“NRI” stands for Non-Resident Indian. It isn’t a separate visa or citizenship status — it’s what you’re called, for tax purposes, when you don’t meet India’s residency tests for a given tax year. 2025 Act s. 6was s. 6 sets out those tests.
Two questions decide it each year: how many days you spent in India during the year, and — for some people — how many days you spent in India over the previous few years as well. Broadly, you’re resident for the year if you’re in India for 182 days or more, or if you’re in India for 60 days or more and you’ve spent 365 days or more in India over the four years before that.
Indian citizens and people of Indian origin who are only visiting get a more lenient version of that second test — unless their Indian income (excluding anything earned abroad) is above ₹15 lakh, in which case a shorter count of 120 days can apply instead.
Miss both tests, and you’re non-resident — an NRI — for that year. The one exception is an Indian citizen with Indian income above ₹15 lakh who isn’t liable to tax in any other country: India treats them as resident even if they never visit (see deemed resident). Nothing about your citizenship, passport or visa changes; only how India taxes you does.
Why it matters
As an NRI, India taxes only income that arises in India — rent from a flat you still own, interest on an NRO account, gains on Indian property or investments — and any income you first receive in India. Salary or other income earned and paid to you abroad stays outside it. Ordinary residents, by contrast, are taxed on their worldwide income. Getting this status right, every single year, changes what you owe and what you have to declare.
The year you leave India or the year you move back is usually the trickiest, because your day count for that one year decides your status, and it’s easy to assume it hasn’t changed when it has. Check your residency status for each year separately rather than carrying last year’s answer forward.
It’s decided person by person
NRI status is worked out separately for each individual, not for a household. A spouse who spends more time in India in a given year, or who works from India while the other partner is posted abroad, can end up with a different residency status for the same tax year — and therefore a different tax treatment of the same joint income or shared property. Filing as a couple doesn’t merge the two calculations, so check each person’s day count on its own facts.
Also called: Non-Resident Indian, Non-resident
See also
Where it matters
- Do NRIs need to file an ITR? Every case where you must (and where you don't)
- How to count your days in India for residency
- H-1B holders: US tax residency and Indian residency in the same year