Company Registration in India for Foreign Nationals and NRIs — Complete 2026 Process Guide

Whether you’re a foreign founder starting your first India entity, an NRI setting up a business back home, or a global company opening its first Indian subsidiary — this is the complete, accurate process, start to finish.

India is genuinely open to foreign and NRI-owned company registration — in most sectors, 100% foreign ownership is allowed without prior government approval, no local Indian partner is required, and there’s no minimum capital requirement to get started. What trips people up isn’t the ownership rules; it’s the sequence of smaller steps — document attestation, video KYC, the resident director requirement, and getting DSCs and DINs issued for people who’ve never set foot in India — that most generic “how to register a company” guides skip entirely because they’re written for Indian founders, not foreign ones.

NRI, OCI, or Foreign National — Does the Distinction Matter?

It matters at the margins, not for the core process. An NRI (Non-Resident Indian) is an Indian citizen residing outside India; an OCI (Overseas Citizen of India) is a foreign citizen of Indian origin holding OCI status; a foreign national is anyone else. All three can register and own 100% of an Indian Private Limited Company in most sectors under the automatic route. The practical differences show up mainly in documentation — an NRI or OCI can often use an Indian PAN and simpler KYC where one already exists, while a foreign national typically needs a fresh PAN application, notarised and apostilled documents, and video-based KYC, adding real time to the process.

There’s one genuinely important distinction worth knowing upfront, though: under Schedule IV of the FEMA (Non-Debt Instruments) Rules 2019, an NRI or OCI investing on a non-repatriable basis — using funds from an NRO account, with the investment and any returns permanently locked to that NRO account and never repatriable abroad — is treated as domestic investment, not FDI. This means it doesn’t count toward FDI sectoral caps, and no FC-GPR filing is required (though the company still needs to update its Register of Members and file Form PAS-3 with MCA for the share allotment itself, as it would for any domestic issuance). If the same NRI or OCI instead invests on a repatriable basis — from abroad, or from an NRE account — standard FDI rules apply fully, including FC-GPR reporting. This is also why the land-border-country government approval requirement covered below applies specifically to repatriable investment; an NRI or OCI resident in one of those countries investing non-repatriably through Schedule IV generally isn’t caught by that specific restriction.

Step 1: Choose the Right Entity Structure

For most founders and NRIs planning to actually build and run a business in India — not just test the market — a Private Limited Company Wholly Owned Subsidiary is the right starting point in the large majority of cases.

Step 2: Confirm Your FDI Route — Automatic vs Government Approval

In the large majority of sectors, foreign investment into an Indian company happens under the automatic route — no prior government approval is required; you simply invest and report it afterward via the RBI’s FIRMS portal (covered in Step 7 below). A smaller set of sensitive sectors — defence, media and broadcasting, multi-brand retail among others — require prior approval under the government route instead. The current sector-wise FDI policy is maintained by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), worth checking directly for your specific sector before finalising plans.

One important exception applies regardless of sector, under DPIIT Press Note 3 of 2020: if the investor is a citizen of, or an entity incorporated in, a country sharing a land border with India — China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Myanmar, or Afghanistan — government approval is required for the investment itself, and separately, any director from these countries needs MHA security clearance before they can be appointed. This specific restriction applies to repatriable investment; the NRI/OCI non-repatriable route covered above generally sits outside it. We’ve covered the director clearance requirement in detail in our companion guide on MHA security clearance for foreign directors, if this applies to your situation.

Step 3: Documents and KYC — Where Most of the Real Time Goes

This is genuinely the step that determines your overall timeline, far more than the incorporation filing itself:

• Passport — must be current, with the name matching exactly across every other document
• Address proof from the home country (bank statement or utility bill), notarised locally first
• Apostille or Embassy attestation — that notarised proof then needs either an apostille (if the home country is a Hague Apostille Convention member) or attestation by the Indian Embassy or Consulate (if it isn’t). Getting apostille and embassy attestation confused for the wrong country type is one of the single most common causes of delay in this entire process
• PAN application — foreign nationals without an existing Indian PAN need to apply for one specifically for incorporation and tax purposes
• Passport-size photograph meeting the specification required for DSC and incorporation forms

Realistic timeline expectation: budget 1-2 weeks for the apostille or attestation step alone, depending on the country — start this the moment you decide to incorporate, not after everything else is ready.

