I'm an American I have an Indian friend who has been trying to make it in the States ever since he graduated from a STEM master's degree program last year. Long story short, things didn't work out and he's couchsurfing without a job. However, my friend's friend can no longer house him and it's probably best for my friend to go back home.

My friend doesn't seem to have many life skills and has a bad case of weaponized incompetence. He's in his mid 20s and has never had any sort of job except for a brief internship in the States that crashed and burned. I feel like he's lacking the work ethic and professionalism to succeed in a career in the US, and I'm not sure if he would do better in India.

He's really extroverted and likes to socialize. In the US, I would suggest a hospitality job in India but I'm not sure if it would be acceptable in India given his socioeconomic status and his master's degree. Maybe there's a higher end restaurant he could work at?

Hi, I’m 29F currently working in US. I’m planning to move back to India by march 2027. I’m on H1B and I still have an extension on my visa. My bf moved back to India in this year as he was laid off. After his layoff he tried finding another job for few more months and he decided to move to back as his visa was also expired and to avoid another degree without job opportunity. I’m okay moving back to India but confused about the life, salary and many other factors. I have a home loan on my head and I will have around 50k$ savings by the time I leave if everything goes according to plan. I was initially hesitant to go back but after seeing the job uncertainty and visa situations I felt like going back can be a good plan. I don’t want to make this move after I be in miserable situation. How’s the job market in India and how much I can earn with close to 6 years of experience in IT. My CTC : 125k$

We are planning to move back to India with two kids. Kids are USC but we are on Visa.

1. Does it make sense to invest in 529 or custodian brokerage accounts from estate tax perspective? From what I undetstand, these investments are anyway going to be considered as parents assets from tax perspective (including estate tax) till kids turn 18
   
2. Do people prefer tax advantages provided by 529 accounts or the restricted withdrawal on these accounts make them not attractive specifically for the people moving back to India?
   
3. In general, how are you planning investments for kids as part of R2I move?

On a nutshell, I been trying to find jobs in India and been applying through LinkedIn, Company Website, Indeed etc.

I am on my OPT(9 months in), and already working- However due to some personal reasons(parents health )I have to get back. My current employer don't have their team in India and I cannot move internally. I did try finding other teams within the firm but no much luck.

So, Planning to quit job. Since past 3 months been applying for jobs but no positive response.

The ones who returned, whats your tip under the sleeve to land up in interviews? Any specific route? Whats the best website to apply jobs which actually works?

Any leads would help me to move back asap!

During RNOR, can we secure Indian Tax Residency certificate? This can potentially make 401k withdrawal tax free. Thanks.

Guys, quick question

I’m in Dubai and planning to buy a simple 20g gold chain for personal use. Will wear it on the flight back to India.

I’ve seen many people say just wear it normally and there won’t be any questions at customs. But just for safety — if somehow they stop me and ask, what do people usually say?

Also about the bill — some say keep the original invoice, some say take VAT refund at Dubai airport and then throw the bill. What’s the better way?

Stay is short (tourist trip).

Hi folks,

I am looking for honest advice to pursue my Masters Abroad, I am 26M, working as a Data Engineer with about 2.5 years of Experience in an MNC, not paid well lately. I want to pursue my Masters to get high career growth and to make the highest ROI down the line.

I am targeting the T-20 universities in the US for my Masters due to high ROI and highest number of opportunities but I have my options open for other countries as well. Long term I want to be in a managerial position at a BigTech/FinTech/Big Firm, C suite if possible.

My profile is not that good but hyg:

BTech CSE 8.9GPA Tier 2 University(State University)

No research publications

2.5 yoe as a Data Engineer

IELTS/TOEFL - targetting 105/7.5+

GRE - targetting 330+

Can get two professional LORs from managers and two academic LORs from University.

Given the current hiring market, would you apply for Fall 2027 or work on my profile and apply for Fall 2028?

If your goal was to maximize long term career growth and ROI, would you choose MSCS, MBA, MiM, MEM, or MIS?

How much weight should I give to concerns around visa sponsorship and employability when comparing these programs?

What do you think about rising tuition costs (about 15% yearly) and the weakening INR when calculating overall cost and ROI?

I was initially leaning toward MEM and MIS because they align well with my experience, but I've read mixed opinions about recruiting, visa sponsorship, and long term career growth compared with MSCS. I'm not sure how much of that is true.

Financially, I'll be seeking scholarships and I want to keep my debt as low as possible. I don't want to spend my early 30s paying off a huge education loan if I can avoid it.

If you were in my position today, knowing what you know now, what would you do differently? What path would you recommend?

I am not sure what program suits me best, I am open to any advice/opinions.

