Why most houses say no
Not Indian law. American law.
Accepting your subscription can pull the fund inside US securities rules. A foreign fund publicly offering into the United States needs a registration that is expensive and, in practice, almost never granted. Declining is cheaper than complying.
Canada creates a similar problem through its own provincial registration rules.
What the ones that accept you will ask for
Expect more friction than a resident gets.
- Paper application rather than an online one
- An additional declaration about your US or Canadian status
- US tax documentation, usually a W-9
- Sometimes an in-person or in-India signature
We are deliberately not publishing a list
Which houses accept you changes month to month, and it changes without announcement. A list published today is wrong within a quarter, and a wrong list on this subject wastes your time and damages ours.
We keep a current one from our own empanelments and send it on request. Ask the desk and you get what is true this week, not what was true last year.
The question worth asking first
Before hunting for a house that will take you, decide whether you want the product.
For a US taxpayer, an Indian mutual fund is almost always a PFIC. That means tax at the top marginal rate with an interest charge, and a Form 8621 for every fund, every year. A fund saying yes does not make that go away.
There is a structure that avoids it. A PMS holds operating-company shares directly in your own name, and operating companies are not PFICs. Same market, same manager skill, completely different US tax outcome.