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₹/$Rupee Exit

Guide · Checked 8 August 2026

Repatriating from an NRO account, end to end

Rent, fixed-deposit interest, dividends, pension, or the proceeds of a sale — the money leaves the same way, and most of what is written about it assumes you are selling property. Here is the whole sequence, including the form the tax guides leave out.

First: the cap probably does not apply to you

The number everyone quotes is USD 1,000,000 per financial year. It is real, and it is widely stated without the part that matters: it applies to capital-source balances — what a property or asset sale paid you, an inheritance, savings built up earlier.

Current income sits outside it. Rent, interest, dividends and pension are repatriable once the tax on them is paid, without consuming that annual limit. If you are moving rental income every quarter, you have probably been told about a ceiling you are not near and may not be subject to at all.

We are stating the published rule, not classifying your money. Whether a given balance is current income or capital, in your circumstances, is exactly the judgement a Chartered Accountant is for — and if you are anywhere near the limit it is the first question to ask, because the answer changes how many wires you need.

The sequence

Six steps, and they do not reorder

A remittance held at the bank is almost always a step taken out of turn — most often the FEMA form, which the tax guides omit because it is not a tax form.
  1. 01

    Settle the tax on the money first. Repatriation moves money that has already been taxed; it is not a way to move an unsettled liability offshore. What is owed on rent, on interest, on a gain — and whether anything was already withheld — is the Chartered Accountant's determination, and everything below waits on it.

  2. 02

    Get Form 146 from a Chartered Accountant, where one is required. The certificate that the tax position is what you say it is. Only a practising CA can issue it, under a UDIN. Which remittances need one turns on whether the payment is taxable and on the amount in the year — a judgement we do not make for you.

  3. 03

    File Form 145 yourself, on the income-tax portal. The remitter's declaration, in your own name. Where a Form 146 was obtained, its details go into it. Keep the acknowledgement — the bank will ask for it, and it is the thing that unblocks the desk.

  4. 04

    Give the bank Form A2, with the right purpose code. This is the step the tax guides leave out. Form A2 is the FEMA side, not the tax side: an application-cum-declaration to your authorised dealer bank, carrying the RBI purpose code that says what the money is for. Published guidance is that banks take it for cross-border remittances regardless of amount. Moving NRO to NRE instead? There is no Form A2 — that is an internal transfer and the bank has its own form for it.

  5. 05

    Hand over the document pack in one go. PAN, a recent NRO statement, and documentary proof of where the money came from. Sent piecemeal, each gap costs a round trip and a day; sent together, this is usually the shortest step in the whole sequence.

  6. 06

    Only now is the exchange rate quoted — and only if money is leaving India. The desk that prices your dollars is not the desk that checked your forms, and it prices last, when everything else is agreed and you are least inclined to argue. That is the moment the checker is for. On an NRO-to-NRE transfer there is no rate at all — see below.

Two destinations

NRO to NRE is not the same as a wire abroad

They share the tax paperwork and differ in the thing this site measures. Getting the two confused is how someone arrives expecting an exchange rate on a transfer that never converts a rupee.
 NRO → NRENRO → overseas account
CurrencyRupees throughout. Nothing is converted.Converted to dollars on the way out, at a rate your bank sets.
Exchange-rate costNone. There is no spread to measure, and this site's checker has nothing to tell you.Typically the largest avoidable cost, and never itemised — it is inside the rate.
Bank formThe bank's own funds-transfer form. No Form A2 — nothing crosses a border.Form A2, with the RBI purpose code.
Tax paperworkForm 145, and Form 146 where required.The same.
AfterwardsNRE balances are freely repatriable, so the paperwork is not repeated next time.The money has arrived. Nothing follows.

The pack

What to have ready before you start

Assembled in one go rather than fetched a document at a time. Every gap in this list is a round trip to your bank, and you are usually working against a financial-year boundary.
Identity

PAN and the account

Your PAN, and a recent statement for the NRO account the money is leaving. The statement is what lets the bank see the balance and the credits that built it.
Where it came from

Proof of source

The document that shows what the money is: a lease and rent receipts, an interest certificate, a dividend statement, or — on a capital transaction — the sale deed and the computation behind it. This is the item that most often holds a file up.
The forms

145, 146 and A2

The Form 145 acknowledgement, the Form 146 certificate where one was required, and Form A2 for anything leaving the country. An NRO-to-NRE transfer swaps the last one for the bank's own form.

Questions

What people ask first

Does the USD 1 million limit apply to my rent?

Published guidance is that it does not. The USD 1,000,000 per financial year cap applies to capital-source balances — proceeds of a sale, inheritance, older savings. Current income such as rent, fixed-deposit interest, dividends and pension is repatriable outside that cap once the tax on it is paid. Which bucket a particular balance falls into is a question for your Chartered Accountant, and it is the question worth asking first if you are near the limit.

What is the difference between NRO to NRE and sending money abroad?

Where the money ends up, and whether any currency is converted. An NRO-to-NRE transfer stays inside India and stays in rupees — nothing is exchanged, so there is no rate and no spread, and the bank uses its own transfer form rather than Form A2. Money sent to an overseas account is converted to dollars on the way out, which is where the exchange rate starts costing you. The tax paperwork is much the same either way; the FX is not.

Why move to NRE at all, rather than straight abroad?

Because balances in an NRE account are freely repatriable afterwards, so moving NRO to NRE converts money that needs paperwork each time into money that does not. Whether that is the right thing for your position, and whether a particular balance is eligible, is a Chartered Accountant's call. We describe the mechanism, not the recommendation.

What documents will the bank ask for?

Published guidance names PAN, a recent NRO account statement, and documentary proof of the source of the funds — a lease and rent receipts, an interest certificate, a dividend statement, or the sale deed and computation on a capital transaction — alongside Form A2 and the Form 145 acknowledgement, plus Form 146 where one was required. Your bank may ask for more; none of them ask for less.

What is a purpose code?

The RBI classification of what a remittance is for, recorded on Form A2. It is how the transaction is reported, and it is worth being accurate about rather than picking whatever the form defaults to — the code should describe the money you are actually moving.

Do you do any of this for me?

No. We are not Chartered Accountants and we do not file, certify or submit anything, and we never touch the money — you wire it yourself, at your own bank, with your own credentials. What we publish is the sequence and the arithmetic on the rate. The managed service coordinates the sequence for a property exit, with the CA invoicing you directly for the work only a CA can do.

Paperwork settled. Now check what the rate is costing you

If the money is leaving India, the last step is the one nobody scrutinises: a rate quoted by a different desk, once, with the margin already inside it. Put your quote in and see it in dollars — free, no login, nothing stored.
Check your bank's rateAsk about a property exit

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