NRE (Non Resident External) and NRO (Non Resident Ordinary) are two types of accounts that NRIs (Non Resident Indians) can open if they need a way to transfer money, open a fixed deposit, or buy mutual funds, and stocks in India.
What follows is a sequence of events that will take place, and some pointers that you might find useful while getting a NRE or NRO account.
How to open a NRE or NRO Account?
1. Contact the Bank
There are usually two ways of getting in touch with a bank: either have them call you, or you call their helpline.
Banks like HDFC and HSBC have this option where you can fill up a contact form and then their representative calls you. Whereas SBI lists out its call center numbers for various countries and you can call them to discuss opening an NRE / NRO account.
The first step is to talk to a bank representative because once you talk to the rep – he will inquire which account you need to open, whether it’s joint or single account, and accordingly tell you what documents you need to open the account, and email you the forms as well.
2. Book an appointment to fill the form
Don’t be daunted if you see a big 10 page attachment in your email. The paperwork is not as intimidating as it looks. It will take about 20 minutes to fill up, and can’t be done on your own, but it’s not all that bad.
Because you need help to fill up the form – the bank rep will book an appointment with you (usually telephonic) to go over the forms and walk you through them.
You will have to print them ahead of time and you can fill the easier sections yourself. Leave anything you’re not sure of because there are a lot of things there that aren’t very intuitive. For instance at one point you will encounter a question asking you if you’re politically exposed, and you’ll be tempted to say hell yeah – I’ve been exposed so bad I’m radioactive. While that may be true, it’s not what they’re asking. So, don’t try to fill the entire form without their help.
Oh, and keep a black pen handy; filling up tons of information while on the phone is a pain in itself – you don’t want to make it worse by having to hunt for black pens!
There are a lot of parts that they will just ask you to skip over or leave empty, so it’s really not as bad as it looks.
3. Get the documents ready
They will ask for documents based on your country of residence and what type of account you’re opening but here are some common ones that you should be ready with.
- Copy of first and last page of passport
- Copy of the visa page on your passport
- Two residence proofs – this can be things like your driver’s license, phone or utility bills, bank statements, pay – stubs etc.
- The filled up account opening forms.
- Passport photograph.
On their website – some banks have asked for these to be notarized, but in reality they don’t always need that. Self – attested documents also do, which is nothing more than signing on every document yourself.
4. Write a check in USD or your currency
You will need to write a check in order to open the account, and this can be done in USD or a few other foreign currencies. They will tell you if you can give the check in the currency of your country, or the alternative if that’s not possible.
5. Mail it to the PO Box or India Address
In some cases the banks will have a PO Box in your country of residence where you can send the documents instead of sending it to India.
However, before you decide to mail the documents to the PO Box check with them to see if there is a difference in processing time if the documents are sent to a PO Box instead of the India address.
These documents are generally processed in India, and sending your documents to a PO box may add to a delay of as much as 15 – 20 days, so before you decide where to send the documents it’s better to check with them on what they advise, and what the difference in cost is.
The bank rep will follow up with you and its a good idea to email him letting him know that you’ve mailed the documents so they can keep a track of when they receive it, and help in processing.
The one thing that’s missing from this post is recommendation on where to open an account, and that’s because I have no answer to that and nor do I have a reasonable way to compare one bank with another. You can choose one with which you’ve had good experience in the past and I’m afraid I don’t have much more input on that.
I’m really keen to hear on your experience with opening an NRE or NRO account so please do share that in comments, and of course all questions and other observations are welcome.
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{ 38 comments… read them below or add one }
I reside in india about 5-6 months every year and am abroad for 6-7 months. earlier I was abroad for 4 months only.
I donot earn Anything abroad and thus have no need to transfer any funds to india. I have a resident indian account, have FDs, mutual fund and shares investments and Also draw my pension and pay my income tax here.
I donot need any NRE or NRO account. is it OK? Or am I supposed to have some NRI account and close my resident Indian accounts?
I think the rule states that if you stay for less than 182 days in a year in India then you’re a NRI.
Your condition looks a little different since you don’t earn anything abroad and probably do file tax returns within India.
I think I wrote that response too soon. I searched a little bit and here is a link with much more comprehensive details :
http://www.vakilno1.com/nri/taxation/definitions.htm
for opening nre/nro a/c our aim is to send money to india, hence i think we should consider which bank offers ease of sendig money to india. for eg. i guess icici bank does not charge. Feature like citibank provide you the facility of your document collection & sending to india ( in selected countries) for opening a/c, Also chk for minimum balance to be maintained.
