Lilongwe pays your salary. India still taxes your savings.
India and Malawi have no tax treaty. Indian banks deduct 30% tax deducted at source (TDS) on Non-Resident Ordinary (NRO) interest. Since Malawi taxes only Malawi-source income, only India taxes your Indian savings. File an Indian income tax return to reclaim TDS above your actual tax, get Form 128 (formerly Form 13) before selling a flat, and use Form 145/146 (formerly 15CA/15CB) to move money out.
No DTAA. But a lot of other work you still need help with.
ITR filing, Form 13 lower-TDS, tax notices, repatriation, Section 91 relief. That's where we help.
about 17,500 (MEA, January 2026: 9,000 NRIs and 8,500 PIOs)
Indians in Malawi
Senior CAs handle your whole India tax side, filing, recovery, notices, property, repatriation. No India trip needed.
Not just DTAA
Chartered Accountants for Malawi NRIs. Your whole India tax life
DTAA refund recovery is our flagship, but it's one of many things our ICAI-registered CAs handle for Malawi NRIs, filing, property, tax notices, repatriation and more, all from Malawi with no India trip.
NRI ITR filing
Our CAs file your ITR-2 / ITR-3 from abroad
DTAA TDS recovery
Cut 30% NRO TDS to your treaty rate, recover past years
Property sale (Form 13)
Cut the 12.5% TDS before you sell
Tax notices
Section 148 / 143 / 245 replies, handled
Repatriation (15CA / 15CB)
Move funds out without bank friction
Inherited property
Cost step-up, sale and repatriation
Form 10F / TRC
Treaty-rate paperwork, end-to-end
No DTAA, here's what we still do
India and Malawi have no treaty. Your Indian tax life still needs a CA.
The Income Tax Department lists no India-Malawi Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) or limited or information exchange agreement. Indian banks therefore deduct default tax deducted at source (TDS) of 30% on Non-Resident Ordinary (NRO) interest and 20% on dividends. Malawi taxes only income from a source within, or deemed within, Malawi (Taxation Act, section 11), so your Indian interest, dividends, rent and capital gains are not taxed there. Only India taxes them. File an Indian income tax return (ITR) to recover TDS above your actual Indian tax. Non-Resident External (NRE) interest stays exempt in India.
Form 13 lower-TDS
Apply for a lower (or nil) TDS certificate before your bank/buyer deducts. The cleanest way to avoid the 30% hit at source.
Section 91 unilateral relief
If you've already paid Nigerian tax on the same income, claim foreign tax credit in your Indian ITR under Section 91, the only relief route when there's no treaty.
15CA / 15CB repatriation
Move funds out of your NRO account to your overseas account, properly documented and CA-certified. Required by every Indian bank.
ITR filing for NRIs
Annual return, past-year condonation, Form 67 for foreign tax credits, capital gains, property sale TDS reconciliation, the bread-and-butter NRI work.
Tax notice response
Section 148 reassessments, Section 143(1) intimations, AIS mismatches, demand notices. We respond with the right legal grounds before deadlines slip.
No treaty rate to chase. But there's real money in doing the rest right.
Malawi NRIs we work with usually save more from a clean Form 13 + ITR than a treaty rate would have given them anyway. A CA who knows Malawi makes the difference.
Talk to a Malawi-specialist CAWhat we still do
No treaty, no treaty rate. But plenty of real work.
Hypothetical example: Ravi, 39, is an Indian citizen from Hyderabad who has lived in Malawi for five years as a finance manager at an agro-processing company in Lilongwe. He holds ₹10L in Non-Resident Ordinary (NRO) fixed deposits (FDs) opened before moving, ₹2L in NRO savings, and a ₹6L Indian mutual fund (MF) portfolio from which he redeems ₹1.5L of units each year. Because there is no tax treaty, his Indian bank deducts 30% tax deducted at source (TDS) on his interest. Malawi does not tax this Indian income, so Ravi files an Indian income tax return (ITR) to reclaim TDS above his actual Indian tax.
Clean ITR filing
Full schedules (FA, AL, NRI disclosures). Section 91 foreign tax credit claim for any Malawitax you've paid on the same income. Done right, the first time.
Form 13 / Section 197
Selling property in India? A lower-TDS certificate drops your TDS from 12.5% of the full sale price down to the actual gain. On a ₹1 crore sale, that's often ₹15-20 lakh of cash-flow.
Tax notices, end-to-end
148, 143(1), 143(2), 245, 139(9). We draft the reply, file on the portal, attend the hearing, follow up to closure. Under Section 288 authorized representation.
