Repatriating NRO Money from India in 2026: Form 15CA/15CB Made Simple

It usually arrives as a slightly anxious WhatsApp. "I've sold the flat in Pune, the money's sitting in my NRO account, and the bank is now asking me for a 15CB certificate and something about a one-million-dollar limit. I just want my own money in my UK account — why is this so complicated?"

The honest answer is that it is less complicated than it looks, once you separate the three things that get tangled together: the annual ceiling on how much you can move, the forms that tell the tax department the transfer is clean, and the PAN that quietly underpins all of it. Get those three straight and repatriating NRO money home is a well-worn, entirely legitimate path that thousands of UK NRIs walk every year.

There is also a 2026 wrinkle worth knowing about up front: the two forms everyone calls "15CA and 15CB" are being renumbered from April. Same job, new names. We will come to that.

This is a general explainer, not tax advice. The moment a property sale or large capital gain is involved, a good chartered accountant earns their fee many times over. What we do at NriDirect is the foundation layer underneath: making sure your PAN status and paperwork are correct so your bank can actually process the remittance and so the forms can be filed in your name without friction.

The USD 1 million ceiling, in plain terms#

The single most important number is this: from your NRO account you can generally repatriate up to USD 1 million per financial year, per person, without needing separate RBI approval. Within that limit, the transfer is a normal banking instruction supported by the right paperwork — not a special permission you have to beg for.

A few features of that allowance trip people up:

• It is per person, per financial year — and the Indian financial year runs 1 April to 31 March, not January to December. A joint NRO holder and their spouse each have their own allowance.
• It is use-it-or-lose-it. The unused portion does not carry forward to the next year. If you only move USD 400,000 this year, you do not get USD 1.6 million of headroom next year — you are back to USD 1 million.
• It applies to NRO balances specifically. NRE funds are freely repatriable by nature, which is one of the reasons the NRE-versus-NRO distinction matters so much; our explainer on NRE vs NRO accounts shows why the account type changes the whole question.

These figures are the position as commonly reported at the time of writing. Limits and the cases that need extra clearance do change, so confirm the current rules with your bank and the RBI before you send.

The forms: 15CA and 15CB (renamed 145 and 146 from April 2026)#

Here is the part that generates the most confusion — and the part that is genuinely changing this year.

When money is remitted out of India, the tax department wants assurance that any tax due on the underlying income has been dealt with. Two forms do that:

• Form 15CA — the remitter's own declaration. You (the person sending the money) declare details of the remittance and the tax position on it.
• Form 15CB — a chartered accountant's certificate. A CA confirms the nature of the payment and that the correct tax treatment (rate, deduction, treaty relief) has been applied.

What's new for 1 April 2026#

As reported, under the Income-tax Act 2025 — with Section 393 replacing the old Section 195 — the remittance forms are being renumbered:

• Form 15CA → Form 145
• Form 15CB → Form 146

The function is identical: a remitter declaration plus a CA certificate. Only the numbers change. If your bank or CA refers to "Form 145" or "Form 146" in 2026, they are talking about the very same documents you may have known as 15CA and 15CB.

Here is the old-versus-new at a glance.

(Treat the section references and the changeover as "as reported" — the substance is what matters: a declaration plus, where required, a CA certificate.)

When do you actually need the CA certificate?#

This is the question that decides whether your repatriation is a quick self-service job or a "call the accountant" job.

The widely-cited rule of thumb is that a chartered-accountant certificate (old Form 15CB, new Form 146) is generally required when your aggregate remittance in a financial year exceeds about ₹5 lakh. Below that threshold, a self-declaration on Form 15CA (new Form 145) is often enough on its own.

