You Don't Become an NRI at the Airport.

You Don't Become an NRI at the Airport

You'll tell everyone you became an NRI in October. The Income Tax Department counts differently. It counts days, and by October you'd already spent 182 of them in India.

In shortShort version: Probably not for this tax year. Under section 6 of the Income-tax Act 2025, you're resident in India for a tax year if you spend 182 days or more here, and 1 April to 29 September is exactly 182 days. Leave after that and India can tax your German salary to March. File, and claim credit for German tax.

Take my friend Nikhil. A few years ago he moved to the Netherlands in the middle of the tax year, and he was out of India before the end of September. His wife stayed back and joined him close to March. Both filed their taxes in the Netherlands, like responsible adults. Done, they thought.

Then India sent his wife a query for not filing an Indian return. She hadn't earned a rupee that year. But money from Nikhil kept landing in her Indian account from the Netherlands, and the tax department's systems don't see a marriage. They see big credits from abroad. Money from your husband is a gift from a relative, and it isn't taxed. You still have to explain it.

And Nikhil, the one with the Dutch salary? Nothing. He'd left early enough for India's day count to let him go. Same family. Same money. One letter.

India's tax year runs 1 April to 31 March. Be here 182 days or more in it and you're resident for the whole year (Income-tax Act 2025, section 6, from tax year 2026-27). Count it: 1 April to 29 September 2026 is 182 days. A resident is taxed on worldwide income (section 5). So if you were here from April and flew out in the last days of September or later, India's opening position is that your German salary, all the way to March, belongs in your Indian return.

There's a second test: 60 days in the year plus 365 over the four years before. It's switched off for a citizen who leaves for a job abroad. A student leaving to study isn't covered by that carve-out, so most autumn students are resident for the year on either test.

Germany, meanwhile, counts you in from the day you take a flat there, or once you've stayed more than six months, and then from the start (§ 9 Abgabenordnung, the German tax code). Two countries, one salary, both hands out. It's the wedding where both sides of the family think you're eating at their table.

Our calculation at €1 = ₹108.6615 (ECB, 6 October 2026). No tax worked out on purpose: Indian slabs and the German wage-tax class make any single figure misleading.

The treaty sorts it out. When both countries call you resident, the India–Germany treaty breaks the tie in order: permanent home, then centre of vital interests, then habitual abode, then nationality (DTAA, Article 4). Salary for work done in Germany can be taxed in Germany (Article 15). If India is still home, it gives credit for the German tax, capped at the Indian tax on that income (Article 23), claimed on Form 44.

What would change my mind? If your home, your family and your job all moved on one date, the tie-breaker probably hands you to Germany and India's claim shrinks to your Indian income. Probably. That word is why you file, and why an hour with a CA and a Steuerberater (a German tax adviser) is cheap.

The treaty only works for people who show up with the forms. Have you counted your days?

Same Barrel, Two Pumps

Berlin cut the tax on your petrol for ninety days. Delhi let the price climb. Same barrel, two governments, two ways of deciding who pays.

In shortShort version: Germany cut its energy tax on petrol and diesel by 14.04 cents a litre, about 17 cents with VAT, from 1 October to 31 December 2026, per the Bundestag. India didn't: Delhi petrol rose from ₹94.77 to ₹102.12 a litre since mid-May. Brent crude averaged $114 in September. Check whether your pump passed the cut on.

Verdict Matters

Forgot a Foreign Account? Sorry Has a Price Until 31 December

You came back from Germany three years ago. The savings account there still has €400 in it. You never told the Indian tax department it exists.

In shortShort version: India's one-time foreign-asset disclosure scheme, FAST-DS 2026, closes on 31 December 2026, per the Income Tax Department's FAQ. If the income was taxed but the account, shares or RSUs never went into your return's foreign-assets schedule, declaring them costs a flat ₹1 lakh for assets up to ₹5 crore. Check your last three returns now.

This isn't only a returnee's problem. If you live in India and a foreign employer pays you in shares, those shares are a foreign asset too.

Verdict Matters

Refund the Pension or Keep the Months? First, Find Out Which You're Allowed

Three years in Munich, and Germany is holding about eighteen lakh rupees of your salary in a pension you may never draw. You can ask for it back. You'll get half of it.

In shortShort version: Indians leaving Germany have two routes for their statutory pension contributions. A refund under § 210 of Germany's pension code returns only your own share, 24 months after you leave the system. Or the India–Germany social security agreement, in force since 1 May 2017, keeps the months. On €60,000 over three years, your share is €16,740.

