Can a Nepali resident legally buy US stocks? The 2082/83 rules
Can a Nepali resident legally open Interactive Brokers and buy Apple or Tesla shares? What the Investment Abroad Act and NRB rules actually allow in 2082/83.
A friend who codes for a US startup asked me the obvious question over coffee: he watches Nvidia and Tesla every morning on his phone, has a Wise account, and wanted to know how to move Rs 8 lakh into Interactive Brokers and start buying. His logic was reasonable. The money is his, the broker is one signup away, and the app shows him the prices already.
The app showing you a price is not the same as the law letting you send money to it. The honest answer took him by surprise: a person resident in Nepal cannot legally do this, and the route most people use to do it anyway is the same illegal channel that funds hundi.
This post is the boring legal layer under that disappointment. What Nepal's law says about a resident investing abroad, what the 2025 reforms actually changed (and for whom), why NRNs are a separate case, and what happens to the people who route money out through the back door.
What the law actually says
Nepal does not have a single "you may not buy foreign stocks" notice. The prohibition is built from two older statutes that stack on top of each other.
The first is the Act Restricting Investment Abroad, 2021 (1964 AD). Its operative line, Section 3(1), is short: no one shall make any kind of investment abroad after the Act commenced. The Act then defines "investment" to include foreign securities, a partnership in a foreign firm, a foreign bank account, and real estate situated abroad. Buying US-listed shares is squarely a foreign security. Section 3(2) lets the Government of Nepal grant exemptions by publishing a notice in the Nepal Gazette, but no such notice has ever opened the door for a resident individual to buy foreign listed shares.
The second is the Foreign Exchange (Regulation) Act, 2019 (1962 AD), administered by Nepal Rastra Bank. This is the law that controls every rupee and every security crossing the border. Under it, a resident needs NRB permission to open a bank account abroad or to transmit securities out, and foreign currency cannot be used for capital-account transactions like buying foreign shares without specific NRB sanction. Nepal's capital account is not freely convertible. That single fact is why your bank will sell you dollars for a holiday but not to wire into a brokerage.
| Law | Year | What it does to a foreign-stock purchase |
|---|---|---|
| Act Restricting Investment Abroad | 2021 BS / 1964 | Prohibits "investment abroad," and foreign securities are named in the definition |
| Foreign Exchange (Regulation) Act | 2019 BS / 1962 | NRB controls all cross-border money/securities; no individual permission for portfolio investment |
Read together, the answer for a resident is no. Not "risky," not "grey." Prohibited.
The penalty layer
The Investment Abroad Act carries its own punishment: a fine equal to the amount invested, or imprisonment up to six months, or both, with a small daily fine for a continuing violation. That figure dates to 1964 and reads as nominal today.
The heavier exposure is under the foreign-exchange law. Moving money out through an unauthorised channel is the same category of offence that the crypto and online-forex post covers in detail, where the foreign exchange involved is forfeited and the fine runs to a multiple of the amount, with prison time on the books for serious cases. The mechanism a resident would use to fund a foreign broker is what gets prosecuted, not the act of clicking "buy" on Tesla.
Why there is no legal channel for an individual
People assume that because they can legally buy dollars, they can legally invest them. The dollar facilities a resident can access are each ring-fenced to a purpose, and investment is not one of them.
| Facility | Amount | What it is for | Can it buy foreign shares? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Passport / travel facility | ~USD 3,000 per trip | Travel expenses against ticket and visa | No |
| Prepaid dollar card | USD 500/year | Online subscriptions, e-commerce, software | No, NRB bars investment use |
| Foreign-currency (dollar) account | Eligibility-based | Holding FC for those who qualify (exporters, some earners) | No, not for portfolio investment |
The USD 500 dollar card explicitly cannot be used for international stock trading, the same way it cannot fund crypto or gambling. The travel forex facility is tied to a confirmed itinerary. A dollar account is for people who already earn or hold foreign currency legitimately, and even then it is not a back door into Robinhood. There is no individual-investor licence to apply for. NRB simply does not issue one.
What the 2025 reform changed, and who it was for
For years the message was "Nepal will let people invest abroad soon." In 2025 something real happened, and it is worth understanding precisely, because the headlines made it sound broader than it is.