The feature like icici bank gives, making free DD & sending to whom you want to send in india (only postage charges applied)
Also very important ease of E-Banking & 24 hours call centre, becoz residing abroad means time difference with IST, so you should check which bank has 24 hours customer care number, best if they have special lines for NRIs. you may check if they have toll free number for your country.
You may also check if your interested bank has branch or representative off in your country.
Also see do they prefer banking with the countries in which you reside, it may confusing but its most imp. for eg, i stay in china & i was having bank NRE/NRO bank a/c with icici bank for few years maintaing good balance & nothing negative but when i applied for home loan they said they cannot give home loans for residents or earning from China & HongKong so i was shocked where i maintained good banking & at the time i need they cant help me.
Hope something of above might be useful to my frnds here.
thanks Manshu.
Hi Manshu,
I am an NRI living in Canada, the banks here have ridiculously low interest rates , around 1.25% so i busy exploring different investment options. One of which is starting an account in India, after doing some reading on the net I learned that I can start either an NRO or NRE account. I want to make use of the good interest rates indian banks enjoy due to the strong economy, What would you recommend for someone like me? I know that with the NRO account there is taxation – do you know how much of the interest is taxed? I dont want to be in a situation where i start an NRE account and then later realize after the taxation and other charge i’m effectively earning low interest. And lets assume i plan a fixed deposit for a timeline of say 3yrs.
Regards,
Ian.
Hi Ian,
The interest used to be taxed at 30% plus surcharge, so that would still amount to more on a NRO account than a NRE account. Now I say used to because a commenter recently posted that the tax has been revised downwards to 10% but I couldn’t find that info anywhere, so it could be that the tax has been lowered and I don’t know about it.
In any case – the NRO deposit works better than the NRE one. In your case I’d start off with a NRO deposit.
Regards,
Manshu
@Miteysh Shah : Thanks for sharing your experience with those banks with us. This would surely help many of us to choose proper banks depending on our needs and future plans…
Hi,
I have a NRE a/c in HDFC bank, India. I work on China, Chengdu, Sinchuan Province. Here my income comes in RMB (C hineese Currency). How I transfer money to my NRE (HDFC) a/c. Bcoz, here in Bank of China need a CHINEESE person who’s ID is must for transfer money to my A/C. Please can anyone suggest me that how I transfer money smoothly without any chineese person ID. & also they (BANK OF CHINA) first need to money exchange RMB to USD.
Dear Mr RUPAK BH IOWMIK,
This is the major problem in China…for everything they required Chinese ID, but there is one way to fix this problem…you can have account in CCB and from CCB you can tranfer Overseas ..but agin you have to trafer RMB to USD…one more way is to tranfer through Western Union..:)
hi i’m jagdish,working in kuwait.can you tell me how can i send money in S.B.I. a/c India
Dear Jagdish,
You can open your own NRE account in Kotak Mahindra Bank….from there itself..if you want to open a account …call Name: Kevin D’costa Tel. No.: 91 22 66006099 Email ID: kevin.dcosta@kotak.com Work Timings: 9.30 am to 6.30 pm IST. He will help you…you can refer my name also. To make your work easier…
Hi Mansu,
I am currently working in Hungary, Europe.
I am looking for some financial plan to keep my savings and deposits with Bank under NRI category.
I get fixed salary component from Employer. My requirement and sequence of planning is
1) i wanted to park this amount in Foreign Currency “Euro” saving account.(employer directly transfers to FC savings account)
2) later i move these funds to fixed depoist in same currency (say “euro fixed deposits”) under NRI category
Do you have any such NRI plans for customers. My objective and goals are
a) Link the savings and fixed accounts and to have total control of switching funds across savings and fixed deposits
b) Transfer money to Indian bank account flexibly from savings account
c) Transfer money to my Hungary bank account with flexibility from Savings account (NRI) to Hungary bank account
d) Withdraw money using international ATM card in Europe, USA, India accordingly
e) Do online internet banking with higher flexibility
f) Best yield on exchange rate and high interest rate of returns for fixed deposits managed in Foreign currency
g) Future benefit for Homeloan using NRI account etc
h) HOW TO OPEN THESE ACCOUNTS/DEPOSITS?? I AM CURRENTLY OUT OF INDIA. GUIDE ME STEP BY STEP
Please let me know if you have such plans and advise accorrdingly.
Best Regards
Shyam
I have my NRO and NRE accounts with a nationalized bank. Currently,i am living in India.
I need to receive money from abroad in USD. so i want to know if someone else can remit the money to my NRE account. I am asking this question because i’ve read that one can’t credit someone else’s NRE account. So someone please clear my doubt.
Thanks.
