UAE-Based Association Asks For Clarity On India's Gold Carrying Rules

A UAE-based organisation has lodged a formal request to the Indian government to clarify gold carrying rules for expats in the country. The Indian Association of Sharjah sent a memorandum to the country's finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday asking to remove the ambiguities in the customs baggage declaration regulations to keep in line with current gold prices.

“This is a huge issue that Indian expats face when traveling to their home country at airports,” said Nizar Thalangara, the president of the organisation.

“The law regulating how much gold an expat can carry home was designed almost a decade ago and doesn't reflect the current realities. At a time when gold prices have climbed to record highs, many expat travellers are having to pay huge amounts as duty for small amounts of gold because of this old valuation.”

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According to current rules, women can carry up to 40g of gold jewellery worth Rs100,000 (approx. Dh4,200) and men can carry up to 20g of gold, subject to a value cap of Rs50,000 (Dh2,100) when travelling to India from abroad.

When the notification of gold-carrying rules was issued in 2016, the price of 22K gold was around Rs2,500 (Dh104), the memorandum said. However, gold prices have more than tripled now and stand at over Dh400. This means that 40g of gold is now worth over Dh16,000 and 20g of 22K gold is valued at over Dh8,000.

“This discrepancy creates confusion for passengers as well as difficulties for the authorities in implementation,” it said.

“The mismatch between the stipulated value and the present market reality often leads to unnecessary disputes at customs checkpoints, inconvenience for genuine travellers and regrettably, it also opens the door for corrupt practices.”

“Such situations not only cause distress to expat Indians but also place an avoidable burden on customs officials in carrying out their duties,” said Nizar.“So, the memo requests the value cap in the notification be deleted and for passengers to be allowed a specified weight of gold ornaments.”

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