Sending money to India is the one thing almost every NRI does, and the one thing nobody is ever taught. You fill in a form, the money turns up a few days later, and as long as the number is roughly right you never look again.
It is worth looking. The same amount, sent the same week, can arrive whole or a few thousand rupees short, in the account that lets you take it back out or the one that does not, with a piece of paper behind it or with nothing at all. None of that is luck. All of it is decided by fields you filled in before you pressed send.
Decide the account before you decide the route
Everything downstream comes from this one answer, and it is the answer people work out last. There are three accounts and they are not interchangeable.
NRE — rupees, and repatriable. Money earned abroad belongs here. It can go back out later, in full, without asking anyone.
NRO — rupees, and not repatriable except for current income. Money that arises in India belongs here: rent, a dividend, a maturing Indian policy. Getting it back out means the USD 1 million route, a chartered accountant's certificate and a form.
FCNR(B) — foreign currency, and a term deposit only. There is no FCNR savings account. The money arrives in dollars or pounds and stays in dollars or pounds, for one to five years. It never becomes rupees, which is the entire point of it.
That is not a preference. It is what each account is. The trap is one-way: money that lands in the wrong place does not simply get moved. Putting foreign earnings into an NRO account turns a free exit into a capped one, and undoing it means using up headroom you did not need to touch.
So before you touch a transfer form, know which account this money belongs to, and know its account number, its IFSC and the SWIFT/BIC of the branch. Those are three different things and a foreign bank will ask for all three.
There are four routes in, and they are not interchangeable
A bank wire (SWIFT). Your foreign bank sends to your Indian bank, through one or two correspondent banks in between. Works for any amount, any purpose, into any of the three accounts. Slowest and usually dearest, and the only one where money can be deducted in transit by a bank you never chose.
An online remittance provider. Most of these reach India through a Rupee Drawing Arrangement — the RBI's own channel, where an authorised Indian bank keeps an account for a licensed exchange house abroad. Two things about it are worth knowing: there is no limit on the amount and no limit on the number of remittances, and the money must be credited to a bank account — no cash.
A money-transfer service (MTSS). The cash-counter kind. Useful, and narrow: personal remittances only — family maintenance — capped at USD 2,500 a transfer and thirty transfers a year per beneficiary.
The one that catches people: MTSS cannot credit an NRE account. The RBI's rules exclude it outright, along with property purchases, investments and donations to charity. If you are funding a flat, or building up repatriable savings, this route is closed to you however convenient the counter is.
The postal channel, over the Universal Postal Union's system. Rare now, but it exists.
The IFSC trap: rupees arriving by NEFT are not the same as money arriving from abroad
Give a provider your IFSC and there is a good chance this is what happens: the money reaches an Indian bank, is converted to rupees there, and then travels the last mile to you as an ordinary domestic NEFT. You see the right amount in the right account and assume it came from abroad. Your bank did not see that at all — it saw a rupee transfer from another Indian bank.
This is not a scam and it is not against the rules. It is the Rupee Drawing Arrangement working exactly as the RBI designed it; the rules expressly allow an authorised bank holding the arrangement to pass funds on to a beneficiary's account at a different bank "through electronic mode, such as, NEFT, IMPS". For ordinary spending money it is fine, and it is usually faster and cheaper.
It stops being fine the moment you need the money to be provably foreign:
- The advice may not exist. Your bank can only certify what it received. If what it received was a domestic NEFT, there is nothing for it to certify — and that advice is what proves an NRE balance is repatriable, and what you will need years later if you sell a property bought with these funds.
- An FCNR(B) deposit cannot be funded this way at all, and trying to anyway is the most expensive version of this mistake.
- A credit that cannot be identified can be questioned. The RBI's list of what may be credited to an NRE account is a closed one — inward remittance from outside India, interest, transfers from other NRE or FCNR(B) accounts, maturity proceeds of investments made from it. A domestic rupee transfer from a third party is not on that list.
