Can an NRN directly buy and sell shares on the NEPSE secondary market in 2082/83?

Not yet. The FY 2082/83 budget (announced May 2025) stated the government would let Non-Resident Nepalis participate in the secondary capital market, but the enabling legal amendments on investment approval, profit repatriation and capital-gains procedure were still pending through the whole year. The FY 2083/84 budget (29 May 2026) repeated the pledge, which confirms it had not gone live. So an NRN cannot open a Mero Share and TMS account and buy a listed stock like Nabil the way a resident can. The route that does work is the SEBON-approved NRN tranche inside a joint investment company, plus mutual funds and government bonds.

What documents does an NRN need to open a demat account in Nepal?

Typically your foreign citizenship or permanent-residency document, your passport, your NRN identity card, a photo, and the details of an NRN bank account in Nepal. The NRN bank account usually has to exist first, because the demat and any investment are funded and settled through it. Accounts are opened through a bank's capital or merchant-banking arm acting as the depository participant. Verification can be done electronically, so you do not always have to fly home to start one.

How much land or property can an NRN buy in Nepal?

Ownership is capped by location under the NRN Rules. The commonly cited ceilings are up to 2 ropani inside Kathmandu Valley, up to 4 ropani in other hill metropolitan and district areas, up to 8 kattha in Terai metropolitan cities, up to 1 bigha in other Terai areas, and up to 10 ropani in remaining areas. The cap applies to the family's combined holding, not per person. Ancestral property you inherit is exempt from these ceilings. Because figures get cited inconsistently, confirm the current limit at the relevant Land Revenue (Malpot) office before you sign a bayana.

Can an NRN repatriate money from selling shares or property in Nepal?

Yes. The right to repatriate is written into Section 9 of the Non-Resident Nepali Act 2064. In practice you repatriate in convertible foreign currency after NRB approval, and the bank will ask for audited proof of the source plus a tax-clearance certificate showing the capital gains or dividend tax was paid. This is why keeping every inward-remittance receipt and every share or property sale document matters: repatriation is a paperwork exercise, and the paperwork starts the day the money enters Nepal.

What tax does an NRN pay on Nepali shares and dividends?

Dividends from a Nepali company carry a flat 5% withholding that is a final tax for both residents and non-residents, so there is nothing more to pay on them. During FY 2082/83, capital gains on listed shares for individuals were taxed at 5% if held longer than a year and 7.5% if held a year or less, deducted at settlement. The FY 2083/84 budget raised these to 7.5% and 10% as a final tax from the new fiscal year. A double-taxation treaty between Nepal and your country of residence can sometimes reduce the dividend rate, so check whether one applies.

Can an NRN Invest in NEPSE and Buy Property in Nepal?

Q: Does an NRN have to invest a minimum amount to enter Nepal?

For the NRN tranche, mutual funds and bonds, there is no large minimum beyond the lot or subscription size of each instrument. For setting up or buying into a company under the Foreign Investment and Technology Transfer Act, the general minimum for a foreign investor is Rs 2 crore (Rs 20 million), though the IT sector has been exempted since October 2023. The Foreign Investment Act allows a different threshold for NRNs specifically, and at least one reading holds that the NRN minimum has been removed, so confirm the current figure with the Department of Industry before counting on it.

Bibek messaged from Sydney at 2 a.m. his time. His cousin in Baneshwor had just flipped a bank IPO for a Rs 18,000 listing gain and was now sitting on a hydropower stock up 40%. Bibek holds Australian permanent residency, an NRN card, and about AUD 15,000 he wants to put into NEPSE. His question was simple. Can he open a Mero Share account from Sydney and buy Nabil like his cousin does?

The answer in 2082/83 is more interesting than a yes or no. An NRN cannot step onto the NEPSE secondary market the way a resident can, at least not yet. But the door that is open, the joint-investment tranche, mutual funds, government paper, and property up to fixed ceilings, is wider than most NRNs realise. The whole game is knowing which door.

There are an estimated 6 to 8 million Nepalis abroad, organised through NRNA coordination councils in some 90 countries. A large slice of them send money home every month, park it in a 4% savings account, and assume the stock market and property back home are off-limits. The first half is a missed-return problem covered in sending money home to Nepal. The second half is just wrong, with one important caveat about timing.

First, the honest answer on the secondary market

The FY 2082/83 budget, read out in May 2025, said the government would "allow Non-Resident Nepalis to participate in Nepal's secondary capital market." That single line set off a wave of "NRNs can now buy NEPSE shares" headlines. They could not, and through the entire fiscal year they still could not.

