Returning NRI
Do my foreign assets have to go in Schedule FA?
Once you are resident and ordinarily resident, every foreign account, holding and property goes in Schedule FA of your return. This says which table each one belongs in, whether the ₹20 lakh safe harbour covers you, and what the Black Money Act costs if it does not.
Schedule FA applies only when you are resident and ordinarily resident under Section 6. If you are non-resident or RNOR for the year, none of this is required. Check your status for the year.
Starts on an example: one foreign bank account at ₹25 lakh. Change it to your own.
Asset 1
Counts toward the ₹20 lakh aggregate non-immovable safe harbour (post-1 Oct 2024). The historical ₹5 lakh foreign-bank-only proviso was substituted by the ₹20 lakh threshold per Finance (No. 2) Act 2024.
Above the safe harbour
₹25.0 lakh of movable assets, past the ₹20 lakh line
Your movable foreign assets total ₹25.0 lakh, past the ₹20 lakh proviso, so the full Section 42 and 43 exposure is live if Schedule FA is missed.
Total value reported
₹25.0 lakh
Movable only, the figure the proviso tests
₹25.0 lakh
| Asset | Goes in | Value to report | Section 89A |
|---|---|---|---|
Foreign bank account (savings / checking / FD / CD) Full value, whatever your share | Table A1 Foreign Depository Accounts | ₹25.0 lakh | No |
What missing it can cost, per ROR year
Both sections say the officer may direct the penalty, so none of this is automatic, and Sections 42 and 43 are alternatives rather than a total.
- No return filed at all (Section 42): ₹10 lakh for the year.
- Return filed but Schedule FA missing or wrong (Section 43): ₹10 lakh for the year.
- If the officer treats the asset as undisclosed income (Sections 3 and 41): up to ₹30.0 lakh, being 30% tax and a penalty of three times it. The charge is on the value of the asset in the year the officer finds it, which for something surfaced by an information exchange years later can be well above this. This is the case where you cannot show where the money came from. Assets built out of documented salary abroad rarely get there, but that does not protect you from Sections 42 and 43, which are about the paperwork, not the source.
- Prosecution (Sections 49, 50 and 51): six months to seven years for a wilful failure, three to ten years for a wilful attempt to evade. Wilful is the word that does the work; an oversight does not normally reach it.
Missed an earlier year? There is a window open right now
FAST-DS 2026, the disclosure scheme for foreign assets of small taxpayers, opened on 16 August 2026 and closes on 31 December 2026. Assets are valued as at 31 March 2026. Either 60% in total, being 30% tax and 30% in place of penalty, where the undisclosed value is ₹1 crore or less, or a ₹1 lakh flat fee where the asset came from income already taxed or from your NRI years and is worth ₹5 crore or less. A valid declaration and payment carry automatic immunity from Black Money Act penalty and prosecution, not immunity at the officer's discretion.
A CA prepares the tables for your return, settles the Section 89A election, and fixes earlier years through an updated return or the scheme above.
Have a CA file Schedule FAWhat to do with this number
First check you are actually ROR for the year
Schedule FA applies only once you are resident and ordinarily resident. Non-resident and RNOR years need no Schedule FA at all.
How each table is filled in
Table by table, with the peak-value rule, the calendar-year basis and the currency conversion.
Missed it in an earlier year?
FAST-DS 2026 is open until 31 December 2026 and carries automatic immunity from Black Money Act penalty and prosecution.
How this is worked out
- Schedule FA runs on the CALENDAR year (January to December) that ends inside the financial year, not the financial year itself. For bank, custodian and equity or debt accounts it asks for the PEAK value during that year, and the closing balance and the income as well. For immovable property, interests in entities and other capital assets it asks for the total invested AT COST, and for a cash-value insurance policy the surrender value as at 31 December, the end of that calendar year rather than of the financial year. Convert at the SBI telegraphic transfer buying rate on the relevant date: the date of the peak, the date of the investment, or 31 December.
- Safe harbour: no penalty under Black Money Act Sections 42 and 43 where aggregate foreign assets other than immovable property stay at or below ₹20 lakh (Finance (No. 2) Act 2024, in force 1 October 2024). This replaced the old ₹5 lakh foreign-bank proviso; it did not sit alongside it.
- Foreign immovable property is outside that proviso at any value, so leaving a foreign flat off Schedule FA costs ₹10 lakh for the year whatever it is worth. On the better reading the proviso still covers your movable assets, because it disapplies the section in respect of assets other than immovable property; that reading is not settled, so disclose everything.
- Report the full value of each asset, not your share of it. Schedule FA has no ownership-percentage field: you show your position in the status column as Owner, Beneficial owner or Beneficiary, and each joint holder discloses the whole balance. Halving it because you own half is a mis-declaration, not a cautious one.
- Section 89A deferral (Form 10-EE under the 1961 Act, Form 40 under the 2025 Act) was notified for Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States in April 2022. The Income Tax Department’s own Form 40 FAQ, published in March 2026, also lists Australia, and we have not been able to find the notification behind that, so treat an Australian account as unsettled. Disclosure stays mandatory whether or not you make the election.
- This maps your assets to the right tables. It does not file anything, and a Black Money Act position should be settled with a CA before it goes in a return.
Checked against the Income-tax Act and Rules on 11 September 2026. An estimate, not advice: your return decides.