Nothing about your status waits for a day count. Under FEMA, a person who has gone abroad for employment, for business, or in circumstances showing an intention to stay away for an uncertain period is not resident from the day they go.
So the paperwork is due now, not after 182 days. One act matters more than the rest.
Your resident account becomes an NRO account
The Reserve Bank puts it in one sentence: "when a resident Indian becomes a person resident outside India, his existing resident account should be designated as NRO account."
Read what that does not say. It is not closed, and it is not left alone. It is re-designated — the same account, a new status on it. At most branches that is one form. Leaving it as a resident account is not one of the choices the rules offer.
New money from abroad needs a new account
Only an NRI or PIO may open an NRE or FCNR(B) account, so you could not have opened one before you left. Open it once you have gone. The difference shows up later: NRE balances go out freely, NRO balances run into the USD 1 million a year limit.
Your bank will ask where you pay tax
Moving abroad is a change of circumstances, and it obliges your bank to get a fresh declaration of your tax residence. If it cannot get one, it reports the account anyway.
FATCA and CRS reporting for NRIs
Income tax runs on a different clock
FEMA turns the day you go. Income tax does not — it counts days and settles at the end of the financial year. For a while you are an NRI to your bank and still resident to the tax department. Both are correct.
Residential status under income tax and FEMA
One account you cannot fix later
A PPF has a maturity date, and after it a non-resident earns nothing at all. Find the date before you go.
PPF accounts after becoming a non-resident
- Your status turns on why you went, not on a count of days.
- Your resident account is re-designated as NRO — not closed, not left as it is.
- An NRE or FCNR(B) account can only be opened once you are an NRI.
Source: section 2(v) of FEMA, 1999 for the status test, and the Reserve Bank of India's FAQ Accounts in India by Non-residents, as on 16 January 2025, for the accounts — the re-designation sentence is in the "Change in residential status" row of Q3. Checked 22 September 2026.