The reason is plumbing. Letting a non-resident trade listed shares needs settled rules on how the investment gets approved, how the profit leaves the country, and how capital gains get assessed on someone who files no Nepali tax return. Those amendments were drafted but not enacted. By the time the FY 2083/84 budget arrived on 29 May 2026, the government was still "pledging crucial legal amendments regarding investment approvals, profit repatriation, and capital gains procedures to make way for NRNs to enter the secondary securities market." A pledge repeated a year later is a pledge that did not ship.

So when Bibek's cousin buys Nabil on his TMS account, he is doing something Bibek legally cannot do directly. That is the part most NRNs get wrong, in both directions: some assume they already can, and some assume they never will. The truth in 2082/83 sits in between, and the workable routes are below.

What an NRN can actually buy right now

Four channels are open. Only the first is equity-like, and it comes with strings.

Route	What it is	Status in 2082/83	Lock-in
NRN tranche in a joint investment company	10–49% of a company's shares reserved for NRNs	Live (SEBON, Nov 2024)	1 year, then NRN-only resale
Mutual funds	SEBON-registered closed and open-end schemes	Open	Per scheme
Government securities	Development bonds, treasury instruments	Open	To maturity or via secondary desk
Foreign Employment Saving Bond	NRB bond for Nepalis abroad	Issued 2024 at 9%	5-year tenure

The NRN tranche (the real equity route)

In November 2024, SEBON issued the eighth amendment to its securities issuance and allotment guidelines. It lets a "joint investment company" reserve between 10% and 49% of its issued capital exclusively for NRNs. This is the closest thing to buying NEPSE-style equity as an NRN today.

The conditions are specific. The application window runs a minimum of four working days, extendable to fifteen if undersubscribed. The minimum application is 1,000 units. Crucially, shares allotted to NRNs can only be traded among NRNs, and they cannot be sold or transferred for one full year from allotment. So it behaves less like the open, daily-liquid market your cousin trades and more like a ring-fenced pool with a one-year hold. The mechanics of how shares get allotted are the same lottery logic covered in how IPO allotment actually works.

Mutual funds and government bonds

These have been the quiet, always-open route. NRNs can buy units in SEBON-registered mutual funds and can hold Nepal government securities. For a diaspora investor who wants Nepali equity exposure without the one-year lock of the NRN tranche, a mutual fund is the cleaner instrument, and the four numbers that actually matter on a fund factsheet apply to you exactly as they do to a resident. Where a fund sits against fixed deposits and CIT is laid out in FD vs mutual fund vs CIT.

The Foreign Employment Saving Bond

In 2024, NRB issued a Foreign Employment Saving Bond aimed at Nepalis working abroad and recent returnees: a 9% coupon, paid semi-annually, on a five-year tenure. Note two things. It is denominated in rupees, not dollars, so you carry NPR exchange-rate risk on it. And historically these bonds have been undersubscribed, which tells you the diaspora has not warmed to them. The FY 2083/84 budget floated a much larger NPR 100 billion annual "diaspora bond," but as of mid-2026 that is a proposal, not an issued instrument. Treat it as a plan, not a product.

The account stack you need first

None of the above works without the right accounts, opened in the right order.

The NRN citizenship card. This is the legal key. It was created by the second amendment to the Citizenship Act in 2079 (2022) and is issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Nepal and by Nepali embassies abroad. It is open to people of Nepali origin who took up citizenship of a non-SAARC country, which means Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan, Bhutanese, Maldivian and Afghan passport holders of Nepali origin are not eligible. For foreign nationals the card runs 10 years. It carries economic, social and property rights, but not political ones: no vote, no public office.
The NRN bank account. With the card, you open an NRN account, usually a convertible foreign-currency account in USD, GBP, EUR, AUD and similar, at an NRB-licensed bank. Principal and interest in it are repatriable. This is the funding and settlement hub for everything else, and the rules overlap with a regular dollar account in Nepal.
The demat and trading account. Opened through a bank's capital or merchant-banking arm acting as your depository participant. Documents are the card, passport, residency proof and the NRN bank details. The common opening mistakes are the same ones residents make, catalogued in Mero Share and demat mistakes.

Skip a step and the next one stalls. The card gates the bank account, and the bank account gates the demat.