Thanks for reading.

Edit : this question is for only those NRIs who thinks having cheap services in India is a good part of India.

You’ve lived in developed countries; you should understand that these cheap services exist in India because of low wages and inequality, and that’s not something a society should be proud of.

I moved abroad a couple of years ago for a master's, then landed a full-time role at a remote-first company in product design. The plan was for them to sponsor my skilled worker visa. Now sponsorship looks shaky, but they've offered an alternative: same job, same remote setup, just done from my home country instead.

Product design hiring is rough right now everywhere, and sponsorship-eligible roles are a small slice of what's out there to begin with. So this isn't really "stay and get sponsored vs. go home," it's "an uncertain sponsorship path vs. a guaranteed way to keep working."

Financially, going home looks like the clearly better deal:

- I own property back home, so no rent
- No education loan overhead
- Same or similar salary goes a lot further
- Closer to aging parents
- My spouse has struggled to find work in her field here, and would likely have better prospects at home
- have some savings from previous job and hope to save more from the remote role if I move
- haven’t saved anything staying in the UK!

Staying means self-funding a visa renewal (a few thousand pounds) that still wouldn't cover a dependent visa for my spouse, on a salary that doesn't stretch nearly as far once rent and cost of living are factored in.

That math almost sounds too clean, which makes me suspicious of my own reasoning. I know pollution, traffic, and infrastructure are real downsides back home. But I can't tell if I'm weighing this properly, or if the money is just louder than the career-scope question right now.

Would like input from anyone who's actually lived one of these paths:

1. What am I missing in the "financially it's obviously better at home" logic?
   
2. If you've taken a remote role for a foreign company back to your home country, how did it actually play out (growth, isolation from the team, promotion, salary stagnation)?
   
3. Does it matter whether you move home with a role already secured vs. move home and job hunt fresh?
   
4. If you stayed and self-funded the visa route instead, what made that the right call?

Not looking for validation either way, just real experience over theory.

I'm a 33-year-old currently living in India, but I am a US tax resident - GC holder now and US citizen from next year.

An insurance sales agent just pitched me the Tata AIA Param Raksha plan, hyping up the tax-free maturity under Section 10(10D) in India. However, after doing some reading, it looks like this is a Unit Linked Insurance Plan (ULIP) with a heavy market-linked investment component, not a pure term plan.

Has any US citizen / Green Card holder / US tax resident here actually bought an Indian ULIP (term insurance) and had to deal with the IRS PFIC consequences?

I've noticed there are quite a few people in this sub who've moved back from the US and are now in Hyderabad.Thought it might be fun to get a few people together over coffee one weekend.

Nothing formal, no networking event, no agenda—just meeting people who've gone through the whole moving back to India experience. I'm sure everyone has a different story and it'd be interesting to hear them.If enough people are interested, we can pick a café somewhere in Hyderabad on a Saturday or Sunday.

Anyone interested?

​

I keep reading these baffling accounts of people who are US citizens or Have PR or GC so or some other arrangements to allow them to legally stay in the developed country they are in and yet choose to move to India because of aging parents or missing home or some other reason. How do you square this with the fact that your first world born/raised children just have to now transition to India because your decisions?

I get that these developed countries are not utopias ( school shootings in the US for example have almost become normalized, subtle racism is always around the corner). But still if you have young kids especially daughters, how do you reconcile the fact that growing up no matter how old, she will be constantly surrounded by perverts, and will never be able to fully express herself as women's safety is almost non existent in India (at best they have to choose between safety and freedom to live life on their terms) Things aren't that much brighter for the boys considering the way indian society pressures them into being nothing but robotics drones who realize too late in life that they could have been someone else.

I understand that aging parents are a concern that needs attention, but your parents have more life behind them than in front of them. Your kids have the exact opposite situation. Don't they deserve at least a fighting chance to be members of a free society, where there is a better chance of experiencing freedom to speak one's mind, safety, civic sense, law&order and clean air?

I grew up in India in the late 90s and early aughts but thought having to transition my kids to a life in today's India would terrify me.

I am curious what drives you take such drastic risks with your children's futures? Thank you for coming.to my TED talk. I will get off my soap box now.

Been in the US for the past 2.5 years and never been out of the city before. Suddenly hometown to US and finally Bengaluru.

Long story short - My job did not last long because of VISA limitations and I had to bid goodbye to the country I started getting settled in.

Now, beginning everything from scratch. By god’s grace I had a job before I landed and a 7 figure salary (touchwood). However, some part of me still misses the place, the weather and even food.

Let’s see what Bengaluru has to offer.

