Can I repatriate the full sale value of my plot?

Up to USD 1 million per financial year from NRO balances under the general scheme, taxes settled and certified; larger sums stage across years or seek specific approval. Original purchases funded from NRE sources have their own, sometimes friendlier, mechanics your CA will map.

Do I need RBI permission for each remittance?

Not within the scheme's limits; your authorised-dealer bank processes against the documentation. Outside the limits or in special cases, specific approval routes exist.

How long does repatriation take?

With a complete file: typically days to a couple of weeks of bank processing. The long versions of this story are always missing-document stories.

NRI desk

Repatriating sale proceeds

Aerial progress view of Dholera International Airport Phase 1 — Dholera airport Phase 1 from above · Photo: Sarvajanik Puralekh, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Answer first: sale proceeds land in your NRO account; from there, RBI's remittance scheme for NRIs permits repatriation up to USD 1 million per financial year from NRO balances (covering property sale proceeds among other assets), routed through your bank with a CA's certification on forms 15CA and 15CB evidencing that Indian taxes are settled. Property-count conditions apply on certain routes (commonly cited: sale proceeds of up to two residential properties for some repatriation paths). The gatekeeper is documentation: purchase trail, sale deed, TDS proof, tax computation. Banks approve files, not stories.

Repatriation is where every earlier chapter of NRI discipline pays out. The rules are permissive by design; the friction is evidentiary. Here is the route and the file that travels it.

The route

Step one: proceeds to NRO. Your buyer pays into your NRO account (the natural landing zone for India-sourced funds). Step two: taxes settled. TDS deposited against your PAN, any balance liability computed and paid: the TDS guide covers the machinery. Step three: certification. Your CA issues form 15CB (a certificate that tax on the remittance-underlying income is accounted for), you file 15CA online, and the bank processes the outward remittance under the USD 1 million per financial year scheme. Larger amounts phase across financial years or seek specific RBI approval.

The file the bank will ask for

Expect to produce: the registered sale deed and index-2, your original purchase documents (deed, payment advices: this is why the 2026 folder matters), TDS challans and form 16A from your buyer, the CA's computation and 15CB, PAN, and your NRO statements showing the credit trail. A complete file clears in days; an incomplete one teaches patience.

Design your exit at entry

Three purchase-time habits that make 2030s repatriation boring: pay only through banking channels and file every advice; register the deed at the true consideration (undervaluation returns here as a gains-and-remittance headache); and keep the single property file this site keeps prescribing. NRI money gets stuck abroad-bound almost exclusively for evidentiary reasons, and evidence is manufactured cheaply only in the past.

Currency of rules: the USD 1 million scheme, the forms regime and the property-count conditions are stated as the long-standing general framework; confirm the current limits and formats with your bank and CA at remittance time. Frameworks endure; numbers get budget-edited.

Repatriating sale proceeds

The route

The file the bank will ask for

Design your exit at entry

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