What the RBI Alert List Says and What It Does Not

The Reserve Bank of India publishes and maintains the alert list. It is a register of names that the RBI has identified as entities not authorised to deal in foreign exchange under the Foreign Exchange Management Act, or to operate an electronic trading platform for such dealing.

The list is published as a public document. It exists so that a resident who is considering a foreign exchange transaction, or who is already dealing with an entity, can check whether that entity appears on the register. The RBI updates the list as its own review and incoming information require, and the version we refer to here carries the date 19 November 2025.

Because the list is a regulatory document, the only meaningful way to use it is to read it directly. A name that appears on the list has been placed there by the RBI through its own process. A name that does not appear has simply not been placed there, which is not the same as being authorised.

Under the Foreign Exchange Management Act, a person resident in India may deal in foreign exchange only for permitted purposes and through authorised persons. The RBI alert list names entities that, in the RBI's view, are not authorised to deal in foreign exchange under FEMA or to operate an electronic trading platform.

When an entity is on the list, the practical consequence for a resident is that dealing with it may fall outside the permitted channels under FEMA. The RBI has stated that a resident trading outside permitted purposes or on an unauthorised platform is liable under FEMA. That liability attaches to the resident's own conduct, not merely to the fact that a counterparty is named on a list.

The list is therefore a warning about the counterparty, and a reminder about the resident's own obligations. A resident who deals in foreign exchange is expected to know whether the transaction is permitted and whether the counterparty is authorised. The list is one of the tools the RBI provides for that check, but it is not the whole of the law.

The rbi alert list is narrower than it is sometimes made to sound. It is not a list of every entity that has ever been complained about, and it is not a consumer-protection register in the sense of recording individual disputes. It is a list of entities that the RBI has identified as not authorised to deal in foreign exchange under FEMA or to operate an electronic trading platform.

Appearing on the list does not by itself mean that an entity has been convicted of an offence, that its owners have been prosecuted, or that every transaction with it is automatically void. It means the RBI has formed the view that the entity lacks the authorisation the law requires for the activity described. The legal consequences for a resident arise from the resident's own dealing outside permitted purposes or on an unauthorised platform.

Equally, absence from the list does not mean approval. The RBI does not use the list as a positive register of authorised counterparties. An entity can be absent from the list and still not be authorised to deal in foreign exchange under FEMA. The list is one warning instrument, not a certificate of safety for everyone who is not on it.

The RBI states plainly that the alert list is not exhaustive. This is the single most important sentence on the page for anyone using the register as a check. An entity that is not on the list may still be unauthorised; the RBI simply has not yet named it, or has not yet completed whatever review would lead to naming it.

The register held 95 entries as of 19 November 2025. That is a snapshot of a moving document. New names can be added, and the fact that a name is absent today does not mean it will be absent next month. A resident who checks once and then deals for a year has not discharged the obligation to deal only through authorised channels.

This is why the RBI's own statement matters more than any third-party summary. The list is a starting point for a resident's own check, not the end of it. The resident's obligation under FEMA is to deal only in permitted transactions through authorised persons, and that obligation is not satisfied by the absence of a name from a non-exhaustive list.

The practical use of the rbi alert list is direct: before dealing in foreign exchange with any entity, a resident should look at the register on the RBI's own website and read the current version. The date of the version matters, because the list changes.

A resident should also check the other side of the question, which is whether the transaction itself is permitted. FEMA allows foreign exchange dealings only for permitted purposes, and through authorised persons. An entity that is not on the alert list may still not be an authorised person for the transaction the resident has in mind. The resident's own bank is often the clearest channel for permitted foreign exchange transactions.

The RBI has stated that a resident trading outside permitted purposes or on an unauthorised platform is liable under FEMA. That liability is the resident's own. The alert list helps a resident avoid one category of counterparty, but it does not replace the resident's duty to know what FEMA permits and to deal only through authorised channels.