🪔 Friday 6 November 2026 · Mumbai
The gold you can't carry home
Dhanteras is the day India buys gold. It is also the day a lot of NRIs buy the one form of it that gets no duty-free allowance at all.
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6 Nov
Dhanteras ·
8 Nov
Lakshmi Puja ·
11 Nov
Bhai Dooj
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Happy Diwali. This issue is short and about two things only: the gold you buy this week, and the money you send home for it.
The baggage rules were rewritten this year and almost nobody noticed. If you are flying in carrying something gold, the rules you remember are not the rules in force.
— Amish
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What changed
The allowance is now a weight, not a value
Baggage Rules 2026 came into force on 2 February. Three things in them land on you this week.
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Gold · Customs
New duty-free limit: 40g for women, 20g for men
The old rupee ceiling is gone, replaced by a straight weight allowance — 40 grams for a female passenger, 20 grams for everyone else, as jewellery in bona fide baggage. Simpler, and for most people more generous than the cap it replaced. (Notification 14/2026-Customs (N.T.), in force 2 February 2026.)
→ The catch: the allowance is only for someone who has been resident abroad more than one year. Under a year it is not reduced — it is zero. And it covers jewellery, not loose metal.
Gold · The Dhanteras purchase
Coins and bars get no allowance at all
This is the part nobody mentions on Dhanteras. Coins and bars count as gold in raw form, so they sit outside the jewellery allowance entirely — there is no duty-free quantity, not one gram. They must be declared, and they are dutiable from the first gram.
→ The catch: the coin is the classic festival purchase and the worst way to bring gold into India. The rate itself moved this year and the figures in circulation disagree, so check the current one on CBIC before you fly — rather than trusting a number in a blog post, this one included.
Declarations · Atithi 2.0
Declarations now go through an app
Digital declaration through the Atithi 2.0 app is now required for dutiable goods. Filing before you land takes about two minutes.
→ The catch: when declaring meant a paper form at a desk, not declaring was a thing that happened. When it is an app you were required to use before boarding, not declaring becomes a decision with a timestamp on it.
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The take
Gifts to relatives are not taxed
Every Diwali someone asks whether sending money to their parents will be taxed. It will not be. The thing that actually produces a letter is something else.
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Under section 56(2), a gift from a relative is fully exempt in the recipient's hands — and "relative" is drawn widely: parents, siblings, children, spouse, the spouse's siblings, the parents' siblings, and any lineal ascendant or descendant. There is no ceiling. ₹5,000 and ₹50,00,000 are treated identically.
₹50,000
That is the only number that matters, and it belongs to the other case — a gift to someone who is not a relative. Cross it and the whole amount becomes taxable in their hands, not just the excess.
Above ₹5 lakh your bank may still want Form 15CA. That is paperwork, not tax.
So where does the notice come from? Not the gift. It comes from an unexplained credit years later, when nobody can say where the money originated. The fix costs nothing: keep the transfer reference, and write one line somewhere you will find it again — who sent it, to whom, what relationship, what date. The question asked in 2031 is never "was this a gift?" It is "where did this come from?"
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What still arrives
Five days, three that matter
Courier windows for most things have closed. These have not.
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| Jewellery on courier | closed — 2 Nov |
| Hampers, décor, appliances | closed — 3 Nov |
| Tier-2 city delivery | closed — 5 Nov |
| Same-day metro — sweets, flowers, cakes | open · to 8 Nov, 4 PM IST |
| Gold bought in India by family | open · today |
| Transfer for Bhai Dooj | open · send by 9 Nov |
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The longer version — which gold routes are actually open to an NRI, why Sovereign Gold Bonds and PPF are not among them, and what still arrives in time — is on the site.
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Happy Diwali to you and yours.
— Amish
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NRI Money Matters
A weekly letter for Indians abroad, and the ones figuring out the way back.
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