Every employee in Germany pays into the statutory pension: 18.6% of gross pay in 2026, up to a ceiling of €8,450 a month (Deutsche Rentenversicherung), split between you and your employer. When you leave, every Indian asks the same thing: can I get it back? Maybe. It's also the wrong first question.

Route one: the refund (the Beitragserstattung, contribution refund). Once you've left Germany's compulsory insurance and 24 calendar months have passed, you can apply (§ 210 SGB VI, Germany's pension code). You get back only what you paid. Your employer's half stays in the system. And the refund ends the relationship: those months are gone.

There's a hinge. You qualify only if you have no right to insure voluntarily. Whether an Indian living in India has that right is a question I couldn't settle at source. Ask the Deutsche Rentenversicherung (DRV), in writing, which side of that line you're on before you plan around the money.

Route two: the treaty. India and Germany have had a social security agreement since 1 May 2017, covering pensions only (DRV). Months paid in both countries are added together to meet each country's minimum for a pension (Article 11), and the pension is paid to nationals of the other country wherever they live (Article 5) (agreement text).

Route zero: never pay in. An employee posted from India can stay in the Indian system for up to 48 months with a certificate of coverage, which EPFO issues online (Article 7). This half of the method is decided in India, before the flight.

Our calculation at €1 = ₹108.6615 (ECB, 6 October 2026). Whether interest is added, and how either country taxes a refund, not covered here.

The method, as three questions.

1. Posted or hired locally? Posted with a certificate: you never paid in, and there's nothing to decide.
2. How many months did you pay, and can you insure voluntarily? That decides whether the refund door is open at all. Ask DRV.
3. What are you giving up? The refund returns your half. The treaty keeps the whole record alive and pays decades later. What that pension buys at 67 depends on values nobody can know today, so I won't print a euro figure for it.

Where it breaks.

• The refund isn't a windfall. It's your own money back, without the employer's half.
• You can't take the refund and keep the months.
• If you might move back to Germany or elsewhere in the EU, the months may be worth more than the cash.
• Take up insured work in Germany again and the 24-month clock starts over.
• How India and Germany tax a refund is a CA and Steuerberater question. Pay for the hour.

What would change my mind? If DRV says in writing that Indians keep the right to insure voluntarily from India, the refund door is shut for most returnees and this section shrinks to a paragraph. The refund is cash today. The treaty is a pension at 67. Before you choose, find out which one you're even allowed to hold.

"NRE interest is tax-free."

Free Where the Account Is. Taxed Where You Are.

Every NRI has heard it from a bank manager with a smile: NRE interest is tax-free. He's right. In India.

In shortShort version: Partly. NRE interest is tax-free in India for a non-resident, per the RBI. But a German tax resident owes German tax on interest earned anywhere, at 26.375% with the surcharge, and the India–Germany treaty lets Germany tax it. Illustrative: ₹20 lakh at 7% earns ₹1.4 lakh, about €1,288, and up to €340 of German tax.

True in India. Interest on an NRE (Non-Resident External) account is exempt for a person resident outside India (RBI FAQ).

Not true in Germany. A German tax resident is taxed on interest from anywhere (§ 20 EStG, Germany's income tax act). Interest that no German bank taxed at source goes into your German return (§ 32d), at the 25% flat tax plus the solidarity surcharge: 26.375%. The treaty lets the country you live in tax it (DTAA, Article 11). India charges nothing on NRE interest, so there's no Indian tax to credit against the German bill.

Illustrative numbers, our calculation. ₹20 lakh in an NRE deposit at 7% earns ₹1,40,000 a year, about €1,288. Tax in India: nil. Tax in Germany: about €340 if your €1,000 saver's allowance (the Sparerpauschbetrag) is already used up, or about €76 on the €288 above it if it isn't. The 7% is an example, not a rate to shop for.

The parent in Pune who manages the account will tell you it's tax-free, in good faith. The passbook agrees. Your German tax office has never read the passbook.

40%: Who's Paying the Person Talking?

In shortShort version: In a BaFin survey published on 1 October 2026, 40% of 1,000 German crypto investors didn't know finfluencers are paid for their posts. Half said they consider finfluencer recommendations, and 30% had followed one. Of those followers, 29% bought out of fear of missing out. Before you act on a post, ask who's paying for it.

BaFin, Germany's financial regulator, surveyed people aged 18 to 59 and analysed 1,000 who invest in crypto (BaFin, 1 October 2026). 27% had more than a fifth of their wealth in it. You wouldn't take medical advice from a man standing outside the pharmacy in a branded T-shirt. Why is your money different? In India, SEBI's board set a common advertisement code for regulated firms in September (SEBI). Different rulebook, same question: who's paying the person talking?