A few honest caveats:

• That ₹5 lakh figure comes from secondary sources and there are exceptions by remittance type — some categories need a certificate regardless, and some are exempt. Treat it as a guide, not gospel, and have a CA confirm your specific case.
• "Aggregate" means the total across the financial year, not per transfer — several small remittances can add up past the threshold.
• For a property-sale repatriation, the certificate route is almost always in play, because the underlying gain and its TDS need certifying. Our companion guide on selling property in India as an NRI walks through the TDS-and-PAN side that feeds straight into the 15CB/146.

PAN: the spine of the whole process#

Here is where we live, and where repatriations most often snag on the admin side.

PAN is essential to the entire process. It is not an optional extra:

• You need it to file Form 15CA/15CB (Form 145/146) — both are filed against your PAN on the income-tax e-filing portal.
• It is what carries your TDS credit for any tax deducted on the underlying income, so you can claim it on your return.
• It is required to file an Indian income-tax return and claim any refund if too much tax was withheld before the remittance.
• Your bank will generally insist on it before processing an outward remittance from an NRO account.

If your PAN is missing, inoperative, or wrongly tagged as resident while you have been abroad, the whole repatriation can stall at the bank counter. A PAN flagged inoperative after the Aadhaar-linking net is a particularly common blocker, and it is far better fixed before you start a transfer than discovered mid-remittance. We cover that end to end in the NRI PAN card 2026 guide.

Sorting your PAN before you remit is the single highest-leverage piece of housekeeping here — get it right and the bank, the forms and any future refund all line up cleanly.

The repatriation sequence, start to finish#

None of this is conceptually hard. The value is in doing it in the right order, on time, and with the right form for the date.

If, having read that, the property-and-gains layer feels heavy, that is your signal to bring in a CA rather than to push on alone.

DIY versus getting help — the honest call#

Plenty of UK NRIs repatriate NRO money themselves, and you can too. The honest breakdown:

• DIY is reasonable for: moving your own already-taxed savings, a modest sum under the ₹5 lakh-ish threshold where a self-declaration suffices, and tracking your USD 1 million allowance for the year. If the money is just accumulated NRO balances with no live tax question, this is a manageable banking chore.
• Pay a chartered accountant for: anything involving a property sale, capital gains, a large aggregate that needs the Form 15CB / 146 certificate, DTAA treaty relief on the underlying income, or any uncertainty about the tax treatment. This is regulated work and the certificate has to be signed by a qualified CA anyway.
• Where we fit: we are not tax advisers and will not pretend to be. What we do is get your PAN right — a fresh PAN, a correction, or fixing an inoperative one — so the forms can be filed in your name and the bank can process the remittance without friction. If you are even slightly unsure whether your PAN reflects the right status, that is the highest-leverage thing to sort first.

Large outbound transfers can also attract collection at source and reporting on the UK side of the wire, so it is worth understanding both ends; our note on TCS on money transfers to India covers the direction-of-travel and what banks report.

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The reader who messaged us about the Pune flat, for the record, was not facing anything exotic. We confirmed her PAN was operative and correctly tagged, her CA issued the Form 15CB (soon to be a 146) on the property gain, she filed her 15CA / 145, and the bank released the funds well within her USD 1 million allowance for the year. The remainder she moved after 1 April, on a fresh year's ceiling. It was just paperwork — done in the right order, with the right form, on a PAN that actually worked.

If your only loose end before you repatriate is whether your PAN is correct and operative, that is exactly the kind of thing we sort quickly and properly — so the rest of the process works the way it is meant to.

This article is general information for 2026 and not tax, legal or financial advice. Limits, thresholds, form numbers, section references and procedures are approximate, partly drawn from secondary sources, and change without notice — the Form 15CA/15CB to Form 145/146 renumbering in particular should be confirmed against the Income-tax Act 2025 rules. Always verify the current position with the official sources (the Reserve Bank of India at rbi.org.in↗ and the Income Tax Department of India at incometax.gov.in↗) and consult a qualified chartered accountant before acting. NriDirect is an independent UK agent assisting with Indian paperwork and PAN services; we are not a tax or financial adviser and do not provide regulated advice.