How this is worked out
Two separate rulebooks decide how your money leaves India. The foreign exchange rules (FEMA, run by RBI) decide how much can go. The Income-tax Rules decide which form you file before it goes. The planner works out both. It’s part of our guide to NRI bank accounts and assumes you’re a non-resident Indian sending your own money.
The yearly FEMA limit
Current income (this year’s rent, interest, dividends and pension) can be sent abroad in full once the tax on it is paid. It sits outside the limit.
A property bought with money from abroad, sent in through a bank or paid from your NRE or FCNR account, gets its own route. Its sale proceeds can leave outside the limit. A home loan you repaid from abroad or from NRE or FCNR counts as money from abroad. This route covers at most 2 residential properties in all, and not agricultural land, a farm house or a plantation.
Everything else shares one limit of USD 1 million each financial year, April to March: NRO savings, a property bought with rupee funds, and other sale proceeds or inheritances. Moving NRO money to your own NRE account uses the same limit. For the full picture of that transfer, see moving money from NRO to NRE.
The income-tax forms
Rule 220 of the Income-tax Rules, 2026 sets out four parts of Form 145 (was Form 15CA):
- Part A: taxable sums of up to ₹5 lakh in the tax year. You fill it in yourself.
- Part B: above that, when the tax officer has given you a lower or nil deduction certificate or order (applied for on Form 128).
- Part C: above that, without such a certificate. A chartered accountant first certifies the tax on Form 146 (was Form 15CB), and you quote its acknowledgement number.
- Part D: a sum that isn’t taxable at all.
The planner treats current income and sale proceeds as taxable sums and adds them up for the threshold. It puts NRO savings in Part D. If the purpose of a non-taxable sum is on the rule’s specified list, no form is needed for it. Separately, your bank takes RBI’s Form A2 for every remittance abroad.
Where it isn’t settled
Whether your own, already-taxed NRO savings count as a non-taxable sum isn’t settled. Many banks ask for Part C with an accountant’s certificate for any NRO balance above the threshold, so the planner flags it. Whether the specified list’s item for non-residents’ family maintenance and savings covers moving your own savings isn’t settled either. A carve-out in the rule for individuals who need no RBI approval is written for residents’ payments. The planner doesn’t apply it to NRO or sale money. The documents list is bank practice, not law.
An example: Farhan in Sydney
Farhan bought a flat in Pune in 2011, paying from his NRE account. It’s the first property he has sent out this way. This year he sells it for ₹1.1 crore (₹1,10,00,000) and wants that sent to Sydney, with ₹7.2 lakh (₹7,20,000) of rent after tax and ₹25 lakh (₹25,00,000) of NRO savings. The whole sale and the rent, ₹1,17,20,000, leave outside the limit. Only the savings use it: at a sample rate of ₹88 to the dollar, about USD 28,409, which leaves nearly all of the USD 1 million for the rest of the financial year. His rent and sale proceeds are well above the threshold, so his accountant certifies first and he files Part C, plus Part D for the savings.
What the planner leaves out
Assumptions
- One property sale, a house or flat. Agricultural land, a farm house or a plantation has different rules.
- The tax on the income and the gain is already paid or provided for. Working out that tax is a separate step; see the guide to selling property in India as an NRI.
- The threshold counts only the sums you enter. Taxable sums you sent earlier this tax year count too; the planner says so when you’ve already sent money.
- Foreign amounts are in US dollars, at the rate you enter. Your bank uses its own rate on the day.
- Inherited money has its own paperwork, such as proof of the inheritance.
When to get a chartered accountant
- You’re over ₹5 lakh of taxable sums in the tax year and need Form 146.
- The property was bought partly with money from abroad and partly from rupee funds, or bought under construction in instalments.
- You’re close to the yearly limit and need to split the money across two financial years.
- Your bank asks for a certificate for NRO savings and you think Part D applies.