On an FCNR(B) deposit you pay the exchange margin twice, on the same money. Once when somebody converted your pounds into rupees in order to deliver them over NEFT, and again when your bank converts those rupees back into dollars to place the deposit. The money makes a round trip through a currency it was never meant to touch, and each leg is priced by somebody else. Neither conversion was necessary and neither is refundable.
An FCNR(B) deposit exists precisely so that the money never becomes rupees — so that the rupee's movement over the next five years is not your problem. A remittance that arrives as rupees has given that away before the deposit is even opened.
How to make sure the money lands as a foreign remittance:
- Send in foreign currency, not rupees. If you asked anyone to "deliver INR", the conversion happened before your bank. Sending pounds and letting your Indian bank convert is what makes it an inward remittance.
- Use your own bank's SWIFT/BIC, so your bank is the one receiving from abroad rather than the last stop on a domestic hop.
- Ask the provider one question: "Does my bank receive this in foreign currency, or do you deliver rupees to it over NEFT?" That single question separates the two routes, and the answer is rarely volunteered.
- Check the narration afterwards. If the credit line in your statement says NEFT and names an Indian bank or an exchange house, it came over the domestic rail — whatever the app said.
- Decide by purpose, not by habit. Groceries and family money: the fast route is the right route. Property, an FCNR deposit, anything you will one day want to take back out: pay for the direct wire.
"Cheaper" and "faster" are not the same question, and the fee is not the cost
The fee is the number on the screen. The rate is where the money actually goes, and it is quiet.
Compare what arrives, not what is charged. Take the amount you are sending, apply the rate you were quoted, and look at the rupees at the other end. That figure is the only one that can be compared between two providers. A zero-fee transfer at a poor rate loses more than a £15 wire at a good one, and it loses it invisibly.
On speed: a bank wire typically takes a few working days because it crosses correspondent banks and two sets of working hours. Providers using a Rupee Drawing Arrangement are usually faster, sometimes same-day, because the foreign leg is pooled and only the Indian leg is live. Nothing moves on an Indian bank holiday, and nothing moves at the correspondent bank over a weekend either — a Friday evening transfer is a Monday or Tuesday transfer.
Before you send: four things to get from your Indian bank
Ask for these in writing, in one email, and keep the reply.
- The branch's SWIFT/BIC code — not the bank's head office code. They differ, and a head-office code adds a day while it is routed internally.
- The full account name exactly as the bank holds it. If your account says "Rajesh Kumar Sharma" and the transfer says "Rajesh Sharma", it can be held for verification.
- Which account this is — NRE, NRO or FCNR(B). Confirm it, do not assume. Accounts get redesignated, sometimes without a conversation.
- Whether they need anything from you before a large credit. Some branches ask for a declaration on larger inward amounts. Finding that out afterwards is how money sits unapplied for a week.
What to tell the foreign bank, field by field
- Beneficiary name — as the Indian bank holds it.
- Beneficiary account number — the full number, no spaces.
- IFSC — eleven characters. This is what moves it inside India.
- SWIFT/BIC — this is what gets it to India. Both are needed; neither replaces the other.
- Beneficiary address — the bank's, or yours as the bank holds it. Compliance systems check it.
- Currency to send — send in your foreign currency and let the Indian bank convert, unless you have been given a firm rupee rate. Two conversions are worse than one.
The charge code is the field that costs you money
Most wire forms have a box with three options, and most people leave it on the default.
| OUR | You pay every charge, including the correspondent's. The full amount arrives. |
| SHA | You pay your bank's charge; everyone in between deducts from the money. Usually the default. |
| BEN | All charges come out of the transfer. |
With SHA or BEN, a correspondent bank you never dealt with can take its cut mid-flight — which is why the amount that lands is often oddly short of what you sent. If the amount matters exactly — a property instalment, a loan repayment, a fee with a deadline — pay OUR. It costs a little more and it is a known number instead of a surprise.