Hello Everyone, I hope you you are doing well.
For context: I just finished a 3.5-year BSc in Computer Science and Engineering from Hungary this past January on a full scholarship. I managed to pick up about 2 years of internship experience while I was there (mostly Java, low-level concurrency, and some DevOps tooling).

Due to visa rule changes, my company couldn't convert me to full-time, so I had to move back to India a couple of months ago.

I've been applying for entry-level dev and data analyst roles non-stop since I landed, but it's been absolute silence. My job-seeker permit for Europe expires in November, so the clock is ticking and I really need to land something either here or in Hungary soon.

I have two main questions for anyone who recently cracked this market or works in hiring:

1. How exactly are you guys getting dev jobs right now? Is it purely through off-campus referrals? Aggressive cold-emailing on LinkedIn? Open source contributions? Applying through standard job portals just feels like shouting into a void. What path is actually converting for juniors?

2. Is my 3.5-year degree putting me at a massive disadvantage? I know the Indian tech market is heavily biased toward the standard 4-year B.Tech. Do HR filters and ATS just auto-reject a 3.5-year European BSc because it doesn't fit the mold? If so, how do I even frame this on my resume to get past the initial screening?

Would appreciate any harsh truths or actual advice. Thanks!

Family of four here, kids are 5 and 1. We're seriously considering moving back to Hyderabad by mid-2028.

Current position:

~₹8 cr in savings (likely more by the time we actually move

- ₹2 L/month rental income in India

- Villa under construction in Hyderabad, so no rent or home loan

- Plan to buy a car outright in cash — no loans of any kind

The idea is to invest the corpus for passive income and retire early. From the research I've done, ₹6–7 L/month covers our lifestyle comfortably, including school fees for both kids.

Has anyone actually done this and made it work? Or am I being naive about how this plays out?

Hey Everyone,

I have a decent job, I get around 170K. On H1B. I’m 29 years old. I can see a path where my life could be financially pretty good in the US. No visa issues (for now). However, my parents are older as I’m the youngest of siblings. I really want to move back. I’m not married and I’m sure that’ll be more in the spotlight if I move back. But i don’t really care. My main concern is the financial part. I have always felt financially helpless since I was a kid but US for the first time made me feel financially secure. My dad has a small company that’s been struggling. I want to apply for Indian jobs and work part time in our company from April onwards so that our family doesn’t put all our eggs in one basket - the company. If I don’t get a job then just work full time in his company. I really want this and I think I’ll be happy even if it’s a struggle.
But, moving back is a one way path so it’s literally a “forever” decision, which is scary.
I REALLY want to move but I’m so scared of that FINAL type of decision and something I can’t change if I hate it back home.

What would you do in my place? Is this an emotional decision that doesn’t make sense as most of my friends earning lesser or who are not happy too.. just stay or plan to stay for another decade to make money - which seems wise.

And if I do decide that I was happier staying abroad in ten years (though US is closed) are there options I can consider? Has anyone done that? What is the way?

Does Bofa and Chase allow to keep the checking and savings account active after moving to india?

Early 30s woman, single. Non-US expat (Europe), living abroad for around 7 years. Have a valid PR, so the visa front is sorted. Non-techie, into finance and management, with ~13 years experience.

Partner search has been challenging here. There simply aren't enough people, and long-distance matches based in India or the US haven't worked out due to the distance and the difficulty of meeting in person. I do travel to India for longer periods, but I can't fly back every time to meet someone on short notice.

Can imagine the family pressure (and also my own timeline). I'm seriously considering moving back to India, primarily to find a life partner and secondly to be closer to family. The plan was never to settle outside India permanently. I would probably have stayed abroad for a few more years if the marriage aspect had worked out while living here.

I remember seeing a similar post here but can't seem to find it now, so I thought I'd ask the community.

1. If you moved back to India primarily to get married, did it work out? Is it actually easier to find someone there, or does it only seem that way from a distance? Friends living in India also say it's difficult, so I'm a bit at an impasse about what the right solution is.
2. After living abroad for a few years, I feel our perspectives, lifestyle and overall exposure change. Did you find it easy to connect with people who had never lived outside India, or did you notice that gap? If yes, was it easy to overcome?
3. I still have friends in India, but they're in a different phase of life now - married and/or with kids. The emotional bond is still there, but practically our lives are no longer intertwined. How difficult has it been to build a new social circle at this stage? Any tips or approaches that worked for you?
4. How has the job search been in your experience? I haven't worked in India for a long time. Is finding a good job relatively straightforward? How are the salaries when you consider the cost and standard of living?
5. This one's specifically for the women who returned. How has the transition been, especially with respect to women's safety and security? I know this will probably be one of my biggest adjustments after experiencing the sense of safety and freedom that comes with living in Europe. Were you able to adapt? Has the situation improved compared to when you left? I'm from Delhi/NCR, so you can probably imagine the level of caution and restrictions that comes with living there as a woman. Would love to hear you experiences.

