How to repatriate money from India: the $1 million rule and Forms 15CA/15CB

It starts with the account

Under India's Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), what you can repatriate depends almost entirely on which account the money sits in.

Money in an NRE (Non-Resident External) or FCNR (Foreign Currency Non-Resident) account is freely and fully repatriable — principal and interest, no ceiling. These accounts are designed to hold foreign earnings, and the system lets that money flow back out without friction.

Money in an NRO (Non-Resident Ordinary) account is the hard case. This is where income earned in India lands — rent, dividends, interest, the proceeds of a property sale — and it is the account the rules are built to police.

The USD 1 million ceiling

From an NRO account, an NRI may repatriate up to USD 1 million per financial year. Three details about that ceiling catch people out. First, it is an aggregate — it covers all your outward remittances and any NRO-to-NRE transfers combined, not USD 1 million for each. Second, it resets every 1 April, and unused room cannot be carried into the next year. Third, if you genuinely need to send more — say, after a large property sale — you must apply for special RBI approval through your bank, which is possible but slow. For most people, the practical message is to plan large repatriations across financial years.

The two forms nobody mentions

The paperwork is where people stall. To move funds out of an NRO account you generally need Form 15CA and Form 15CB. Form 15CB is a certificate from a chartered accountant confirming that the correct tax has been deducted on the money you are sending. Form 15CA is your own online declaration to the tax department, filed on the income-tax portal, that the tax has been handled. As a rule of thumb, once a year's remittance crosses ₹5 lakh, you need Form 15CA Part C together with a CA's Form 15CB; smaller transfers use a lighter version. Banks will also ask for Form A2 and their own request form before they release the transfer.

It sounds bureaucratic because it is — but it is the mechanism that lets India tax the income before it leaves, and skipping a step is the most common reason a repatriation gets stuck.

A 2026 change worth knowing

The names are about to change. Under the new Income Tax Act 2025, from 1 April 2026 Forms 15CA and 15CB are being renamed Form 145 and Form 146. The substance — a self-declaration backed by a chartered accountant's certificate — stays the same, but the form numbers your bank and accountant quote will be new. It is a small thing that will nonetheless confuse anyone working from older guidance, so it is worth flagging to whoever handles your transfer.

The tax bite

The other surprise is tax. Income earned in India and held in an NRO account — that rent, those dividends, the capital gain on a flat — is taxed at applicable Indian rates, which for many NRIs lands around 30% before anything is repatriated. Whether you can claim some of that back depends on the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement between India and your country of residence — the US, UK, UAE and Canada are among more than ninety countries that have one — which can lower the rate or let you offset the Indian tax against your home-country bill. Working that out is exactly what the chartered accountant who signs your 15CB exists for.

The NRO-to-NRE shortcut

There is one move worth knowing: you can transfer money within India from your NRO account to your NRE account, up to the same USD 1 million annual limit and with the same 15CA/15CB paperwork. Why bother? Because once the money is in the NRE account, it becomes freely repatriable forever, with no further forms each time you send it abroad. For NRIs who expect to move Indian income out in stages, shifting it to NRE first can save a great deal of repeat paperwork.

The shape of it

Reduced to its bones, the system is simple to state and easy to get wrong:

• Foreign money (NRE/FCNR): flows out freely, no limit.
• Indian income (NRO): up to USD 1 million a year, tax paid first, Forms 15CA and 15CB (soon 145 and 146) filed.

The diaspora's financial relationship with India is full of these one-way valves and annual ceilings, and they shift with almost every Union Budget. The money is yours. Getting it home is a procedure — and the NRIs who treat it as one, plan across financial years, and lean on a good accountant, are the ones who don't lose a slice of it to a missed form.

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Where to get it

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• Moving the money out. Compare Wise, BookMyForex and Remitly against your bank's rate on a large outward transfer.
• The 15CA/15CB paperwork. A qualified chartered accountant must certify Form 15CB; NRI-focused advisers such as SBNRI and specialist CA firms handle repatriation filings end to end.
• The official limit. The Reserve Bank of India sets the USD 1 million repatriation framework.

Selling Indian property as an OCI has its own rules before the money can move — begin with Can OCI cardholders buy property in India?