What is FC-GPR? Foreign money, a 30-day clock, and the RBI

The moment a person resident outside India is allotted shares in your company, the RBI wants to know. Form FC-GPR, filed on the FIRMS portal within 30 days of allotment, is how it finds out.

The pack is where founders lose time: the FIRC (the bank’s certificate of the inward remittance), a KYC report on the remitter from the AD bank, a valuation certificate (the issue price must not be below the certified fair value, computed by an internationally accepted methodology), a company-secretary certificate, board resolutions, and shareholding patterns before and after. Chasing your bank for the FIRC is routinely the slowest step — start early.

Two clocks run in parallel that people confuse: instruments must be ISSUED within 60 days of the money arriving (or refunded within 15 days), and the FC-GPR must be FILED within 30 days of the allotment. And none of it can be filed at all until the company exists in the RBI’s Entity Master — a one-time registration founders discover at the deadline.

Missing the 30 days is not fatal, but it is priced: the RBI’s Late Submission Fee regime applies, and the delay becomes a permanent part of your FEMA record — the kind of thing that surfaces in a later round’s diligence.