Your overseas trips and shopping just got more expensive. The Government of India has amended the FEMA provisions to include all the international credit card spending in foreign currency under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme (‘LRS’). An Indian resident is allowed to freely remit money out of India, up to a maximum of USD 2,50,000 (approximately INR 2 Crores) per financial year without the authorization of the Reserve Bank of India (‘RBI’) for purposes such as travel, education or medical treatment of self or family and for buying securities and physical assets. Hitherto, any purchases made by using an international credit card were not under the purview of LRS and hence were not restricted by the limit of USD 2,50,000 in a financial year. Debit cards were covered under LRS.
Source Mondaq
