Annual Return on Foreign Liabilities & Assets (FLA Return)

Annual Return on Foreign Liabilities and  Assets (FLA Return) Under FEMA 1999

FLA Return is described as Foreign Liabilities And Assets Return which is required to be submitted by all the Indian Companies which have received Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) or made Overseas Investment abroad in the previous year(s) including the current year i.e. who holds foreign Assets or Liabilities in their Balance Sheets.

Annual return on Foreign Liabilities and Assets has been notified under FEMA 1999 and it is required to be submitted by all the India resident companies which have received FDI and/ or made overseas investment in any of the previous year(s), including the current year by July 15 every year. Non-filing of the return before the due date will be treated as a violation of FEMA and penalty clause may be invoked for violation of FEMA.

Filing of FLA Return

The filing of the FLA annual return must be done before the 15 of July of the respective year. The prescribed method of filing of FLA annual return is via an excel sheet. The form is to be mailed by any authorized member of the company from their email ID to the official email ID of the RBI i.e. fla@rbi.org.in. The members of the company authorized to file the FLA return are Company Secretary, Chief Financial Officer, and Directors.

The details filed must comprise of the financial details as well as other required details in accordance with the companies audited accounts.

If the company’s accounts are not audited before the due date of submission, i.e. July 15, then the FLA Return should be submitted based on an unaudited (provisional) account. Once the accounts get audited and there are revisions from the provisional information submitted by the company, they are supposed to submit the revised FLA return based on audited accounts by the end – September.

No. Information should be reported for all the reference period, i.e. Previous March and Latest March. If the Account Closing Period of the company is different from the reference period, then the information should be given for the reference period on internal assessment.

After the filing of the FLA return, an acknowledgment mail will be sent by the RBI to the email ID of the authorized person. The format for the filing of the FLA return can be found on https://www.rbi.org.in/Scripts/BS_ViewFemaForms.aspx. Queries may be addressed by sending an e-mail to, fla@rbi.org.in.

Filing of FLA Return by Partnership Firm

If the Partnership firms, Branches, or Trustees have any outward FDI outstanding as on end-March of the reporting year, then they are required to send a request mail to get a dummy CIN number (provided by RBI) which will enable them to file the Excel-based FLA Return. If any entity has already got the dummy CIN number from the previous survey, they should use the same CIN number in the current survey also.

In Case of Transfer of Share by Non-Resident Investor to Resident Investor

If all non-resident shareholders of a company have transferred their shares to the residents during the reporting period and the company does not have any outstanding investment in respect of inward and outward FDI as on end-March of the reporting year, then the company need not submit the FLA Return.