A new Section 10A ("Regulation of Investment Abroad") was added to the Foreign Exchange Act, backed by the Act to Amend Some Nepal Acts Relating to Improving Economic and Business Environment and Enhancing Investment, 2081 (2025), which the House passed in March 2025. It permits outward investment only by named categories:
- Industries already exempted under the Investment Abroad Act
- Registered IT companies, in IT-related sectors
- Entities earning foreign currency from service exports
- Resident employees acquiring ESOP shares in a foreign parent or subsidiary, without remitting convertible currency out of Nepal
NRB then set the IT limits in June 2025, aligned with the FY 2082/83 budget: a registered IT company can invest abroad up to 50% of its three-year average foreign-exchange earnings from service exports, or a maximum of USD 1 million, whichever is lower, with NRB deciding within 15 working days. A separate December 2025 amendment let a Nepali company invest up to USD 20,000 abroad without prior approval.
Notice the common word across every one of these: company, industry, employer's ESOP. None of them is "a resident individual buying listed shares for themselves." The reform is for businesses building or acquiring abroad, and for staff handed equity by a foreign employer. A salaried saver in Lalitpur who wants the S&P 500 still has no pathway.
NRNs are a different case entirely
This trips people up, so it is worth stating flatly. A Non-Resident Nepali, someone living and earning abroad, is not a Nepal resident for foreign-exchange purposes. They can invest where they live, using money earned there, under that country's rules. The NRN framework also lets them invest back into Nepal, which is the subject of the NRN-in-NEPSE post.
What that framework never does is let a person sitting in Kathmandu send rupees out to a foreign market. The direction matters. Income earned abroad, invested abroad, by someone resident abroad: fine. Rupees earned in Nepal, sent abroad, by a Nepal resident: prohibited.
How people do it anyway, and what it actually risks
The workaround is no secret. Someone with a relative or contact abroad sends rupees through hundi, the money lands in a foreign account as dollars, and that funds the brokerage. Others buy USDT through peer-to-peer crypto and off-ramp it abroad, which the crypto post already covers as illegal.
Both routes are foreign-exchange offences. Hundi specifically is prosecuted under the unauthorised-foreign-exchange-transaction provisions of the criminal code, and enforcement is not theoretical. After Nepal landed on the FATF grey list, police ran crackdowns with arrests in the dozens, and single operations involved illegal transfers in the billions of rupees. The risk is not only the fine. It is that the money sits in an offshore account with no legal standing in Nepal. If the broker freezes the account, or a dispute arises, a Nepali court cannot help you, because the position you are defending is itself unlawful.
There is a quieter cost too. Money parked in a foreign brokerage through an informal channel is invisible to your tax filing and your own records. The day you want to bring gains home, there is no clean paper trail showing the money left legally, which is its own problem.
What you can actually do from Nepal instead
The frustrating truth is that no domestic instrument gives you foreign-equity exposure. Nepali mutual funds hold their equity almost entirely in NEPSE-listed securities by regulation; none tracks a foreign index, and there is no NEPSE-listed ETF holding US shares. So the realistic menu is the local one: NEPSE equities and mutual fund SIPs for growth, FDs and bonds for safety. The FD vs mutual fund vs CIT post lays out the three you can legally reach.
If your goal is genuinely diversification away from Nepal, the only fully legal versions are slow ones: build the foreign exposure later as an NRN if you move abroad, or hold it through a foreign employer's ESOP if you have one. Neither is the "open an app today" answer your morning stock-watching habit wants.
What you actually need to know
- A resident cannot legally buy US stocks. The Investment Abroad Act prohibits it and NRB will not authorise the transfer. This is settled law, not a grey zone.
- The 2025 opening was for companies and IT exporters, not savers. If you are not a registered firm, a foreign-currency earner, or an ESOP employee, nothing changed for you.
- The workarounds are foreign-exchange crimes with no recourse. Hundi and P2P crypto funding are prosecuted, and money sent that way has no legal protection if it vanishes.
Rules around outbound investment are the part of Nepali finance most likely to move next, so if you are weighing this, check the current NRB position before acting on anything you read, including this. Got a specific situation, like a foreign ESOP or an NRN move? Email parjanya57@gmail.com.
This post is part of the Nepal Money Basics guide — the investing section.