India NRI Capital Gains Repatriation Calculator (FEMA)

Selling a capital asset in India is only half the NRI journey -- getting the money out of India legally is the other half, and it involves a completely separate legal framework: FEMA (Foreign Exchange Management Act), administered by the RBI, not the Income Tax Department.

This calculator chains together three things that NRIs usually have to piece together from separate sources:

1. The capital gains tax and Section 195 TDS on the sale (same mechanics as the companion Property TDS Calculator) -- because what's actually available to repatriate is the net-of-TDS proceeds, not the gross sale price.
2. The FEMA repatriation ceiling: funds sourced from an NRO account (which is where sale proceeds land) can be repatriated abroad up to USD 1,000,000 per financial year (April-March), aggregated across all your NRO accounts and all repatriations in that year -- not per-transaction.
3. The Form 15CA/15CB certification requirement: under Rule 37BB, once your aggregate remittance in the financial year exceeds ₹5 lakh and is chargeable to tax, you need both Form 15CA (your own online declaration) and Form 15CB (a Chartered Accountant's certificate) verifying the tax position before a bank will process the transfer.

Do not confuse this USD 1 million NRO ceiling with the Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS) USD 250,000 limit. The LRS limit applies to resident Indians sending their own funds abroad for permitted purposes -- it has nothing to do with an NRI repatriating their own India-sourced sale proceeds out of an NRO account. These are two entirely separate regimes, and conflating them is one of the most common NRI-forum mistakes.

1. Net proceeds after TDS (identical mechanics to the Property TDS Calculator):

$$\text{Net Proceeds} = \text{Sale Consideration} - \text{Section 195 TDS}$$

2. Convert to USD at the exchange rate you provide, to compare against the FEMA ceiling:

$$\text{Proceeds Available (USD)} = \frac{\text{Net Proceeds (INR)}}{\text{USD/INR Rate}}$$

3. Apply the remaining FEMA headroom for the financial year:

$$\text{Remaining FEMA Limit} = \text{USD } 1{,}000{,}000 - \text{Already Repatriated This FY}$$

$$\text{Repatriable Now} = \min(\text{Proceeds Available},\ \text{Remaining FEMA Limit})$$

Any excess beyond the remaining limit carries forward and can only be repatriated starting the following financial year (when a fresh USD 1 million ceiling resets) -- this calculator projects that multi-year schedule when a single sale's proceeds exceed the annual ceiling.

4. Form 15CA/15CB threshold check:

$$\text{Form 15CB Required} = \text{Net Proceeds (INR)} \geq \text{Rs. 5,00,000}$$

Using the calculator's default inputs: ₹3,00,00,000 sale, ₹1,20,00,000 cost basis, 60-month (long-term) holding, no Form 13 certificate, ₹83/$ exchange rate.

1. Capital gain: ₹3,00,00,000 − ₹1,20,00,000 = ₹1,80,00,000.
2. Long-term, so 12.5% statutory rate; gain exceeds ₹1 crore, so the Section 112 surcharge cap applies at its top tier, 15%.
3. Effective TDS rate: 12.5% × 1.15 × 1.04 = 14.95%.
4. No certificate -> TDS on the full ₹3,00,00,000 consideration: ₹44,85,000.
5. Net proceeds: ₹3,00,00,000 − ₹44,85,000 = ₹2,55,15,000.
6. In USD at ₹83/$: ₹2,55,15,000 ÷ 83 = ≈US $3,07,410.
7. Well under the USD 1,000,000 FEMA ceiling for the year -> the entire amount is repatriable within the same financial year.
8. Since net proceeds exceed ₹5 lakh, Form 15CB (CA certificate) is required alongside Form 15CA Part C before the bank will process the outward remittance.

Now scale up: a ₹15 crore sale with a ₹4 crore cost basis produces net proceeds of roughly ₹12.76 crore (≈US $15.37 lakh) -- which exceeds the USD 1 million annual ceiling. This calculator projects that the first US $1,000,000 repatriates in the current financial year, with the remaining roughly US $537,000 carrying forward to be repatriated once the new financial year's ceiling resets on April 1.

• Multiple asset sales or existing NRO balances in the same financial year. The "already repatriated" input lets you account for prior remittances, but this calculator does not track a running balance across multiple calculator sessions -- you're responsible for aggregating all NRO-sourced repatriations for the year yourself.
• Marginal relief on surcharge, consistent with the companion Property TDS Calculator.
• DTAA relief or exemptions under Sections 54/54EC/54F that could reduce the underlying capital gains tax before TDS is even calculated -- see the companion Property TDS and DTAA Relief calculators.
• Exchange rate movement between the sale date and the actual remittance date. This calculator uses a single rate you supply; real-world remittances lock in whatever rate the bank offers on the transfer date.
• NRE/FCNR-sourced funds, which are NOT subject to the USD 1 million ceiling at all (they're freely repatriable) -- this calculator models NRO-sourced sale proceeds specifically, which the ceiling does apply to.
• Bank-specific processing timelines and documentation beyond 15CA/15CB (e.g., the underlying sale deed, TDS challan copies, and the bank's own KYC/FEMA declaration forms).

• Confusing the USD 1 million NRO ceiling with the USD 250,000 Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS) limit. LRS applies to resident Indians sending money abroad; it is irrelevant to an NRI repatriating their own NRO-sourced sale proceeds. Do not apply the wrong limit.
• Forgetting that the ceiling is aggregate, not per-transaction. If you've already repatriated US $600,000 from other NRO sources this financial year, only US $400,000 of headroom remains for this sale's proceeds -- the "already repatriated" input exists specifically for this.
• Assuming NRE and FCNR balances share the same ceiling as NRO. They don't -- NRE/FCNR funds are freely and fully repatriable with no USD 1 million cap; only NRO-sourced funds are capped.
• Waiting until the transfer to think about Form 15CB. The CA certificate takes time to prepare properly (verifying the tax computation, TDS challans, and treaty position if applicable) -- start this well before you need the funds moved.
• Not accounting for TDS before checking against the FEMA limit. The FEMA ceiling applies to what you actually have to remit (net of TDS), not the gross sale price -- a large gross sale can still fit under the ceiling once TDS is subtracted, as this calculator's default scenario shows.

• FEMA, 1999, and RBI Master Direction on Remittance of Assets (USD 1 million per financial year NRO repatriation ceiling).
• Rule 37BB, Income-tax Rules, 1962 (Form 15CA/15CB thresholds and requirements).
• Section 195, Income-tax Act, 1961 (TDS on the underlying capital gain, feeding into net proceeds available to repatriate).

Verification note: the USD 1 million per-financial-year NRO repatriation ceiling and the ₹5 lakh Form 15CB threshold were corroborated across multiple professional tax and NRI-banking advisory sources and are widely and consistently cited figures; they were not independently re-derived from the primary RBI Master Direction or Income-tax Rules text within this session, so a specific transaction should still be checked against the current RBI circular in effect at the time of remittance, since RBI notifications are amended from time to time.