Investing in US Stocks from India: LRS, TCS, and How the Money Actually Moves

Buying Apple or Microsoft shares from India isn't a single click -- it's a short sequence of legal and financial steps, each with its own paperwork: you need a route to send money out of India (governed by RBI's Liberalised Remittance Scheme, or LRS), a place to hold the shares once you own them (a US or India-based brokerage account), and eventually a plan for how the gains get taxed and, if you choose, brought back to an Indian bank account.

None of this is complicated in isolation, but skipping a step -- or assuming it works like buying an Indian mutual fund -- is where people get stuck: a remittance that gets held up for missing paperwork, a TCS deduction that comes as a surprise, or a tax return filed without the one form that would have saved real money. This guide is the map; the linked guides below cover each leg of the journey in full step-by-step detail.

The Liberalised Remittance Scheme lets any resident individual remit up to USD 250,000 per financial year abroad for a permitted list of purposes -- travel, education, medical treatment, gifts, and investment (including buying foreign shares, ETFs, and property) all draw from the same combined limit. If you have already used part of your LRS allowance this financial year for, say, a child's overseas tuition, only what remains is available for investing.

The remittance itself goes through an Authorised Dealer bank -- effectively any bank licensed to handle foreign exchange, which in practice means most major Indian banks. You do not need RBI's individual approval for a remittance within the $250,000 limit; the bank handles the compliance check at its end, provided you complete the paperwork correctly (see the dedicated wiring-money guide linked below).

When you remit money for investment under LRS, your bank collects Tax Collected at Source (TCS) on the amount above a threshold: as of Budget 2026, the first Rs 10 lakh remitted for investment in a financial year attracts no TCS at all (this threshold was raised from Rs 7 lakh, effective April 1, 2026); above that, TCS is collected at 20% on the excess.

The important thing to understand is that TCS is not an extra cost -- it is advance tax collected upfront on your behalf, exactly like TDS on a salary. When you file your income tax return, the TCS your bank collected shows up as a credit against your total tax liability, and any excess is refunded. It does mean less cash in hand at the time of remittance, and a bigger fund transfer needed to end up with the amount you actually intend to invest -- practical, not theoretical.

Most Indian investors reach US stocks one of two ways. The first is opening an account directly with a US or India-facing international broker (Charles Schwab, Interactive Brokers) or an Indian platform that partners with one on your behalf (Vested, INDmoney, and several others) -- funded by an LRS remittance, giving access to thousands of US-listed securities. The second is the GIFT City route: buying Unsponsored Depository Receipts (UDRs) of US companies listed on the NSE International Exchange, through a GIFT City IFSC account opened via an Indian broker with Indian-style KYC -- simpler onboarding, but a narrower universe of available stocks.

A detail worth knowing before you pick a route: GIFT City investments still count toward your LRS annual cap and still attract TCS on the funding remittance -- it is a different on-ramp, not a way around LRS or TCS. See the dedicated account-opening guide and broker comparison linked below for the specifics of each option.

Once you own US stocks, two things eventually need attention: how the gains and dividends are taxed in India (and, separately, what the US withholds at source), and what happens if and when you want to bring proceeds back to an Indian bank account. Both are covered in dedicated guides on this site rather than repeated here -- see the full US Investment Taxation Guide for the capital gains and dividend rules, and the repatriation guide below for the Foreign Tax Credit (Form 67) process and what "bringing the money back" actually involves for a resident investor (a materially different question from NRI repatriation, which this site also covers separately).

In order: (1) check how much of your LRS limit is still available this financial year, (2) decide between a foreign broker, an Indian intermediary platform, or the GIFT City route, (3) open the account and complete KYC (documents differ by route -- see the account-opening guide), (4) remit funds via your bank, expecting TCS above Rs 10 lakh and a Form A2 declaration, (5) invest once funds reflect in the account (this can take a few business days), and (6) keep every TCS certificate and contract note -- you will need them at tax-filing time, whether or not you bring any money back to India that year.