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Which date does Rule 115 actually fix?
Rule 115(1) converts foreign-currency income at “the telegraphic transfer buying rate of such currency as on the specified date”. The specified date is not the date you were paid, and it is not the date you file. It is defined head by head.
| Head of income | Specified date |
|---|---|
| Salaries — including an RSU or ESOP perquisite | Last day of the month immediately preceding the month in which the salary is due, or is paid in advance or in arrears |
| Interest on securities | Last day of the month immediately preceding the month in which the income is due |
| Dividends | Last day of the month immediately preceding the month in which the dividend is declared, distributed or paid |
| Capital gains | Last day of the month immediately preceding the month in which the capital asset is transferred |
| House property; profits and gains of business or profession; income from other sources | Last day of the previous year — that is, 31 March |
The row people miss is the last one. Ordinary interest on a foreign bank deposit is not “interest on securities”. It falls under income from other sources, and takes the 31 March rate — not a month-end rate. A foreign corporate debenture may itself be a security, so do not assume every coupon takes the 31 March date.
Two further points. Where the income is payable in foreign currency and tax has been deducted at source under Rule 26, the specified date shifts to the date on which the tax was required to be deducted. And a non-resident’s capital gains on shares in, or debentures of, an Indian company are governed by Rule 115A, not Rule 115.
Schedule FA works differently. The ITR instructions convert each figure at the rate as on its own relevant date: the peak balance at the rate on the date the peak occurred, the value of an investment at the rate on the date of investment, and foreign-sourced income at the rate on the closing date of the calendar year. The closing balance is converted at the 31 December rate, being the closing date of the reporting period — the instructions imply this rather than expressly state it.
Rule 115 governs the income reported in the returns being filed this season. The Income-tax Act, 2025 took effect on 1 April 2026 and its rules carry the same SBI TT buying rate mechanism forward; we will update the references here once the successor numbering settles in practice. Talk to us if your facts sit near an edge.
Three things that trip people up
- It is not the reference rate. The reference rate for USD/INR and the other majors is published by FBIL — the Reserve Bank of India stopped computing it with effect from 10 July 2018. It is a market benchmark, and it is not the rate the Income-tax Rules ask for. Rule 115 requires the State Bank of India’s TT buying rate.
- It is not today’s rate. Rule 115 fixes a “specified date” that varies by head of income. For salary it is the last day of the month before the month the salary fell due. For ordinary foreign bank interest it is 31 March. Neither is the date you were credited, and neither is the date you file.
- TT Buy, not TT Sell. SBI quotes buy and sell rates for four transfer modes — TT, Bill, Forex Travel Card and Currency Notes. Converting foreign income into rupees for tax uses the TT buying rate. Bill, Card and CN rates have no role in tax conversion.
Get any one of these wrong and the rupee figure on your ITR or Schedule FA will not match what an assessing officer pulls up.
The archive, currency by currency
Two files per currency. The full rate card is SBI’s published card exactly as issued — TT Buy, TT Sell, Bill Buy, Bill Sell, Forex Travel Card Buy/Sell and CN Buy/Sell, for every date SBI published one. Nothing re-typed, nothing re-calculated. For your ITR or Schedule FA you only need one column of it: TT BUY.
The TT Buy extract is a derived file, and we say so plainly: one row per date, the 54 zero-rate rows removed, the eleven intraday duplicates resolved to the later card, and a computed INR per 1 unit column added so the JPY hundred-unit quotation cannot bite you.
| Currency | Full published card | TT Buy only (derived) |
|---|---|---|
| USD — US Dollar | CSV · XLSX | CSV · XLSX |
| EUR — Euro | CSV · XLSX | CSV · XLSX |
| GBP — Pound Sterling | CSV · XLSX | CSV · XLSX |
| JPY — Japanese Yen (quoted per 100 yen) | CSV · XLSX | CSV · XLSX |
Updated periodically as new rates are published. Need a currency that is not listed? Write to us — most other majors can be sourced on request.
Four things the raw card will not tell you
- SBI quotes the yen per 100 units. A JPY TT Buy of 59.01 means ₹0.5901 per yen, not ₹59.01. Converting ¥10,00,000 at 59.01 overstates the rupee figure a hundredfold. For JPY, divide by 100 first — or use the INR per 1 unit column, which already has. SBI applies the same hundred-unit convention to the Thai baht and Korean won.
- A TT Buy of 0 is not a rate of zero. On 54 dates in this archive — all Saturdays — SBI published a card showing TT Buy and TT Sell as 0, because no telegraphic transfer was dealt that day. The Bill, Card and CN columns still carry figures. Do not convert at zero; step back to the last date with a published TT rate.
