RBI lets resident individuals skip the export declaration form for service exports

The Reserve Bank of India, through Notification No. FEMA 23(R)/(2)/2026-RB dated 2 November 2026, issued the Foreign Exchange Management (Export and Import of Goods and Services) (Second Amendment) Regulations, 2026, exercising powers under Sections 7, 8, 10(6) and 47(2) of the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999. The amendment inserts a new clause (da) in Regulation 2 defining a "resident individual" as a natural person resident in India, and adds two provisos to Regulation 3(2) on exporters of services. Under the first, a resident individual exporting services is treated as having submitted the Export Declaration Form (EDF) once it gives an Authorised Dealer the information needed to credit payment for the service to its account, with no monetary threshold.

Under the second, the same deemed-submission benefit applies to other (non-resident-individual) exporters only where the inward remittance for the service is Rs 10 lakh, or its foreign-currency equivalent, or less. The existing provisos (a) to (c) of Regulation 3(2) are renumbered (c) to (e). Regulation 18(1)(d), on entering import-of-services details in the Import Data Processing and Monitoring System, is also amended: for importers other than resident individuals, where the invoice or contract value exceeds Rs 10 lakh, details must now be entered "as furnished by the importer," within five working days of receiving them, replacing the earlier wording "as declared and submitted by the importer."