India’s Ministry of Home Affairs further extends FCRA eligibility
Updated October 10, 2022
On September 23, 2022, India’s Ministry of Home Affairs announced an extension of FCRA registration certificates until March 31, 2023, or until their renewal application has been processed, whichever is earlier. Many FCRA registrations had previously set to expire on September 30, 2022. The extension only applies to organizations whose FCRA renewal application is still pending approval.
Despite this announcement, nearly 6,000 FCRA licenses lapsed since they had not submitted a renewal application by September 23, 2022. Organizations whose FCRA license has expired can no longer receive foreign funding.
CAF America is actively communicating with our NGO partners to collect and review FCRA renewal certifications as quickly as possible upon approval from the Ministry. We are closely monitoring these developments so that we may continue to support our charity partners in India as we are able.
If you want to learn more about grantmaking to India, please read our blog Giving to India? Compliance with the Newly Amended FCRA.
On March 24, India’s Ministry of Home Affairs announced an extension to certain organizations’ eligibility to receive foreign funding under the Indian Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA). Following previous changes to FCRA in September 2021, many nonprofits in India were required to re-register with the Ministry of Home Affairs to maintain their licenses under the Act. This week’s extension only applies to organizations that are still awaiting a decision on submitted FCRA renewal applications.
The newly-announced expiration date is June 30th, 2022. This announcement extends the previous extension issued by the MHA in January 2022.
About FCRA
Organizations without an eligible FCRA registration number are ineligible to receive foreign contributions. If an FCRA application is rejected, they are also forbidden to utilize contributions received on the date of the rejection, which will be considered the FCRA “expiry date.”
This is what the full update says:
- All organizations that have submitted FCRA renewal applications can continue to receive funding under previous FCRA registrations until June 30th.
- FCRA-registered organizations with a 5-year validity period set to expire between April 1, 2022 and June 30, 2022 will also receive the extension until June 30th, 2022 or until the date that their renewal application concludes.
CAF America is continuously monitoring the situation so that our network is as informed and compliant as possible with foreign funding laws. Please reach out to us at info@cafamerica.org if you have any questions.
If you would like to learn more about grantmaking to India, please read our blog Giving to India? Compliance with the Newly Amended FCRA.
About the author:
Wendy Pius serves as CAF America’s Thought Leadership Officer. Through this role, she is responsible for organizational knowledge management and original content creation pertaining to international philanthropy and cross-border giving.
