has been paid. Separately, your country of residence may tax the underlying income on a worldwide basis — US persons, for example, must also handle FBAR and FATCA reporting on Indian accounts — with DTAA relief and foreign tax credits managing the overlap.

The bottom line

India's repatriation framework is permissive by design — almost everything an NRI legitimately owns can leave the country, most of it without asking anyone's permission. What the framework rewards is order: the right account designations from day one, a clean tax trail behind every rupee, certifications prepared before the bank asks, and the USD 1 million ceiling planned across holders and financial years rather than discovered at the counter. The NRIs who find repatriation painful are almost never blocked by the rules; they are blocked by the sequence.

This note is general guidance and is not legal or tax advice; remittance eligibility and taxability turn on the facts of each case, the notified Rules and your bank's documentation requirements. Form 15CB certificates are issued by chartered accountants on our panel as part of the engagement. References to income-tax provisions follow the Income-tax Act, 2025 (effective 1 April 2026), citing erstwhile 1961-Act sections where familiar. Get in touch to plan a repatriation.

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