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All NRIs

Moving back to India

What the country you are leaving can still tax, and for how long.

Illustration of a family returning to India with tax ties trailing from the country they leave

NRIWallah team

Updated September 2026 · 3 min read

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Stopping being tax resident in another country does not always end what you owe there. And each country handles your departure differently, so advice from a friend who moved back from Toronto is of little use if you are leaving London.

Four different approaches

The UK makes you wait. Your worldwide estate, Indian property included, stays within UK inheritance tax for three to ten years after you leave, depending on how long you were resident. Separately, if you come back to the UK within five years, gains made while you were away can be taxed on your return.

The US taxes by status, not residence. Citizens and green card holders are taxed on worldwide income and estates wherever they live, until they formally give up that status. For long-term green card holders, giving it up can trigger an exit charge.

Being taxable on worldwide income is not the same as paying US tax on all of it. Once you live in India, the foreign earned income exclusion takes up to $132,900 of earned income per person out of US tax for 2026, and the foreign tax credit usually covers much of the rest. The exclusion covers wages and professional fees but not pensions or social security, so retiring to India on a US pension is a different calculation from moving back mid-career.

Canada and Australia charge once, on the way out. Both treat most of your assets as sold at market value on the day you stop being resident, so you can owe tax on a gain without any sale to pay for it. After that, there is no continuing tail.

The UAE and Singapore charge nothing.

Deferring a departure tax

Canada lets you defer paying the departure tax by providing acceptable security to the Canada Revenue Agency, so the tax waits until you sell. Australia lets you choose to disregard the deemed sale altogether, but those assets then stay within Australian capital gains tax until you sell them or become resident again, and the choice covers all your assets, not a selection.

If you expect to sell soon, Australia’s choice only postpones the same bill. If you expect to hold for many years, it can matter a great deal.

Property you keep

Canadian real property and Australian real property are excluded from those countries’ departure taxes, but they stay taxable there whenever you sell, usually with tax withheld from non-residents at the sale. Property outside those countries, a flat in India included, is generally caught by the departure tax.

UK property stays within UK capital gains tax however long you have been away. A sale by a non-resident must be reported, and the tax paid, within 60 days of completion, separately from any tax return. Returnees who have not filed a UK return for years often miss this deadline and are fined.

US property also stays within US tax when sold by a non-resident, with withholding under FIRPTA.

India’s side

Returning NRIs usually get two, sometimes three, financial years as resident but not ordinarily resident (RNOR), when most foreign income stays outside Indian tax. That is the natural time to sell foreign assets, but it rarely lines up with the other country’s rules: RNOR usually ends in year two or three, while the UK gains rule runs to year five and the inheritance tail can run to ten.

The RNOR tracker works out your Indian status, the DTAA estimator covers income taxed in both countries, and the inheritance and gift calculator shows what happens to your Indian estate while a tail is still running. For British NRIs who have kept an Indian domicile, the 1956 UK-India estate duty treaty can take Indian assets out of the inheritance tail altogether; that page explains the conditions.

Moving home is a taxable event in most countries — and they do it in completely different ways. Britain makes you wait out two clocks of different lengths. America follows your status, not your address, so leaving changes nothing at all. Canada and Australia charge you once, on the way out, on gains you have not realised. The Gulf and Singapore charge nothing. Pick where you live and the page reshapes around that regime.

Your history there

Set to 0 if you have not gone yet, then increase it to see when each clock runs out.

What you're holding

The property you're keeping

Meanwhile, India starts taxing you

Returning NRIs usually qualify as Resident but Not Ordinarily Resident for two to three financial years, during which foreign income generally stays outside Indian tax. That window is the natural time to realise foreign gains — and it rarely lines up with whatever your departing country is doing. The RNOR tracker works out how long yours lasts.

Where income arises in both countries in the same year, the DTAA estimator covers which gets first claim. For what happens to your Indian estate, see the inheritance and gift calculator — and note that for British NRIs the 1956 UK-India treaty can remove the inheritance tail's effect entirely.

What this means for sequencing

The link holds the numbers above, so whoever opens it sees the same result. Saving keeps those numbers in your account.Nothing is stored by us.

Keep this result. An NRIWallah account saves it and sets NRIWallah up for where you live, so you don't type it all again.

Save it

Figures follow the revenue authorities directly — HMRC helpsheet HS278, IRS section 877A and Form 8854, CRA emigrant deemed disposition (forms T1161 and T1243), and ATO CGT event I1. Whether you are resident at all is decided by each country's own residence test, which turns on days, ties, homes and work rather than intention; this assumes you have already established that answer. Estimates only, and not advice.

Common questions

No. Green card holders are US persons for tax and stay taxable on worldwide income and their worldwide estate wherever they live. The obligation ends only when you formally give up the card. If you have held it in at least eight of the last fifteen tax years, you are a long-term resident, and giving it up can bring you within the expatriation rules in section 877A. If you are a covered expatriate (broadly, net worth of $2 million or more, average US tax above a yearly threshold, or not able to certify five years of tax compliance), everything you own is treated as sold the day before, with an exclusion of $890,000 for 2025, adjusted each year, reported on Form 8854. Below eight years those rules do not apply. Giving up a green card is irreversible and has immigration consequences well beyond tax, so take advice first.
HMRC’s temporary non-residence rules apply if you were solely UK resident in at least four of the seven tax years before you left and you come back within five years. Gains on assets you already owned when you left, and sold while away, are then taxed as if they arose in the tax year you return, at the rates in force then. Assets you bought after leaving and sold while non-resident are outside the rule.
Rarely, which is why the calculator shows both year by year. The capital gains window under the temporary non-residence rule is five years. The inheritance tax tail runs from three to ten years, depending on how many years you were UK resident.
No. The UAE and Singapore charge nothing when you leave because they charged nothing while you lived there, so nothing carries forward. If you move from Dubai to London rather than to India, UK rules apply to your worldwide position from the day you arrive, and the inheritance tax clock of ten years out of twenty starts then.

Timing a move home?

Tell us which country you’re leaving and roughly when, and we’ll pass your request to an independent cross-border tax adviser (not part of NRIWallah) who can say which charge or clock applies first.

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