Yes, an Indian resident can buy property in Dubai, and the RBI says so directly. The route is the Liberalised Remittance Scheme, which permits up to USD 250,000 per individual per financial year across all purposes combined. The structure matters as much as the number: FEMA starts from a prohibition on acquiring property abroad, and LRS is the permission carved out of it. Plan the remittance before you plan the purchase.
The Liberalised Remittance Scheme — your actual ceiling
The RBI's Master Direction is unambiguous on the limit: "Authorised Dealers may freely allow remittances by resident individuals up to USD 2,50,000 per Financial Year (April-March)". And the scheme's own list of permissible capital account transactions expressly includes acquisition of immovable property abroad. So the permission is not ambiguous and it does not need to be argued for.
The RBI states it even more plainly in its public FAQ: "A resident individual can send remittances under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS) for purchasing immovable property outside India."
The practical trap is that the limit is shared. USD 250,000 is a per-individual annual ceiling across all LRS purposes — education, travel, investment, maintenance of relatives, gifts. A property purchase does not get its own allowance. If you have already remitted for university fees this financial year, that money has come out of the same envelope.
Which is why, for an Indian buyer specifically, the payment schedule is not a detail. A staged off-plan plan that spreads instalments across financial years fits the LRS structure considerably better than a purchase demanding a large single transfer — and that is a genuine, structural reason to think carefully about payment terms rather than a sales argument for them.
FEMA starts from prohibition
This is the part most guides omit, and it changes how you should read everything else. The Foreign Exchange Management (Overseas Investment) Rules begin from a restriction, not a freedom: "Save as otherwise provided in the Act or this rule, no person resident in India shall acquire or transfer any immovable property situated outside India".
LRS is one of the things that "otherwise provides". So the correct mental model is not "Indians can buy property abroad and there happens to be a cap". It is "acquiring property abroad is restricted, and LRS is the permitted route through it". Staying inside the route is what keeps the purchase clean.
In practice that means your authorised dealer bank is not an obstacle to be worked around — it is the institution applying the scheme, and it carries the compliance obligation. Involve it early, get the structure confirmed in writing, and keep the paper trail. Everything later, including the eventual sale and repatriation, is easier when the first transfer was documented properly.
Sources: RBI — Master Direction on the Liberalised Remittance Scheme, RBI — LRS FAQs and Foreign Exchange Management (Overseas Investment) Rules, 2022.
Tax collected at source — and why I will not quote you a rate
Remittances under LRS attract tax collected at source, and the legal basis has just changed. TCS on LRS previously sat under section 206C(1G) of the Income-tax Act, 1961. It now sits under section 394(1) of the Income-tax Act, 2025, which came into force on 1 April 2026. If you are reading guidance written before that date, it is citing a provision that has been superseded.
I am not quoting a TCS rate, threshold or computation base on this page. Under the new Act I could not confirm the computation base from a primary source, and the surcharge position under the Finance Act, 2026 is a further question again. Publishing a number I cannot source would be worse than publishing nothing — and you would have no way to tell. Your chartered accountant can give you the current figure against your actual remittance. Treat any page quoting you a precise 2026 TCS number without citing the Act with real caution.
The point that is safe to make: TCS is a cash-flow event at the moment of remittance, not a final tax. It is creditable against your Indian liability. So it affects how much you need available on the day, which matters when you are timing an instalment — plan for it rather than being surprised by it.
Your Indian tax position does not disappear
"Dubai is tax-free" is true about Dubai. It says nothing about India. An Indian resident's tax position is determined by Indian residence rules, and the UAE declining to tax your rental income does not create an Indian exemption. Foreign assets and foreign income also carry reporting obligations on the Indian return — a disclosure question as much as a tax one, and the disclosure side is where people get into difficulty.
I am not going to walk you through Indian tax computation on a property page; that is a chartered accountant's work and it depends on your residential status, which can itself change. What I will say is that the net return an Indian buyer actually keeps is structurally different from the net return a Gulf-resident buyer keeps on the identical unit — and a model that ignores that is not a model.
I advise on the property investment — value, structure, risk and exit. I do not give personalised Indian tax or FEMA advice, and no property page should. Speak to a chartered accountant and to your authorised dealer bank before committing capital.
What this means practically
- Plan the remittance before the purchase. The LRS year runs April to March and the limit is shared across every purpose. Work out what is genuinely available this year before you commit to a payment schedule.
- Treat the bank as part of the deal. Your authorised dealer applies the scheme. Confirm the structure with them in writing early rather than discovering a constraint at the second instalment.
- Favour schedules that match the constraint. Staged payments across financial years sit more comfortably inside LRS than a single large transfer. Judge the plan on that as well as on price.
- Budget TCS as cash flow. It is creditable, but it is money you need on the day.
- Get the Indian tax picture first, not last. It changes the net figure you should be underwriting against.
Remote purchase, moving money, letting strategy, management at distance and the honest tax framing.
The payment-schedule question matters more for an Indian buyer than for almost anyone else, so it is worth reading properly: Dubai payment plans explained. And if you are considering financing rather than remitting, note that off-plan lending is capped at 50% loan-to-value for every category of purchaser — what the mortgage regulation actually says.
Every regulatory statement on this page is quoted from the Reserve Bank of India or the Foreign Exchange Management (Overseas Investment) Rules, 2022, linked above, and was verified on 26 September 2026. No TCS rate, threshold or computation base is quoted anywhere on this page, because the computation base under the Income-tax Act, 2025 could not be confirmed from a primary source. No off-plan-specific regulatory treatment is asserted, because no primary source addresses under-construction property separately. Rules change — confirm the current position with the RBI, your authorised dealer bank and a chartered accountant before acting. This is information, not tax, legal or financial advice.