Buying property as an NRN

Property is where the NRN card earns its keep, and where the limits bite. An NRN cardholder can buy and own land and a house in Nepal, but the area is capped by where the land sits.

Location	Maximum an NRN can hold
Kathmandu Valley	2 ropani
Other hill metropolitan / district areas	4 ropani
Terai metropolitan cities	8 kattha
Other Terai areas	1 bigha
Remaining areas	10 ropani

For scale, 2 ropani is roughly 10,900 sq ft, which inside the Valley is a generous residential plot, not a constraint most buyers hit. The ceiling applies to the family's combined ownership, not to each individual. Property you inherit as ancestral land is exempt from these caps entirely.

Two cautions. First, these figures get quoted inconsistently across law firms and even within official summaries, with an older "10 ropani urban, 20 ropani rural" framing still floating around. The per-location ceilings above are the current reading from the NRN Rules, but confirm the exact number at the relevant Land Revenue office before you commit, the way any buyer should run the 9-document lalpurja checklist before a bayana. Second, this is personal ownership. Running a property business as a foreign investor is a different thing, and "real estate business" sits on the FITTA negative list, which is the next section.

When you eventually sell, the seller-side capital gains tax applies to you as it does to anyone, with the rates and Malpot withholding spelled out in capital gains tax on property.

Getting the money back out

Bringing money in is easy. The question that decides whether NRN investing is worth it is whether you can get it out, and the answer is yes, with conditions.

Section 9 of the NRN Act 2064 establishes the right to repatriate. In practice, repatriating dividends, capital gains, or the proceeds of a share or property sale means converting to a convertible currency and getting NRB approval, and the bank will want audited proof of where the money came from plus a tax-clearance certificate confirming the tax was paid. Principal and interest sitting in an NRN foreign-currency account are the simplest case and move freely.

The practical lesson is identical to the one for remittance: keep the receipts from day one. The transfer that funded the purchase, the demat statement, the sale deed, the tax challan. Repatriation is a documentation exercise, and the folder you build now is what makes the exit painless in five years.

What you will pay in tax

Three numbers cover most cases.

Dividends: a flat 5% is withheld and that is the final tax, for residents and non-residents alike. Nothing further is due. If a double-taxation treaty exists between Nepal and your country of residence, it can sometimes lower this.
Capital gains on listed shares: during FY 2082/83, an individual paid 5% if the shares were held longer than a year and 7.5% if held a year or less, deducted at settlement. The FY 2083/84 budget raised these to 7.5% and 10% as a final tax from the new fiscal year. The full mechanics, including who deducts it and the filing line, are in capital gains tax on shares.
Property gains: taxed under the standard rules, with no separate NRN rate, withheld by Malpot at registration.

The bigger route: FITTA

Everything above is portfolio investment and a home. If your plan is larger, say buying a meaningful stake in a private company or setting one up, you leave the NRN window and enter the Foreign Investment and Technology Transfer Act, routed through the Department of Industry.

The general minimum for a foreign investor under FITTA is Rs 2 crore (Rs 20 million), though the IT sector has been exempt since October 2023. NRNs may be treated more leniently: the Foreign Investment Act allows a different minimum for NRNs, and one reading holds the NRN minimum has been removed entirely, so an NRN could invest a smaller amount. That claim is worth confirming directly with the Department of Industry, because it is not uniformly documented. Either way, the negative list rules out a few sectors for foreign capital, including real estate business and retail trading, so FITTA is for building or buying a company, not for buying shares on NEPSE or a flat to live in.

What you actually need to know

Three lines for the NRN weighing a move back into Nepali assets:

The secondary market is still shut to direct NRN trading in 2082/83. Do not act on a headline. What works is the NRN tranche (with a one-year lock), mutual funds, and government bonds.
Property is genuinely open, capped by location, with Valley buyers limited to 2 ropani and inherited land exempt. Confirm the current ceiling at the Land Revenue office.
Repatriation is the whole point, and it runs on paperwork. NRN card first, then the bank account, then demat, and keep every receipt so the money can leave as cleanly as it arrived.

Bibek's honest answer was: not Nabil on a Mero Share, not this year. A mutual fund, the next NRN tranche when it opens, and a clean NRN account stack so he is ready the day the secondary market actually unlocks.

This post is part of the Nepal Money Basics guide — the investing section.

A specific NRN situation you want mapped (opening the account stack remotely, the next tranche window, property limits for your home district)? Email parjanya57@gmail.com.