NRI Wealth Advisory

NRIs investing in the Indian equity markets through a repatriable route do so under the Portfolio Investment Scheme (PIS) framework carried forward into the Foreign Exchange Management (Non-Debt Instruments) Rules, 2019. Under the NRE-PIS (repatriable) route, an individual NRI's holding in a single listed Indian company is capped at 5% of that company's paid-up capital, and the aggregate holding of all NRIs/OCIs investing on a repatriable basis in that company is capped at 10% of its paid-up capital (raisable to 24% by that company's board and shareholders via special resolution, subject to sectoral caps).

Investment through the NRO (non-repatriable) route is not subject to these PIS percentage ceilings in the same way — funds invested through an NRO account are treated broadly at par with resident domestic investment for market-access purposes, though repatriation of sale proceeds out of India remains subject to the separate USD 1,000,000 per financial year cap under the Foreign Exchange Management (Remittance of Assets) Regulations, 2016.

Selecting the correct route — NRE-PIS for a fully repatriable equity portfolio versus NRO for a non-repatriable one — has lasting consequences for how easily a client can later move investment proceeds abroad, and needs to be decided before, not after, funds are deployed. Breaching the individual 5% or aggregate 10%/24% company-level caps on the repatriable route is a reportable FEMA contravention for both the investor and the AD bank/depository participant facilitating the trade.

Our engagement covers PIS route selection, ongoing monitoring of individual and aggregate holding caps for repatriable investments, and coordination with the AD bank on NRE-PIS account designation.

NRI wealth advisory is the management of a non-resident's wealth across the two jurisdictions — the Indian investments under the FEMA framework and the Income-tax Act 1961, the foreign assets and the reporting, the accounts and the repatriation, and the estate and the succession. The advisory coordinates the Indian side of the portfolio — the property, the equities, the bonds, the bank deposits — with the tax and the FEMA treatment of each, and with the family's goals of the income, the growth and the succession.

The NRI's wealth is held across the border, and its management is the coordination of the Indian and the foreign positions. The Indian investments carry their FEMA routes — the NRE, the NRO and the FCNR (B), the portfolio investment routes — and their tax treatment under the Act; the foreign assets carry the reporting requirements for the resident but ordinarily resident; and the whole structure must serve the family's goals across the jurisdictions. The advisory is the planning that keeps the wealth's structure current with the law and the family.

The cost of the unmanaged NRI wealth is the structure that leaks: the Indian investments held in the wrong accounts, the tax paid that the structure should have avoided, the foreign assets unreported, the succession unplanned and the wealth transferred at the wrong cost.

This service is for NRIs and their families. We map the portfolio across the jurisdictions, plan the Indian investments under the FEMA routes and the Act, manage the tax and the repatriation positions, structure the estate and the succession, and review the plan as the residency, the law and the family change.