SEBI NRI KYC Rules: NRIs, OCIs Can Complete Digital KYC From Abroad From 3 December
SEBI NRI KYC rules have been overhauled. A non-resident Indian, an OCI cardholder or a foreign national living in a country that complies with FATF standards can now open a trading, demat or mutual fund account with a SEBI-registered intermediary without coming to India. Circular No. HO/38/30/12(3)2026-MIRSD-POD2/I/25175/2026, dated 4 November 2026, applies to every individual Person Resident Outside India (PROI) onboarded from 3 December 2026. It sets out how the documents, signature, address, mobile number and in-person verification are to be handled when the client is overseas.
The change targets one condition in the KYC Master Circular of 12 October 2023. That condition required the client to be physically located in India while completing digital KYC. Because of it, an NRI in Dubai or Singapore could not finish online onboarding with a broker, depository participant or AMC unless the client was in India at the time. SEBI first floated the relaxation in its consultation paper on KYC for individual persons resident outside India in August 2026, with comments due by 4 September 2026. The final circular largely follows that proposal.
Who counts as a PROI client under the new SEBI KYC framework
The circular uses the FEMA meaning of a person resident outside India. It names three groups of individual PROI clients: NRIs, OCI cardholders and foreign nationals. The relaxed process is available only if the client lives in a FATF-compliant country. On that point the circular gives no list of its own; a footnote ties it to the details published by FATF. Clients in FATF non-compliant countries continue under the existing KYC process.
Two groups are kept out. Foreign nationals who want to invest as Foreign Portfolio Investors remain under the FPI Master Circular of 30 May 2024. And KYC completed before 3 December 2026 stays governed by the rules in force when it was done, so intermediaries do not need to redo existing PROI records only because the new circular has come in.
What changes for NRI and OCI onboarding from 3 December 2026
The table below sets out the main elements of the new process, paragraph by paragraph.
| KYC element | Requirement for an individual PROI client |
|---|---|
| Location during digital KYC | Client may be in any FATF-compliant country; intermediaries may accept digital submissions from there |
| PAN | Verified against the Income Tax database; no original or copy needs to be collected |
| Identity documents | Copy of passport, plus OCI card where applicable |
| KYC form | CERSAI individual template, as an original physical form, a scanned form under electronic signature, or a digital form under electronic signature |
| Specimen signature | Wet signature, or a cropped image under electronic signature that must be confirmed by a wet signature during video verification |
| Current address | Must be an overseas address |
| Mobile and email | Indian or international mobile number accepted; both verified by OTP or another verifiable method where feasible |
| In-person verification | Physical IPV preferred; Video In-Person Verification (VIPV) allowed where physical IPV is not feasible, subject to ten conditions |
| Upload to KRA | Within 3 working days of completing KYC |
Where the client's mobile number cannot be verified, communication is to go to the verified email address. Where the client has a mobile number and email recorded with Aadhaar, the circular prefers those details. All documents must be in English, or translated and attested by a certifying authority.
Original seen and verified: certification of documents by notary, bank or embassy
The usual rule is that the intermediary sees the original document and keeps a self-attested copy. For a client sitting abroad, the circular allows alternatives where originals are not produced: documents fetched through DigiLocker, electronic documents that can be verified with the issuer, Aadhaar-based e-KYC, or a certified copy. The certifying authorities listed in paragraph 5.5.6 are a Notary Public, an authorised official of an overseas branch of a Scheduled Commercial Bank registered in India, a branch of an overseas bank that has relationships with Indian banks, a Court Magistrate, a Judge, and the Indian Embassy or Consulate General in the client's country of residence. The intermediary must record the certifier's details, the authorised official's details and the date and time of certification.
Foreign nationals whose identity document carries no address get a separate route. They may give a document issued by a foreign government or a letter from a foreign embassy or mission in India in support of the address.
Video in-person verification conditions for NRIs
VIPV is where most of the compliance effort will sit for brokers and depository participants. Paragraph 5.5.8 lists ten conditions that every video verification of a PROI client must meet:
- client consent recorded in an auditable and alteration-proof manner;
- random actions prompted by the system, so that the session cannot be pre-recorded;
- an uninterrupted video with live GPS geo-tagging and a tamper-proof date and time stamp;
- blocking of spoofed IP addresses, VPNs and proxy servers;
- a captured IP address from India or a FATF-compliant country, matching the country stated in the KYC form and the identity document;
- a clear photograph of the client that matches the submitted photograph;
- end-to-end encryption between the client's device and the intermediary's hosting point;
- the presence of an authorised official of the intermediary;
- face liveness and spoof detection that does not exclude persons with special needs;
- concurrent audit of the VIPV.
Intermediaries may add further safeguards under their own risk management policy. The fifth condition is the practical test: if a client says she lives in Canada and her passport and KYC form say the same, the IP address captured during the call must also resolve to Canada or to India. A client travelling through a third country at the time of the call would fail the match. The KYC infrastructure as a whole must also comply with SEBI's Cyber Security and Cyber Resilience Framework.
Validated KYC records and reliance on banks and insurers
KYC Registration Agencies will now tag each attribute of a record, such as PAN, name, passport, address or mobile number, as "validated" when it has been checked against an official or source database. The record stays portable whether or not every attribute carries the tag. When an existing PROI client approaches a new intermediary, the intermediary must first retrieve the record from the KRA or, through the KRA, from the CKYC registry. It may ask for more only where the record has changed, the retrieved details are incomplete or fall short of current norms, the identity document has expired, the intermediary considers fresh verification necessary, or enhanced due diligence or a risk profile is needed.
Paragraph 5.6.2 goes further and lets an intermediary rely on KYC done by an entity regulated by another financial sector regulator, as recorded in the CKYC registry. A footnote names RBI, IRDAI, PFRDA and IFSCA. So an NRI whose KYC is already on record with an Indian bank could, in principle, open a demat account without repeating the whole exercise. Ultimate responsibility for KYC, including enhanced due diligence where the risk profile calls for it, stays with the intermediary that relies on the record.
When updated KYC details reach a KRA, it must update the record and inform every intermediary that uses that KRA for the client.
What intermediaries and their compliance teams should do before 3 December 2026
Stockbrokers, depository participants, mutual funds and their RTAs, and other registered intermediaries that onboard NRIs will need to change their onboarding journeys within a month. The video verification module must handle geo-tagging and IP matching against a FATF-compliant country rather than India, and the form flow must accept an overseas current address and international mobile numbers. Operations teams will need a checklist for certified copies that records the certifier's details. Risk teams have to decide how the client's country will be checked against FATF's published lists, because the circular leaves that to the published FATF details.
The circular also cleans up older instructions. SEBI's circular of 10 December 2025 on relaxation of the geo-tagging requirement for NRIs undertaking re-KYC stands superseded, as the new process covers re-KYC by clients in FATF-compliant countries too. The 2011 circular on trading account opening, CIR/MIRSD/16/2011 dated 22 August 2011, is superseded to the extent stated in the new circular. The circular is issued under section 11(1) of the SEBI Act, 1992.
For NRI investors, the date to note is 3 December 2026. From then on, an NRI or OCI cardholder in a FATF-compliant country can complete a fresh account opening or a re-KYC from abroad, provided the intermediary's video verification and document checks meet the conditions above.
Official source: View the official source document