@Shyam- I think you should go for a FCNR account. You can keep the account in Euro(which is not a safe currency in present economic environment).And the money would be 100% repatriable.So you will be able to have a sync with your Indian and Hungarian accounts.
My husband had a lovely experience opening NRO/NRE account with Indian Bank before he moved to UAE, while I was still in India. The person in-charge at the bank breezily guided us through the process and also gave us some nice tips that I’m going to share. First of all unlike a lot of private banks in India, Indian Bank gives us the option of maintaining zero balance. Second the manager asked my husband to open both NRE & NRO account together. Now both these accounts share a common user ID. He further explained that if both accounts are opened separately then they will have separate user IDs. Third and most important was the fact that every individual is in a dilemma whether to send in NRO or NRE account. But since both our accounts shared a common user ID, hence money sent in NRE could be easily transferred to NRO using netbanking, though the reverse is not possible. So in this way my husband used to send money to NRE and only the amount that I needed for my monthly expenditure I used to transfer to NRO and withdraw, the rest used to remain in NRE. Here it is important to remember that NRO can be jointly operated with any person residing in India (can be more than two joint holders also), whereas NRE can only be operated singly. On his last trip to India my husband signed a number of Fixed Deposit forms and money left in NRE after transferring the amount needed for monthly expenses was used to open FDs which after deregulation is giving handsome returns as high as 9%. Hope this post will help readers to make a more informative choice
Great tips Vareen – thank you – I think I’ll share them on the FB page on OneMint as well.
Hi,
I am working in china for an official work, but i am going to stay here for more days may be 1-2 years.
Right now i am using a dollar card so i am loosing so much money in the transactions charges and etc.
Is there any way of opening a account in china and some body can transfer from india?
Can any body give me the best option
Hi Sir,
This is ali from hyderabad india. i am working in saudi arabia( jeddah). I want to open a icici bank NRI account. any icici bank baranch in saudi arabia( jeddah) or what what is procedure to open an nri account. please help me out. Thank you
You have to call their toll free number either there or in India and ask them for directions, they will send you the list of documents and help you.
Hi,
I have recently completed my MBA from Singapore. I would be searching for employment opportunities soon. I would like to know of the taxation procedures like:
Will I face a double taxation rate in India as well as Singapore according to the recent budget for this year?
If yes, what is the applicable rate?
Thanks in advance.
The current GAAR changes won’t affect your situation. As long as you are employed in Singapore and earning there, you won’t have to pay income tax on that income in India.
If you invest that money in India, and those investments earn then those will be taxed based on what you invest in.
Could you please advise me for the bank account in Soudi Arabia – Al jubail ?
Which indian bank is preferred for NRE / NRO account to be made operative for tax free money transfer ?
I currently live in U.S my visa has expired i have applied for visa extension. My visa is not yet approved .. Can i open NRE/NRI account
You may try but my guess is that they will need a valid visa.
Thanks, I tried with hdfc bank but they told they need a valid visa.. I am very much disappointed…
Dear mansu:
We have an NRO account in ICICI Bank in Delhi. One of our shops is illegally taken over by a shopkeeper from nearby area. We have been asking him to vacate it for past 6 years. Last year he managed to get our NRO account information. (I suspect the bank deputy manager gave the info to this fraudster who also banks at the same branch.) He deposited some money in our account claiming as a rent for last three years. We asked the bank to reverse this unauthorized transaction but Bank keeps on favoring the frauster. We went right to the top executive of the bank but every time the bank forwards the email back to Deputy branch Manager and he flat out refusing our request. Bank Manager says the shopkeeper(fraudster) refuses the reversal transaction to his account claiming that we gave him the account number. Bank Manager never asked our permission before allowing the fraudster depositing money in our account. Please guide us as to what we can do. We have asked court to evict him but the lawyer says we need to get the deposit reversed. Your guidance is appreciated.
Thank you
Dee B.
I feel your pain but I’m afraid I don’t know of a way to deal with such situations. This is the first time I’ve heard of such a thing and I can’t think of what the best way to act here will be. Best of luck and sorry couldn’t be any more help.
Do contact Police and catch that Moron. And do also contact some other good lawyer. I wonder how ur lawyer could say that. Your lawyer should have sued not only that guy but also that bank. When bank would be sued,to protect themselves,they will confess that its the mistake of deputy manager,not the ‘bank’.
Good luck.
threaten the bank saying that you are going to reach out to the Banking Ombudsman as the bank are not supposed to be disclosing your personal deatils to anyone and it is the bank’s duty to prevent any unauthosired transaction. And considering that there had been one, it is their repsonsibility to reverse it if the account holder has clearly written to the bank that the transaction is unauthorised. If they do not listen to you, please go ahead and lodge a compalinat with RBI Banking Ombudsman.