The remark field: say plainly what it is
Whatever you write in the purpose or message field becomes the basis on which your Indian bank classifies the credit. A vague remark is the commonest reason money sits pending while someone emails you a question.
Write what it actually is, in plain words, matching the account it is going to:
- Into NRE — "Personal savings transfer from own overseas account", or "Own funds, salary earned in [country]", or "Family maintenance".
- For a property payment — "Towards purchase of residential property, [project or address]".
- Repaying an Indian home loan — "Home loan repayment, account [number]".
Two rules. Do not write something you cannot evidence — the remark is a statement about the source of funds, not a label. Equally, do not write "investment" loosely; it invites questions about what kind, and some kinds have their own reporting.
Your bank will also attach an RBI purpose code to the credit for its own reporting. You do not choose it, but what you write determines what they choose — which is exactly why the plain sentence beats the blank field.
If it is going into an FCNR(B) deposit
FCNR(B) is a term deposit and nothing else, and the money must arrive in the deposit currency and stay in it. That is not only a rule about paperwork — every time the money changes currency, somebody takes a margin on it. Two things have to happen before you send, not after.
Tell your Indian bank first. Ask them, in writing, exactly how they want the funds to arrive for placement as an FCNR(B) deposit, in which currency, and for what term. Banks differ here, and a remittance that arrives with no instruction attached gets converted and parked in a savings account — the one outcome you are trying to avoid.
Then tell the foreign bank two things.
- Send in the deposit currency. If the deposit is to be in US dollars, send dollars. Do not let anyone convert on the way.
- In the purpose or remark field, write it plainly: "For placement of FCNR(B) term deposit in USD — remit in USD, do not convert to INR."
Money already in an NRE account can be moved into an FCNR(B) deposit — transfers between NRE and FCNR(B) accounts are on the RBI's permitted list — so if a remittance does land as rupees, the deposit is still possible. It is just no longer the same deposit.
It is also a dearer one. Those rupees have to be converted back into the deposit currency, which is the second margin on the same money — the round trip described earlier. Send the deposit currency in the first place and it is converted no times at all, which is the only version of this that costs nothing.
Whether the FCNR(B) deposit is the right one at all is a separate question, and it turns on the rupee rather than on the paperwork: FCNR(B) or NRE — how far the rupee has to fall
After it lands, get the paper
Ask your Indian bank for the inward remittance advice for the credit. It is a one-page statement of how much foreign currency arrived, from whom, and on what date.
Keep it. It is your proof that the money came from outside India in foreign currency — which is the fact that makes an NRE balance repatriable, and the fact you will need years later if you sell a property bought with these funds and want the proceeds to go back out. Nobody thinks to ask for it at the time; everybody wishes they had.
And if your bank cannot issue one, that is not a filing problem. It is the answer to a different question — the money did not reach you as a foreign remittance. Read the IFSC section again.
When it does not arrive
Give it the working days the route is supposed to take, then ask in the right order.
- Your foreign bank first — for the SWIFT reference (a UETR, on modern wires). Without it nobody can trace anything.
- Then your Indian bank, with that reference. Credits sit unapplied for a reason, and the reason is almost always a mismatched name, a missing IFSC, or a remark that needs a question answered.
- A returned transfer comes back short. The charges were still taken, and the rate has moved. Which is the argument for getting the fields right the first time rather than the fast time.
This article is general information, current as at the date shown. It is not legal or tax advice. The channels and the account rules come from the Reserve Bank of India's own FAQs — Remittances (Money Transfer Service Scheme and Rupee Drawing Arrangement), as on 18 January 2017, and Accounts in India by Non-residents, as on 16 January 2025 — read alongside the Foreign Exchange Management (Deposit) Regulations, 2016. Charge codes and SWIFT references are international banking practice, not Indian regulation, and your own bank's procedure may add to them. Checked 20 September 2026.
