Residential status, FEMA accounts, DTAA claims, and GST on exported services all shift the moment your life crosses a border — this is the work we built the practice around.
The first question in any cross-border case — everything else follows from it.
Under the Income-tax Act, 2025, every individual falls into one of three categories: non-resident (NR), resident but not ordinarily resident (RNOR), or resident and ordinarily resident (ROR). Someone returning to India after years abroad usually qualifies for RNOR status — triggered by having been non-resident in 9 of the preceding 10 financial years, or having spent 729 days or fewer in India across the preceding 7 financial years. RNOR typically lasts 2–3 financial years, and during it, foreign-source income (other than income from an India-controlled business or profession) stays outside Indian tax entirely, and Schedule FA foreign-asset reporting isn't required. Getting the day-count right — and knowing exactly when the window closes — is usually the single highest-value piece of advice in a returning-NRI case.
Your foreign accounts don't have to be forcibly converted — but they do need to be handled correctly.
Once you're resident in India, NRE and NRO accounts need reclassifying, but existing foreign-currency savings don't have to be converted to rupees — an RFC (Resident Foreign Currency) account lets you continue holding them in foreign currency as a resident. We review what's still open abroad — brokerage accounts, insurance, property, deferred compensation — and map out what needs closing, converting, or simply reporting once RNOR status lapses.
If a Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement applies, you shouldn't be paying tax twice on the same income.
Where income is taxed in both India and the country it came from, a treaty typically lets you claim a Foreign Tax Credit against your Indian tax liability, filed on Form 67 before the return itself. We handle the treaty-residency check, the credit computation, and the Tax Residency Certificate paperwork the other jurisdiction usually asks for.
Billing a client abroad can be entirely GST-free — but the paperwork has to be exact.
Export of services — a foreign client, payment received in convertible foreign exchange through normal banking channels — is a zero-rated supply under GST. Below ₹20 lakh in annual receipts, registration isn't even required. Above it, registration plus an annual Letter of Undertaking (Form RFD-11, filed every April) lets you invoice without charging IGST at all. The GSTIN alone isn't enough on the invoice — it needs the LUT declaration wording and the LUT's own ARN and financial year, or the exemption doesn't hold up if it's ever questioned. E-way bills don't apply to services, and e-invoicing only becomes mandatory above ₹5 crore turnover.
Bring your travel history and a rough sense of your receipts — the first read usually takes one conversation.