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The rules that govern loading, reloading, using and encashing a prepaid travel or forex card issued in India.
A travel or forex card is a prepaid instrument loaded with foreign exchange before you leave India. Loading it is a drawal of foreign exchange in exactly the same sense as buying currency notes, so it is governed by the same Reserve Bank of India rules, the same annual entitlement, the same payment rules and broadly the same documents.
The practical difference is the form the money takes, not the regulation behind it. That distinction matters most when you look at how much of your travel budget you are allowed to carry as physical cash.
Source: Reserve Bank of India, Master Directions on Money Changing Activities and the Liberalised Remittance Scheme.
A traveller may be sold physical foreign currency, notes and coins counted together, only up to the equivalent of USD 3,000. The balance of the entitlement has to be taken in another permitted form, and a prepaid forex card is the usual one.
So the card is not simply a convenience choice above a certain amount, for a larger travel budget it is the route the rules leave open. Most travellers end up with a small amount of cash for arrival and the remainder loaded on a card.
Source: Reserve Bank of India, Master Direction on Money Changing Activities.
Under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme, a resident individual may draw up to USD 250,000 of foreign exchange in a financial year, on self-certification, for travel and the other permitted purposes. Nepal and Bhutan are outside the scheme.
Card loads are not a separate allowance. What you load, what you buy in notes and anything else you draw under LRS all count against the same annual figure, and a reload made later in the year counts against whatever remains of it.
Source: Reserve Bank of India, Master Direction on the Liberalised Remittance Scheme.
Payment in currency cash is accepted only up to ₹50,000 per transaction; above that the payment has to come through a banking channel, completed before the card is issued or loaded.
All purchases made within any 30-day period are treated as a single transaction for that limit, so a load cannot be split across visits to stay under it.
Source: Reserve Bank of India, Master Direction on Money Changing Activities.
For an individual travelling privately, the document set is the same one a currency purchase needs.
Source: Reserve Bank of India, Master Direction on Money Changing Activities.
Where the traveller is going for an international conference, training programme or study tour and the company is behind the drawal, the trip is treated as a business visit and the company's own documents are needed alongside the traveller's passport.
Source: Reserve Bank of India, Master Direction on Money Changing Activities.
The limits above come from the regulation and are the same wherever you go. Everything else about a card comes from the provider that issues it, the currencies it supports, the loading and reloading fees, ATM withdrawal charges abroad, merchant acceptance, how a balance is refunded when you return, and what happens if the card is lost.
Those terms differ meaningfully between providers, so confirm the ones that matter for your trip before the card is issued rather than after.
We issue new forex cards and reload existing ones in person at our three Hyderabad branches, working with providers including Thomas Cook and EbixCash. There is no online application step, documents are verified and the card is handed over at the counter.
If you are close to a departure date, call the branch first so we can confirm card and currency availability before you travel to us.
This page summarises the material below. Where they differ, the official source is correct.
The services at our branches this guide applies to.
Forex card issuance and reloading so travellers can carry and spend foreign currency electronically.
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Our branch teams answer these every day. Call or WhatsApp the Mythri Forex branch nearest you.
