What Can Actually Leave India

Under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme, a resident individual may freely remit up to two hundred and fifty thousand US dollars per financial year, April to March, for permissible current or capital account transactions combined. It is one shared ceiling, not a separate allowance per purpose: education, travel, gifts, maintenance of relatives abroad and overseas investment all draw on the same annual figure.

The Liberalised Remittance Scheme is available to all resident individuals, minors included, with a guardian countersigning a minor's declaration. It is NOT available to persons resident outside India, and it is not available to corporates, partnership firms, Hindu Undivided Families or trusts. An NRI looking for their remittance route is looking at the NRO rules below, not at this one — the two are frequently confused because both are described loosely as 'sending money out of India'.

Providing a Permanent Account Number is mandatory for all transactions under the Scheme. For capital account remittances the individual must designate a single branch of an authorised dealer through which those remittances are made. Some purposes are barred outright — among them lottery tickets and proscribed publications, trading in foreign exchange abroad, and remittances to countries identified by the Financial Action Task Force as non-cooperative.

A non-resident Indian or person of Indian origin may remit up to one million US dollars per financial year, April to March, out of NRO account balances for all bonafide purposes. The ceiling covers current income such as rent, dividend, pension and interest, the sale proceeds of assets inherited or received as legacy, and the proceeds of immovable property that was bought while resident or out of rupee funds. Banks differ in how they treat current income against this ceiling, so confirm with your authorised dealer branch how your particular remittance will be counted before you plan around the headroom.

Remitting from an NRO account requires an undertaking from the remitter together with a certificate from a chartered accountant, in the formats prescribed by the Central Board of Direct Taxes. This is the paperwork most people discover late: the money is theirs and the limit is generous, but the transfer does not move on a banking instruction alone, and arranging the certificate takes time that a transfer timed to a deadline may not have.

The Liberalised Remittance Scheme keys off being a person RESIDENT IN INDIA under the foreign exchange law, and NRO repatriation off being a person resident OUTSIDE India. That status is a foreign-exchange concept driven by where you live and why. It is not your citizenship — an Indian citizen abroad is generally not a FEMA resident — and it is not the same test as income-tax residency, which counts days under the Income-tax Act and can give a different answer for the same year. Three separate concepts, routinely treated as one, with opposite consequences for which limit applies to you.