Lodging a complaint is very easy, as you can do it online using this link
https://secweb.rbi.org.in/BO/compltindex.htm
I am very sure you will get justice here.. All the best..
Thank you Manshu & Harsh. I have complained to RBI Ombudsman. I had written to them earlier but no response. This time I filled the online complaint form and I got a complaint number. At least that will be proof enough for the courts to consider when we go further with our case. I just can’t understand bank will allow anyone to deposit money into our NRO account. I checked with State Bank of India. They said no one can deposit in NRO or NRE account except the account holder. I will have to confirm this in writing before I move away from ICICI. Shame on you Chadda Kocher & team for providing such a lousy service!
Think twice before going with private banks!
Good to hear you are on the track.
But i don’t agree with what SBI guys told you. If only the account holder can deposit in his NRO account,then it means that he wouldn’t be able to receive any payment from India when he is abroad.
I’ve received money from 3rd parties to both of my accounts. In NRO-from India and in NRE- from abroad. There is no such restriction that only account holder can fund his accounts. Infact its practically not possible at all,especially in case of NRO.
Cheers.
One more thing. I would advice you to send emails to the senior most officials of ICICI. Tell them your whole story. Its not like everybody is a crook like the deputy Manager of your base branch. You will find the email IDs on their website including Chanda Kochchar’s. I expect some positive response from them,so i would highly recommend this step before you go to the court.
Here are the links-
http://www.icicibank.com/aboutus/pdf/business-heads-details.pdf
http://www.icicibank.com/aboutus/pdf/Zonal_Head_details.pdf
When you talk to them,do tell that you are gonna tell this entire story to all of your NRI friends and would also post on several complaint boards. But say this not in a threatening manner.Just say that this is the only option which would be left if the senior management guys don’t help.
Best of luck.
Thank you Harsh and all of you who wrote. I got all senior executives email address and wrote to them but received same response from Senior Executive Desk: The Bank Manager followed the Bank Protocol!. So much for the services. We even argued that what if an honest public servant’s account gets compromised by some fraudster who puts money in this public servant’s account and then starts blackmailing him with media exposure? Their policy should not allow deposit without account holder’s permission. Hopefully Courts or RBI will provide such directives. (I am told by some other bank that they ask this question when a person is opening a bank account and put note on the account accordingly.) Some banks allow you to freeze your NRO/NRE account when you expect no activity. My friends says treat this money as gift not rent since you have not issued the rent receipts to him. Other regular tenants pay by check and gets rent receipts from us. The rent is so minimal I rather not have rent from them. One another residential tenant is also a Fraudster. He has a DDA apartment for last twenty years and he rents this DDA Apartment out at 100 times more rent than mere 100 rupees he gives us for his posh two bedroom apartment. I hope the courts will serve the justice. These tenants think we roll in money. But they do not realize we work very hard for our money and we pay all the TAXES!
Its very sad that you are trapped by not one but more crooks. I think,you should once visit India and contact some good lawyer. This way,you will get your other flat(DDA) also back in your possession. Afterall,its your right to get proper rent of that flat,that tenant has no right to earn higher rates by giving the flat to a third party.
You are working hard to earn your money,so don’t let anyone else to cheat you by thinking that you are getting some ‘easy or free money. Infact even if you are making ‘easy’ money,it doesn’t give anyone a right to steal that money from you.
One more advice. I think,you should find out the numbers of the DCP or ACP of your local area in Delhi though DP’s website. Then talk to them on phone. There are many good officers who would understand your concern and help you. Atleast you should try.But don’t tell them the story that bank is not helping you.
Good luck.
Hi, I have recently shifted to Singapore. I have a homeloan from HDFC bank.
I want to fully pay out my homeloan & principal remaining is INR 11,00000.
Could you pls suggest me a way where I can take cash advance & fully payout my homeloan at once. I would like to incur minimum charges while completing this transaction, I can repay the whole amount in monthly installments within six months.
I have already checked with my HR here & theres no company policy for cash advance.
pls suggest possible routes !!
Hi, Digvijay. Hope you are doing fine in Singapore. I am working in Riyadh as an Export Manager and i wanna apply for home loan of 15 lakh to HDFC bank, where i have a NRO account. Could you suggest me what percentage the bank charged you or do you have nay other suggestion to get from.
will really appreciate to have your swift response.
hi sir
i am working in raiydh. i want opening new nri account state bank of india.
any facility in riyadh?
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