The cost of owning a US share from India is the money held at the door the money held at the door
Not brokerage. Not the exchange. The largest cost is the sum collected at source before any rupee leaves the country, then frozen until the return is filed and the credit claimed.
A fixed share of every rupee above a yearly threshold is collected before the transfer leaves, so the share held back grows with the size of the remittance.
The amount collected is your own money, credited against income tax and returned when the return is filed, but unavailable for the better part of a year.
All remittances out of India run under a per-person yearly limit, and both owning shares abroad and holding an account with a foreign firm draw on it.
A year of remittances, and the part of it that waits for the return
Read at: 05.10.2026 22:37| Remitted in the year | Collected | Reaches the account | Held back |
|---|---|---|---|
| ₹500,000 | ₹0 | ₹500,000 | 0.00% |
| ₹1,000,000 | ₹0 | ₹1,000,000 | 0.00% |
| ₹1,500,000 | ₹100,000 | ₹1,400,000 | 6.67% |
| ₹2,000,000 | ₹200,000 | ₹1,800,000 | 10.00% |
| ₹3,000,000 | ₹400,000 | ₹2,600,000 | 13.33% |
| ₹5,000,000 | ₹800,000 | ₹4,200,000 | 16.00% |
| ₹10,000,000 | ₹1,800,000 | ₹8,200,000 | 18.00% |
| ₹20,000,000 | ₹3,800,000 | ₹16,200,000 | 19.00% |
The threshold, the rate and the ceiling are quoted from the rule as enacted; the rupee and dollar columns are recalculated at a live rate read from two independent sources. What a bank adds to that rate is not published by any of them, so it is not in this table.
Source: Finance Act 2025: the provisos to section 206C(1G), as passed · Reserve Bank of India: the Liberalised Remittance Scheme and its yearly ceiling
What a reader should understand before sending money abroad
The shape of the collection
How the collection is calculated on the year's total remittance, and why the share held back rises as the amount rises.
02A wait, not a tax
Why the amount collected is credited back when the return is filed, and what the loss of use costs a planned purchase.
03The year, not the transfer
How the threshold is cumulative across the financial year, so two modest transfers can cross it when neither would alone.
04The ceiling on the scheme
The per-person yearly limit on remittances, and what a household should know about the financial year and authorised dealers.
05What the bank does not print
The margin added to the exchange rate is unpublished, so a reader can compute the collection but not the conversion cost.
An account with a firm outside India
Opening an account means sending money abroad under the same scheme, and the sum collected at source is the same. The account is held in foreign currency, so rupees pass through a conversion before they become a balance.