Q761. OCI Settling in India & effect on NRI bank accounts held in India prior to return to

Question: 883 OCI Settling in India & effect on NRI bank accounts held in India

Dear Mr. Chand, Thank you for your time and effort to clarify so many wonderful FAQ's in this website, I have no doubt that it will definitely help people like me a lot. I have a question and I hope you will find a time to address. I am a Canadian citizen with OCI status, looking forward to settle in Indi

Answer: Currently I have NRE account in Indian banks, what happens to these NRE status once I stay in India for say more than a year? What I leant from one of your answers, I can probably maintain status as NOR for two years. What happened to my NRE account, will it get transferred to NRO and become taxable? In the future, say after 5 years is it possible for me to repatriate some portion of money back to Canada from what I had it in my account (NRE account) while resettled in India without hassles? Looking forward to hearing from you, Best regards, Rajeev Answer: I’m glad you like the website, in addition to the Question/Answer section of this website there are various articles posted on NRI Information covering many NRI issues. One of the articles is titled: ‘Status of NRI bank accounts when they return to India’ and discusses what happens to bank accounts held by NRIs prior to their return to India and options to open other bank accounts in India to hold foreign currency etc. This article should answer your questions. To view article click HERE When funds held in an NRE bank account are transferred to a NRO bank account, then the interest income does become taxable. However there are other options available that allow returning non-residents to continue to keep foreign exchange bank accounts as you will see in the article mentioned above. Repatriation of foreign exchange held in Indian bank accounts can be done without any problems through your bank where the funds are held.