How this year was decided
Year by year
Past years show whether you were resident. From the year you return, each year is NRI, RNOR or ROR. Projected years use your planned days per year.
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What tips the balance
What your status means
General treatment only. Whether a particular item counts as foreign or Indian income depends on the facts, so check before acting on it.
How it's calculated
Resident or not. You are resident in a financial year if you were in India 182 days or more, or 60 days or more plus 365 days or more in the four years before. For Indian citizens and OCI/PIO cardholders living abroad and visiting, the 60 days becomes 182. From FY 2020-21 it becomes 120 if your Indian income (other than foreign-source income) is above ₹15 lakh. For an Indian citizen leaving for a job abroad, it becomes 182 in that year. Foreign nationals always use 60. Each past year uses its own rule. Years you were abroad count as visiting unless you change them. After you return, future years use the 60-day rule if you move back for good, or the visitor rule if you still live abroad.
RNOR or ROR. A resident is RNOR if they were non-resident in 9 of the 10 previous years, or spent 729 days or less in India in the 7 previous years. From FY 2020-21 you are also automatically RNOR if you are resident only through the 120-day rule, or if you are a deemed resident: an Indian citizen with Indian income above ₹15 lakh who is not liable to tax in any other country. Deemed residence is checked for every year from FY 2020-21. Your answers about income and tax apply to every year, unless you set past years one by one. A deemed-resident year counts as a resident year in the 9-of-10 test. Otherwise you are ROR.
Law. Section 6 of the Income-tax Act, 1961, carried into the Income-tax Act, 2025 from tax year 2026-27 with the same tests: residence in Section 6(2), the job and visitor rules in 6(3), deemed residence in 6(7). Not modelled: the exact counting of arrival and departure days, partial years of leaving India for reasons other than a job, and tax treaty tie-breaker rules. These can change your result.