Repatriation (15CA/15CB)
Moving money from India back to Malawi. CA-signed 15CB, Part C filings, bank coordination. Nothing stuck, nothing rejected.
This is what a typical Malawi NRI with Indian-national managers and professionals: ₹5-20L in NRO and NRE fixed deposits, ₹3-10L in mutual funds, often a flat in their home state. Gujarati-origin trading families: business wealth in Malawi, with some family property, inheritances and small accounts in India. actually needs, treaty or no treaty.
Your side of the process
How to get your Tax Residency Certificate
You're an Indian in Malawi. India needs proof. Here's the workflow from Malawi, documents, portal, timeline, the lot.
Who issues it
Malawi Revenue Authority (MRA)
What it costs
Not applicable, no treaty to claim
Timeline
Not applicable
Form 10F / Form 41
Not required
Step-by-step for Indians in Malawi
Not needed. A tax residency certificate (TRC) and Form 41 (formerly Form 10F) exist only to claim treaty rates, and there is no India-Malawi treaty, so your Indian bank will not ask for them and they would not lower your TDS. The Malawi Revenue Authority (MRA) is Malawi's tax authority if a foreign body ever asks you to prove Malawi residence, but it publishes no certificate procedure we could confirm, so ask it directly.
Don't want to deal with Malawi Revenue Authority (MRA) yourself? Our CAs handle TRC guidance for Malawi NRIs every day.
Want a CA who handles Malawi-India tax every week?
Free 15-minute call. We tell you what you can recover and what it takes.
Senior CA who specialises in NRI tax · we deal with the tax officer, you don't
Things Malawi NRIs should know
Pitfalls we've seen Indians in Malawi face
We work with the Indian community in Malawi every day. These are the traps that cost real money.
Expect default deductions. The Income Tax Department lists no Malawi Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA), limited, or information exchange agreement. Banks deduct 30% tax deducted at source (TDS) on Non-Resident Ordinary (NRO) interest and 20% on dividends, despite any tax residency certificate (TRC) or Form 41 (formerly Form 10F).
File an Indian income tax return (ITR) every year to reclaim excess tax deducted at source (TDS). Because Malawi taxes only Malawi-source income, you cannot credit Indian tax on a Malawi return. An Indian refund is the only way to recover TDS above your actual Indian tax.
Keep your Malawi residency separate from your Indian tax planning. Staying 183 days in any 12-month period makes you resident in Malawi, which matters only for your Malawi salary. Your Indian interest, dividends, rent, and gains are taxed in India alone at Indian rates, whatever your Malawi status.
Plan remittances around Malawi's foreign exchange shortage. The Reserve Bank of Malawi's May 2026 monetary policy report noted weak foreign exchange supply against demand. Converting kwacha salary into rupees for Non-Resident External (NRE) deposits or Indian loan instalments takes time, so ask your bank early and keep a buffer.
Obtain a lower deduction certificate on Form 128 (formerly Form 13) under Section 395 (formerly Section 197) before selling an Indian flat. The buyer must deduct tax deducted at source (TDS) on the sale price, and this certificate limits TDS to the tax actually due on your gain.
Prepare compliance forms before repatriating money from India. Up to USD 1 million a financial year can leave Non-Resident Ordinary (NRO) balances, property sale proceeds, or inheritances. Each taxable transfer requires Form 145 (formerly Form 15CA), plus a chartered accountant's Form 146 (formerly Form 15CB) above ₹5 lakh.
Get an Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card if your family has been Malawian for generations. Most of Malawi's 8,500 people of Indian origin are not Indian citizens; an OCI card lets them buy non-agricultural property in India, inherit any property, and hold Non-Resident External (NRE) accounts.
Apostille Malawi documents for India, and expect separate pensions. Malawi has applied the Hague Apostille Convention since 1967 and India since 2005, so death certificates or powers of attorney need only an apostille. Without a social security agreement, Malawi pension and Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) periods stay separate.
Questions from Malawi NRIs
Everything Indians in Malawi ask us
6+ answers. Hover on dotted terms for plain-English explanations.
The exceptions that change the answer
Where the general rule stops applying to you
Every rule below has a carve-out, a cut-off date or a condition that flips the answer. These are the ones that decide real cases.
EPF withdrawal exemption: continuous service
Right now: 5 years of continuous service
Where it works differently
- Service is under 5 years
- Four components are taxed separately: employer contribution and its interest as salary, employee contribution previously claimed under 80C reversed, and interest on employee contribution as other sources.
