Residential Status - How to determine.

The answer is very simple, and depends on how many days you spend out of India. The entire question arises only when it comes to tax payment. Whether your income is taxable in this country or in another country? From a taxation point of view, you can either be a Resident or a Non Resident.

Further, as a Resident, you can either be Resident and Ordinarily Resident or Resident Not Ordinarily Resident.
To be Resident, you need to fulfill any 1 of the following 2 basic conditions, regarding your time spent in India during the previous Financial Year (01 April to 31 March):

1. If you were in India in that year for a single period or multiple periods amounting in all to 182 days or more; or
2. If you were in India in that year for a single period or multiple periods amounting in all to 60 days or more and if you have, within the 4 years preceding that year, been in India for a single period or multiple periods amounting in all to 365 days or more.

There are a couple of exceptions to the rule given above. The exception is as follows-
The period of 60 days mentioned above becomes 182 days in case of a Citizen of India who:

1. Leaves India in any previous year as a member of the crew of an Indian ship or
2. Leaves for the purpose of employment outside India; or
3. is a Citizen of India, or a person of Indian origin, and being outside India, comes on a visit to India in any previous year.

So, to be resident in India, you need to meet any one of the above two basic conditions. If you don’t satisfy any of these conditions; you qualify as a Non Resident Indian (NRI).
To be Ordinarily Resident in India, you have to meet both of the following conditions regarding the previous financial year:

1. You should have been ‘resident in India’ (as defined above) in 2 out of 10 years preceding that year, and
2. You should have been in India for a single period or multiple periods amounting in all to 730 days or more during 7 years preceding that year.

We’re going to wrap up determination of status with an easy chart: