Getting paid from India: methods, fees, timelines
You have been approved, you have done the work, and now a US company needs to send you dollars in India. This is where a surprising amount of money quietly disappears - and where most guides give advice that has been out of date since 2016.
Every fee below comes from the provider's own published pricing page. Nothing here is estimated.
The three routes, by real cost
| Route | Published cost | Speed |
|---|---|---|
| Payoneer (local currency account) | Free to receive; $1.50 flat to withdraw same-country local currency | Minutes to hours |
| Payoneer (non-local currency) | 1% to receive (min $1.00); 1.2%–4% to withdraw with conversion | Minutes to hours |
| Wise | Conversion from 1.16%; GST charged at 18% of the fees | Usually same or next day |
| PayPal | 4.40% + fixed fee, plus 3.0%–4.0% FX margin | Fast, but by far the most expensive |
| Direct SWIFT bank wire | Bank fees often exceed ₹1,000, plus poor FX | 2–5 business days |
Sources: Payoneer pricing, Wise India pricing, PayPal India merchant fees, and Payoneer's India receiving guide.
The headline: PayPal's cross-border receiving rate in India is 4.40% plus a fixed fee, and conversion adds 3% above the base rate on top. On $2,000 a month that is meaningfully more than a hundred dollars gone before you have paid any tax.
“If you take one thing from this article: do not receive AI-gig income through PayPal in India if Payoneer or Wise is offered.”
The FIRC problem
Your accountant or bank will ask for a FIRC - a Foreign Inward Remittance Certificate - as proof the money came from abroad. You will go looking for one and be confused, because it is not what you will be given.
Physical FIRCs were discontinued in 2016. Authorised dealer banks now issue a FIRA, FIRS or NOC instead. FIRC proper is now issued exclusively for foreign direct investment and foreign institutional investment - not for export of services.
Practically: Payoneer supplies a FIRA, FIRS or NOC free, within 24 to 72 hours of payment, downloadable for 180 days. Wise states it issues an eFIRC for every transfer. Download these as you go - retrieving them a year later at tax time is painful.
GST, in plain terms
Working for a foreign client from India is an export of services, and the rules are specific. This section follows TaxGuru's breakdown of GST for freelancers, which cites the underlying sections.
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| When must I register? | ₹20 lakh aggregate turnover (₹10 lakh in special category states), Sec. 22 CGST Act |
| Do I charge GST to a US client? | No - it is a zero-rated export under Sec. 16, IGST Act, if the conditions are met |
| What do I need to export without paying IGST? | A Letter of Undertaking via Form RFD-11, renewed annually |
| What rate applies otherwise? | 18% on professional/consulting services (SAC 9983) |
| What if payment is late? | Under Rule 96A, if not received within one year, GST becomes payable with interest |
One of the five conditions for zero-rating is that payment is received in convertible foreign exchange. That is precisely what your FIRA evidences - which is why the paperwork above matters beyond bookkeeping.
This is general information, not tax advice. Rules change and your situation may differ; confirm with a CA before filing.
Purpose codes are the other common snag - banks ask for one on your first inward remittance and most freelancers have never heard of them.
Setting it up
- Open the receiving account before your first payout, not after. Onboarding takes days; payment cycles do not wait.
- Match the currency. A local-currency Payoneer receiving account is free; a non-local one costs 1%.
- Download every FIRA as it arrives. They expire from the portal after 180 days.
- Keep a separate account for foreign income. It makes the annual reconciliation dramatically easier.
- Track gross and net separately. Your effective hourly rate is after fees and FX, not before.
What we could not verify
Aggregator blogs widely quote a "Payoneer FX is 2–3% below mid-market" figure. That number does not appear on Payoneer's own pricing page, which publishes 0.50% for balance conversion and 1.2%–4% for bank withdrawal. We are not repeating it. Similarly, we could not extract an exact Wise USD→INR receiving percentage from Wise's calculator, so we quote only their published "from 1.16%" conversion figure.
Related: our pay report across 341 listings covers gross rates before any of these deductions.
Some outbound links to platforms are referral links. Fee figures are taken from providers' published pricing pages and were verified in July 2026.