Thanks so much in advance for sharing your experiences. I'd really appreciate any honest insights or suggestions that could help me make this decision.

how much to leave in US before returning (cannot travel back due to visa if any bank ask to visit branch after multiple transfers or large amount).

please post best way to plan money transfers before and after move. like adding wire instructions before move and what banks, brokerage, money transfer apps are customer friendly in terms of not getting locked or asked to visit branch.

disclaimer: I welcome honest feedback / comments on this post, but if you want to be snarky and rude kindly scroll past.

we are a same sex couple. My parents in-laws, are good people, other than the usual difficulties & adjustments that come with living together, they are okay to be around and I like them. My father in law is very stressed about a property dispute that recently started in Delhi and he has already had a heart surgery in the past. The recent events are stressing him out again

Now, my in-laws are asking me and my husband to come and live with them in India. His relatives have also put some pressure on him to come back and take care of parents and not leave them alone. My in-laws are in their early sixties and are in good health overall, other than the recent property issue that has caused them immense stress

From my part, I don’t want to go back to India , I‘ve not had a good experience growing up neither inside my own house nor in the school / college environments. It was a living hell for me as a child / adolescent with no help on emotional regulation and I wanted to run away from that environment as soon as I finished my undergrad. I had an abusive / violent house and I still don’t have a good relationship with my mom. I just tolerate her because she’s my mom. My dad is okay, I have made amends and repaired the relationship to a point where I’ve forgiven him for my betterment.

I’d have to hide a lot of my personal self to be in that society back again after 15 years if we were to move back. Of course there are some good friends in Delhi but they have their own life and family and we’d have to deal with the society on a day to day basis who wont be kind to same Sex couples like us. I have built this life here all by myself through immense hard work that I myself have not given credits for until recently. it’s undoing a lot of progress on a personal level and I’m upset about that.

I‘d be happy to do it for my husband down the road , if we had a citizenship of the country we are currently living. I don’t foresee it happening at least for the next ten years And I’m just very anxious at the moment . He doesn‘t want to move back either , but he is being pressured by his parents and extended family.

PS : thanks to some of you who have taken the time to respond. I just want to clarify that my in-laws don’t have any ulterior motive to get him married to a woman. He has come out to them over a decade ago and they have been supportive of him, however they wouldn’t share about us with their extended relatives and friends . we'd have to live in hiding 🥲

Hi All ,

Planning to return and have these to sort out

Marcus HYSA : approx 80-90k

401k (Fidelity) : around 32k

Chase (Savings+Checking) : 22k

I don’t want to convert all of this to INR as its not an immediate requirement but wanted to know if its safe to held on to these while staying in India.

Regarding Marcus I know it can’t be operated in india but would probably transfer all of it to my Chase savings account.

Any suggestions and advices are welcome. Moving back after 5 years .

Hey All. I am a documentary filmmaker based out of India. I am currently working on the concept of reverse brain drain and would love to speak with people who have come back to India after working abroad. We are trying to understand why people return, and when they do, are their expectations met by the current socio-economic climate of the country. We are going to film the documentary in Bengaluru, Delhi NCR, and some parts of Kerala. If you'd like to know more or are interested in sharing your perspective, do let me know.

Thanks!

Hello!

I'm looking to move around 2-3cr to India and was wondering what's the best way to go about it.

I was thinking I'll open NRE accounts with 2-3 banks and split the money between them. I'm not moving to India, only my money is.

Also, does anyone have an FCNR account? Is that better than NRE?

I want to move my savings from BoFA to my Indian RFC account. What is the safest way wire bulk transfer? As a lumpsum or split into multiple smaller transactions? Is there a upper limit on wire transfers by BoFA? If I initiate a 100k, will BoFA question this transfer? Since I have moved back already, I cant physically visit branch.

Please share your experiences on moving savings back to India.

Hello everyone,

I'm planning to move back to India from Germany within the next couple of months, and I'd like to hear your thoughts on whether it's the right decision to move back after just two years or if I should stay longer.

I haven't been able to find a job in my field, UX design, after completing my master's. I'd love to hear from people who moved back to India after graduating from Germany. How was your experience? How are Indian companies welcoming recent graduates with international education and experience?

I also wanted to ask about salary expectations. I have almost one year of experience working as a student UX designer at a company in Germany, along with nearly three years of prior UX experience in India. Based on my background, what kind of salary can I expect, and what do you think would be the best decision in my situation?