- Some dates are missing, including month-ends. SBI did not publish on every date. Of the 76 month-ends between January 2020 and April 2026, 21 carry no usable TT buying rate, and five of those are ordinary weekdays — 30 November 2020, 30 November 2021, 31 August 2022, 30 April 2024 and 31 March 2025 — so “SBI does not publish at weekends” does not explain them. 31 December 2023 is absent too, which is exactly the date Schedule FA closing balances for AY 2024-25 need; the last preceding card is 30 December 2023.
- SBI sometimes revises a card intraday. On eleven dates it published two cards at different times of day, and for at least one currency the two carry different TT Buy values — eight of them for USD. Both cards are validly “as on” that date and no rule chooses between them. The lookup and the derived file show the later card, and the lookup tells you when the value actually moved.
How to use this for your filing
- Identify the specified date. Not the date you were paid. For salary and for an RSU or ESOP perquisite, it is the last day of the month before the month the income fell due or was paid. For ordinary foreign bank interest it is 31 March. For Schedule FA, the peak balance takes the rate on the date the peak occurred and the closing balance takes the 31 December rate. The lookup above works this out for you.
- Find that date in the archive. If SBI published no TT buying rate on it, step back to the last date on which it did — and record which date you used and why.
- Read the TT BUY column. Ignore Bill, Forex Travel Card and CN; they have no role in tax conversion.
- Convert. For USD, EUR and GBP, rupees = foreign-currency amount × TT Buy. For JPY, rupees = amount × (TT Buy ÷ 100).
This is a reference tool, not a filing position. Schedule FA in particular has specific rules on which balance to report and which date governs it, and the instructions do not resolve whether the peak is the highest foreign-currency balance converted at that day’s rate or the highest day-wise rupee figure. If you are not sure which applies to your facts, a short call resolves it faster than second-guessing the sheet.
Questions we are asked
What is the SBI TT buying rate?
It is the rate at which the State Bank of India buys foreign currency through a telegraphic transfer — one of eight rates SBI publishes daily, alongside Bill, Forex Travel Card and Currency Notes rates. The Explanation to Rule 26 defines it as the rate of exchange adopted by the State Bank of India for buying such currency, having regard to guidelines specified by the Reserve Bank of India. Rule 115 adopts that definition for converting foreign income.
TT Buy or TT Sell for Schedule FA?
TT Buy. The same applies whether you are converting foreign salary, dividends or a foreign bank balance.
Is the SBI TTBR the same as the RBI reference rate?
No, and there is no longer an RBI reference rate. The Reserve Bank stopped computing it with effect from 10 July 2018; FBIL has published the reference rate since. That benchmark is a different number from a different institution, and the Income-tax Rules do not use it. They use SBI’s TT buying rate.
Which date’s rate applies to my foreign salary?
The TT buying rate as on the last day of the month immediately preceding the month in which the salary became due, or was paid in advance or in arrears. The same date applies to an RSU or ESOP perquisite, which is taxed as salary.
Which date’s rate applies to Schedule FA?
Each figure takes the rate on its own relevant date. The peak balance is converted at the rate as on the date the peak occurred — not the 31 December rate. Foreign-sourced income such as interest is converted at the rate on the closing date of the calendar year. The closing balance is converted at the 31 December rate, that being the closing date of the reporting period. Schedule FA follows the calendar year ending 31 December, not the Indian financial year, and it appears only in ITR-2 and ITR-3.
What if SBI published no rate on my specified date?
Rule 115 fixes the date and is silent on what happens when SBI dealt no telegraphic transfer that day. There is no CBDT circular or ruling prescribing a fallback. The common and defensible practice, and the one this tool follows, is to take the last preceding date on which SBI actually published a TT buying rate — applied consistently, with the dated card retained on file.
Why can I not just use a Google currency conversion?
A live conversion gives today’s market mid-rate, not the historical SBI TT buying rate on the date the Rules specify. The rupee figure will differ from the technically correct one, and the mismatch surfaces at scrutiny.
How often is this archive updated?
Periodically. If a date you need is not yet covered, write to us and we will source it.
Reference only. The rates published here are taken from SBI’s own published rate cards and are provided for reference. Swati K & Co. is not affiliated with the State Bank of India. Always verify the applicable rate and date against your specific facts, or consult us, before using a figure in a filed return.
The rate is the easy part.
Schedule FA disclosure — what counts as a foreign asset, which threshold applies, and what happens if a prior year was missed — is where most NRI and RSU-holding clients actually need help.