"Just move your NRO balance to NRE": What the $1 million limit and ITA 2025 actually require

"Just move your NRO balance into your NRE account so you can repatriate it freely." If you have spent any time in NRI WhatsApp groups, you have seen this advice given casually, as though shifting money between two of your own accounts at the same bank is a one-click formality. It is not. An NRO-to-NRE transfer is legally treated as a repatriation of assets out of India, it is capped at USD 1 million per financial year, and it cannot happen until you produce two specific tax forms certifying that Indian tax on those funds has been paid. Skip a step and your bank will simply refuse the transfer — or worse, process it and leave you exposed if the source of funds is later questioned.

Here is what the rules actually say in 2026, and exactly what you need to do it cleanly.

What the law actually says

Two separate rule-books govern an NRO-to-NRE transfer, and people routinely confuse them.

The first is FEMA and the RBI's framework on remittance of assets. Under RBI's Master Direction on Remittance of Assets, an NRI may remit up to USD 1 million per financial year out of balances held in NRO accounts. Crucially, the regulator treats a transfer from your NRO account to your NRE account as a remittance — not as an internal book entry — because money in an NRE account is, by definition, freely repatriable abroad. So the moment funds cross from NRO to NRE, they have effectively been cleared to leave India, and the USD 1 million ceiling applies. This cap is per individual, per financial year (the year running 1 April to 31 March), and it covers the total of all your NRO repatriations and NRO-to-NRE transfers combined, not USD 1 million for each.

To be explicit about the most common 2026 myth: there has been no RBI circular in the 2025–26 window that raised, removed, or otherwise disturbed the USD 1 million annual cap. It remains exactly as it was. If someone tells you the limit was scrapped, ask them for the circular number — there isn't one.

The second rule-book is the Income Tax Act, and this is where the form names changed. Before any bank moves the money, you must file the tax department's remittance forms. Under the old Income-tax Act, 1961 these were Form 15CA and Form 15CB. Under the Income Tax Act, 2025 (ITA 2025), which is now in force, these are renamed Form 145 (formerly Form 15CA) and Form 146 (formerly Form 15CB). The substance is unchanged: Form 145/15CA is your own declaration of the remittance and the tax position on it, and Form 146/15CB is a certificate from a Chartered Accountant confirming the nature of the payment and that the correct tax has been deducted or paid.

ITA 2025 also speaks in terms of the "Tax Year" rather than the old "Previous Year" / "Assessment Year" split. The funds you transfer must have suffered the correct Indian tax for the relevant Tax Year before the CA will certify Form 146. This is the whole point of the documentation: the NRE account is a repatriable account, so India wants proof that nothing tax-due is being quietly shipped out untaxed.

Your residential status, incidentally, is determined the same way under both Acts — Section 6 is identical in ITA 1961 and ITA 2025. Being an NRI is what makes you eligible to hold NRE and NRO accounts in the first place; the transfer mechanics assume you have already correctly established that status.

Practical implications for NRIs

What does this mean in real rupee terms?

Scenario 1 — Rental and interest income piling up in NRO. Suppose you are an NRI in Dubai and your NRO account has accumulated ₹40 lakh over three years from rent on a Mumbai flat and NRO fixed-deposit interest. You want to move it to NRE so you can send it to your UAE account later. The rent and interest are Indian-source income, fully taxable in India. Before the transfer, you (or your tenant/bank) should already have deducted TDS — typically around 30% plus surcharge and cess on NRO interest, and at the applicable slab/TDS rate on rent. The CA issuing Form 146 will check that this tax has been accounted for. If you under-deducted, you must pay the shortfall first. Only then does the ₹40 lakh (well within the USD 1 million ceiling, which is roughly ₹8.3 crore at ₹83/USD) become transferable.

Scenario 2 — Sale of property hitting the ceiling. You sell an inherited Bengaluru property and ₹3.5 crore lands in your NRO account after the buyer deducts TDS under Section 195. ₹3.5 crore is well under USD 1 million, so it fits inside one financial year's allowance. But if you sold two such properties in the same year for ₹9 crore total, you exceed the USD 1 million cap and must split the repatriation across two financial years — the balance waits in NRO until 1 April of the next year resets your allowance.

Scenario 3 — The "it's my own money" trap. A returning NRI assumes funds that were always tax-paid (say, salary already taxed abroad and remitted in) can move NRO-to-NRE with no paperwork. The bank still requires Form 145/15CA and usually Form 146/15CB regardless of whether tax is ultimately payable. The forms are about certifying the position, not about whether tax is due. No forms, no transfer.

The threshold detail that matters: the USD 1 million limit is denominated in US dollars, but your balance is in rupees. Banks convert at the prevailing rate on the transfer date, so a weakening rupee slightly increases how many rupees you can move under the same dollar cap, and vice versa.

Step-by-step: what to do

• Confirm you are genuinely an NRI for the relevant Tax Year under Section 6. NRE/NRO accounts and this entire transfer route are only available to non-residents. Get this wrong and the account itself is mis-classified.
• Reconcile the tax on every rupee sitting in the NRO account. Identify the source of each chunk — rent, interest, capital gains, gift, prior savings — and confirm the correct TDS or advance tax has been paid for that Tax Year. Pull your tax credit statement, Form 26AS (now Form 168 under ITA 2025), to verify the TDS already credited.
• Engage a Chartered Accountant to issue Form 146 (formerly Form 15CB). The CA certifies the nature of the remittance and that applicable tax has been deducted/paid. This is mandatory for most NRO-to-NRE transfers above the small-value thresholds.
• File Form 145 (formerly Form 15CA) yourself on the income-tax e-filing portal. You will reference the Form 146 acknowledgement number. The correct Part (A, B, C or D) depends on the amount and whether a CA certificate is required.
• Submit the bank's remittance request — usually Form A2 plus the bank's own NRO repatriation form — together with Form 145 and Form 146 to the branch holding your NRO account.
• Track your running total for the financial year. Keep a simple log of every NRO repatriation and NRO-to-NRE transfer so you do not breach the USD 1 million ceiling. The cap is cumulative across all such transactions.
• Retain every document for at least six years. If the source of funds is ever questioned, your Form 146, Form 145 acknowledgement and Form 168 (26AS) extract are your defence.

For your specific situation

The NRO-to-NRE route is entirely workable — but it is a tax-certification process, not a banking shortcut, and the cost of getting the documentation wrong is a frozen transfer or a future query you cannot answer. For your specific situation, book a consultation at harunraaj.com.

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See Also

• US-India DTAA Article 15 vs Article 16: What ITA 2025 Actually Says About Your Salary
• Form 10F is not an email attachment: what ITA 2025 actually requires NRIs to file online
• "My UAE residency exempts my Indian income": What ITA 2025 actually says

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