Step 4: DIN and DSC for Foreign Directors

Every director needs a Director Identification Number (DIN) and a Digital Signature Certificate (DSC) to sign incorporation and ongoing filing documents. For a foreign director, DSC issuance now standardly involves a short video KYC call — typically 5-10 minutes, scheduled in Indian Standard Time, so plan around the time zone gap — replacing what used to require in-person verification. This is usually the fastest individual step in the whole process once the underlying documents (apostilled address proof, passport, PAN) are actually ready.

Step 5: The Resident Director Requirement

This surprises many foreign founders: under Section 149(3) of the Companies Act, every Indian company must have at least one director who stays in India for a total of at least 182 days during the relevant financial year (1 April to 31 March). This was changed from the original “calendar year” wording to “financial year” by the Companies (Amendment) Act 2017, effective 7 May 2018 — a distinction worth getting right, since a surprising number of guides on this topic still cite the outdated calendar-year version. For a newly incorporated company, the requirement applies proportionately to the remaining portion of that first financial year, rather than the full 182 days. A company owned and directed entirely by people who’ve never lived in India cannot be incorporated as-is — you need at least one qualifying resident director. Options include appointing a trusted local partner, a professional nominee director arrangement, or, where the founder genuinely plans to relocate, structuring the timeline around meeting the residency test themselves going forward.

Step 6: Name Reservation and Incorporation Filing

Incorporation itself is filed through the SPICe+ form on the MCA portal — Part A reserves your company name, and Part B carries the full incorporation application, integrated with linked services (PAN, TAN, GST registration, EPFO, ESIC, and a bank account opening request) through the AGILE-PRO form, so these don’t need to be applied for separately after incorporation. There is no minimum paid-up capital requirement for a Private Limited Company — you can incorporate with a nominal capital structure and increase it later as the business grows.

Step 7: Reporting Your Investment — FC-GPR

Once shares are allotted to the foreign investor, the investment itself must be reported to the RBI through Form FC-GPR, filed via the FIRMS portal, within 30 days of the share allotment — mark this date the moment allotment happens, not when convenient. This requires a valuation certificate from a qualified professional — mandatory for any share issuance to a non-resident, even at face value — and missing this window turns a routine reporting formality into a compliance issue that needs separately regularising later. As covered above, this filing isn’t required at all where the investment was made by an NRI or OCI on a non-repatriable basis under Schedule IV.

Step 8: Bank Account and First-Year Compliance

Opening a corporate bank account for a foreign-owned Indian entity can take longer than founders expect — banks apply enhanced due diligence to foreign shareholding, and having your documentation (incorporation certificate, board resolution, KYC of all directors and significant shareholders) fully organised in advance meaningfully speeds this up. Once operational, ongoing obligations include your standard annual ROC, GST, and Income Tax compliance, plus FEMA-specific obligations like the annual FLA Return, due every 15 July for as long as foreign investment remains on the books — filed regardless of whether any new transaction happened that year — and, where your ownership structure has layers, potentially an SBO declaration as well.

A Realistic Timeline

• Document apostille/attestation: 1-2 weeks, country-dependent — start this first, always
• DSC issuance including video KYC: a few days once documents are ready
• Name reservation and SPICe+ incorporation filing: 1-2 weeks once all documents and DSCs are in hand
• Bank account opening: 2-4 weeks, variable by bank and documentation completeness
• FC-GPR filing: due within 30 days of share allotment

Run in sequence, the whole process from a standing start commonly takes 6-10 weeks — with document attestation, not the incorporation filing itself, as the step most worth starting early.

How Rudra Capital Helps

We manage the complete process for foreign nationals, NRIs, and global companies — from entity choice through incorporation, FDI reporting, and ongoing compliance — as one coordinated service.

FAQs — Company Registration in India for Foreign Nationals and NRIs (2026)

Related reading: MHA Security Clearance for Foreign Directors · SBO Declaration and Form BEN-2 Filing · Foreign Investment Advisory — Contact Rudra Capital