Disclaimer: Everything shared here is based entirely on my personal experience after moving to Germany. I am not a financial advisor, tax consultant, or investment professional. Please treat this as a helpful starting point — always verify the exact requirements with your specific fund house, CAMS, KFin, or a qualified advisor before taking any action. Requirements may vary and may change over time.
If you’ve moved abroad and become an NRI (Non-Resident Indian), and you have existing mutual fund investments in India, there’s an important step that often gets overlooked: updating your tax residency status with your mutual fund houses from “Resident” to “Non-Resident.”
I went through this process myself after moving to Germany, and I’m sharing exactly what I did here.
Before you start this process, you’ll need an NRO account in India — if you haven’t set that up yet, see my guide on converting your Indian savings account to NRO and opening an NRE account.
CAMS vs. KFin — Which One Applies to You
In India, mutual fund record-keeping is handled by two main registrar and transfer agents (RTAs): CAMS and KFin Technologies. Different fund houses use one or the other, so your various mutual funds might be split across both.
You’ll need to check which RTA each of your fund houses uses, since this determines where you submit your documents. If you have multiple mutual funds across different fund houses, you may need to repeat this process separately for each one — in my case, I had funds with both RTAs and had to submit documents to both.
In my situation, doing this online or remotely wasn’t possible, so I visited the local CAMS and KFin offices in person and submitted everything directly.
Documents You’ll Need
Here’s the checklist I used. I self-attested all documents:
- Application letter requesting the change of tax status from Resident to Non-Resident
- Residence permit for your country of residence
- Tax ID of your country of residence (for example, your German Steueridentifikationsnummer)
- FATCA declaration, signed — a required disclosure under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act framework, which Indian financial institutions collect even if you have no connection to the US, as part of tracking foreign tax residency
- Passport copy
- Proof of Indian address (such as Aadhaar)
- PAN card, with your status updated to “Non-Resident”
- Updated foreign address reflected on your PAN
- Cancelled cheque from your NRO savings account (your updated account)
- Old cheque from your previous resident savings account — the one your SIPs (Systematic Investment Plans) were originally linked to
If your SIPs were running from a regular resident savings account, you’ll need to provide that old account’s cancelled cheque alongside your new NRO account’s cancelled cheque, so the fund house can update where your investments are linked.
If you no longer have the old cheque — for example if the account is closed or you simply don’t have a cheque leaf left — you can use a bank statement instead. Get it printed and stamped or attested by your bank. Either should work as a substitute, but confirm with your fund house first.
The Application Process
- Identify which RTA (CAMS or KFin) handles each of your mutual funds.
- Gather and self-attest all the documents listed above for each fund house.
- Write an application letter for each fund requesting the tax status change to Non-Resident.
- Submit the documents — either at a CAMS or KFin branch in your city, or directly through your fund house if neither has a branch near you.
- Keep your stamped acknowledgment receipt for every submission — more on why this matters below.
If You Have Multiple Folio Numbers with One Fund House
If you hold more than one folio (investment account number) with the same fund house, list all of your folio numbers on the form the fund house provides — you typically get this form directly from their office when you visit.
This matters even for folios where no SIP is currently active. Mention those folio numbers too, so the status change to Non-Resident gets applied across all of them, not just the ones with active investments. Leaving a folio off the form can mean it stays marked as “Resident” even after the rest of your investments are updated, which can cause complications down the line.
If you have an old or idle folio that you no longer need, it is worth considering whether to withdraw and close it rather than carry it forward — fewer open accounts generally means fewer things that can go wrong with your tax status later.
If You Can’t Visit in Person
I want to be upfront here: I don’t have a fully verified answer for this, since I handled everything by visiting in person.
From what I’ve heard, it may be possible to courier your documents instead, but they would likely need to be notarized rather than self-attested. I can’t confirm this with certainty — if this applies to you, call your fund house or the relevant CAMS or KFin office directly to confirm their exact requirements before sending anything.
Keep Your Acknowledgment Receipt
When you submit your documents, make sure you get a stamped acknowledgment receipt from CAMS or KFin. If your status change doesn’t go through for any reason, or there is a dispute later, this receipt is your proof that you submitted everything on time. Since you’ll likely have already left India by the time any issue surfaces, you may need to resolve it by email — having this receipt makes that conversation much easier.
Final Thoughts
This isn’t a complicated process, but it is a scattered one — the information is split across multiple fund houses, two different RTAs, and isn’t clearly explained anywhere in one place. Start early, confirm requirements with each specific fund house, and keep copies of everything you submit.
If you’ve gone through this process differently — especially if you’ve successfully done it by courier or remotely — I’d genuinely like to hear about it in the comments. That’s the one part of this process I can’t speak to from my own experience.
A final reminder: Mutual fund requirements, tax regulations, and RTA processes can change over time. Always verify directly with your fund house, CAMS, KFin, or a qualified financial advisor before making any decisions.
Questions or comments?
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