The thresholds, by scheme type

GIFT City runs under its own regulator, the IFSCA, and its minimums are set in US dollars rather than rupees.

  • Restricted (non-retail) scheme: from US $150,000. US $40,000 for employees and directors of the manager. Capped at 1,000 investors
  • Venture capital scheme: from US $250,000. US $60,000 for employees and directors. Capped at 50 investors
  • IFSC portfolio management: from US $75,000, reduced from $150,000 under the older rules
  • Retail scheme: no per-investor minimum

One trap in the numbers

You will sometimes see US $10,000 quoted as "the GIFT City minimum". That figure is real but narrow: it applies only to close-ended retail schemes investing more than 15% in unlisted securities. It is not a general retail minimum.

Who is allowed to invest?

The rules list eligible investors directly. A person resident outside India. A non-resident Indian. A non-individual resident in India eligible under exchange-control rules to invest offshore. And an individual resident in India, to the extent allowed under the liberalised remittance scheme.

That last line matters. A resident Indian is capped by the annual remittance allowance of US $250,000. An NRI investing as a non-resident is not.

Accreditation does not carry across

IFSCA has its own accredited investor definition, and it is a different regime from SEBI's.

Being accredited under SEBI does not make you accredited in GIFT City, or the other way round. Never assume one status does the work of the other.

Does a lower minimum mean lower risk?

No. A minimum tells you who the regulator thinks should be in the room, not how the strategy behaves.

A US $75,000 IFSC mandate can hold a far more concentrated book than a ₹1 crore Indian AIF. Read what it invests in, not what it costs to enter.