Resident, NRI, or RNOR?
The single most consequential line in your tax return isn’t a number — it’s this classification. Resident and Ordinarily Resident (ROR) pays tax on global income. RNOR and NR pay tax only on India-source income. Enter your day count below.
Your year, in days
Sum across all 4 years, not per year
Salary, rent, capital gains, interest earned in India
For the ROR / RNOR test
Only matters once you're classified Resident above — decides whether you're taxed on global income (ROR) or get a transition window (RNOR).
Resident and Ordinarily Resident (ROR)
Determined via: 182-day rule (basic condition 1)
Taxed on GLOBAL income — Indian AND foreign salary, rent, capital gains, and interest all become taxable in India, with foreign tax credit available under the relevant DTAA.
This is a rules-based estimate for planning, not a filing determination — residency has edge cases (dual citizenship, treaty tie-breakers, split years) a SEBI-RIA or CA should confirm for anything consequential.
How Section 6 actually works
Step 1 — Are you Resident at all?
You're Resident if EITHER basic condition is met:
- Condition 1: present in India 182 days or more this FY. Applies to everyone, no exceptions.
- Condition 2: present 60 days or more this FY, AND 365 days or more across the preceding 4 FYs combined.
If neither is met, you're a Non-Resident (NR) — taxed only on income earned or received in India.
The three carve-outs to condition 2
- Citizen/PIO visiting India, India-source income ≤ ₹15L: the 60-day figure becomes 182 days — meaning condition 2 stops mattering separately; only condition 1 decides.
- Citizen/PIO visiting India, India-source income > ₹15L (Finance Act 2020): the 60-day figure becomes 120 days instead.
- Indian citizen leaving for employment abroad, or a ship's crew member: condition 2 is switched off entirely — only the 182-day test applies, full stop.
The deemed-resident rule
Even if you fail both basic conditions, an Indian citizen with India-source income over ₹15L who isn't a tax resident of any other country by domicile or residence (the classic UAE-resident-NRI profile — no personal income tax means no tax residency there) is deemed Resident — and automatically classified RNOR, skipping the ROR test below entirely.
Step 2 — Once Resident, are you ROR or RNOR?
A Resident is ROR only if BOTH:
- Resident in India in at least 2 of the preceding 10 years, AND
- Present in India 730 days or more across the preceding 7 years.
Fail either one and you're RNOR instead — typically applies to someone who has just returned to India after several years abroad. RNOR status is a transition window: foreign salary, foreign rent, and foreign investment income stay out of Indian tax scope, same as an NR, for as long as the RNOR conditions hold (often 2-3 years after returning).
Why this matters more than any single calculator
Get this classification wrong and every other number on your return follows. An NRI who miscounts himself into ROR discloses global assets and income he didn't need to. A returning Indian who assumes ROR too early pays tax on foreign income that should have stayed protected under RNOR. This is the reason the tool asks 7 inputs instead of 1 — every carve-out changes the answer.
Related tools
How we rate· See how we compute taxRental, NRO/NRE interest, and property capital gains once you know your status.
Upload a photo or type the numbers — regime pick + ITR line mapping.
DTAA, repatriation, returning-to-India playbooks by country.
Once you know you're taxed in India, pick the cheaper regime.
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