- Rule 8 of Part A of the Fourth Schedule.
- Employment ended for reasons beyond the employee's control
- The 5-year condition is relaxed.
- Proviso to Rule 8.
- The account is inoperative
- Interest continues to accrue and is taxable once the member leaves service.
- Settled position; a live issue for NRIs with dormant accounts.
Commonly got wrong
- EPF withdrawal is always tax-free. Only after 5 years of continuous service.An EPF withdrawal is tax-free only after five years of continuous service. Below five years, four separate components become taxable in different heads.
EPF interest that becomes taxable on high contributions
Right now: Interest on employee contributions above Rs 2,50,000 a year is taxable (Rs 5,00,000 where the employer makes no contribution)
Where it works differently
- The member is an NRI with a dormant account
- Interest continues to accrue, and an account becomes inoperative after 36 months without contribution, at which point the interest is taxable in India.
- EPF Scheme rules plus settled tax treatment.
- The member has left India
- Indian tax on that interest still applies as India-sourced income, and the residence country may tax it too.
- s.9 read with the relevant treaty.
Commonly got wrong
- All EPF interest is tax-free. Interest on employee contributions above Rs 2.5 lakh a year has been taxable since FY 2021-22.Interest is tax-free up to Rs 2.5 lakh of employee contribution a year (Rs 5 lakh where the employer does not contribute). Above that it is taxable.
TDS on NRO account interest
Right now: 30% plus surcharge and cess
Where it works differently
- A valid TRC and Form 10F (Form 41 from 1 Apr 2026) are furnished
- The treaty rate applies, commonly 10-15% under Article 11.
- s.90(2) gives the more beneficial of treaty or Act.
- No PAN is furnished
- s.206AA imposes at least 20%, but Rule 37BC allows escape by furnishing name, address, TIN and TRC. Courts have also held s.206AA cannot override a treaty rate.
- Rule 37BC + settled case law.
- Claiming the treaty rate at source
- The s.115A(5) filing exemption is lost, so an Indian return becomes necessary.
- That exemption requires TDS at not less than the s.115A rate.
- The account is NRE instead
- NRE interest is exempt only while the individual meets the FEMA residence-outside-India condition or is permitted by RBI to maintain the account, and the account is maintained in accordance with the applicable FEMA rules. Income-tax non-resident or RNOR status alone does not establish this exemption.
- Income-tax Act 2025 Schedule IV, entry 1 (retaining the earlier s.10(4)(ii) conditions): https://www.incometaxindia.gov.in/w/schedule-iv-4
- The deposit is FCNR instead
- The exemption covers interest from a qualifying foreign-currency deposit with a scheduled bank whose acceptance of the deposit is approved by RBI, paid to a non-resident or a resident but not ordinarily resident (RNOR) under income-tax law. Check the deposit and residence conditions; FEMA non-residence alone does not establish the FCNR exemption.
- Income-tax Act 2025 Schedule IV, entry 14 preserves s.10(15)(iv)(fa) subject to its conditions: https://www.incometaxindia.gov.in/w/schedule-iv-4 ; underlying conditions: https://www.incometaxindia.gov.in/w/section-10-62
Commonly got wrong
- NRO interest TDS is 30%. Incomplete. Surcharge and 4% cess sit on top, so the effective rate is higher.30% plus surcharge and cess, around 31.2% at the base level.
- You can file Form 15G/15H to stop NRO TDS. Those are resident-only declarations. An NRI filing one makes a false declaration.Use Form 13 (Form 128 from 1 April 2026), or claim the treaty rate with a TRC.
Form 15CB requirement threshold
Right now: Rs 5,00,000 in the financial year, where the remittance is chargeable to tax
Where it works differently
- The remittance is not chargeable to tax
- Part D of Form 15CA only. No 15CB.
- Rule 37BB structure.
- The remittance falls in the specified exempt list
- No Form 15CA at all.
- Rule 37BB(3) specified list.
Commonly got wrong
- Every outward remittance needs Form 15CB. Only where chargeable to tax and above Rs 5 lakh in the year.Form 15CB is needed only where the remittance is chargeable to tax AND exceeds Rs 5 lakh in the financial year. Otherwise Part D of Form 15CA is enough.
No treaty. No shortcut.
Plenty we can still do.
ITR filing. Form 13 lower-TDS on property sales. Tax notices, repatriation, Section 91 unilateral relief. Your Indian tax life still needs a CA who knows Malawi.
More for Indians in Malawi
Friends & neighbours
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