Schedule FA Exchange Rate: Which Rate to Use for Foreign Assets in ITR-2 and ITR-3

Schedule FA is the part of ITR-2 and ITR-3 where a resident reports every foreign asset: bank accounts, brokerage accounts, shares, RSUs, ESPPs, pension funds and property outside India. Each line asks for figures in rupees, but the asset is priced in dollars, euros or pounds. The exchange rate you pick is therefore the single most common error in the schedule, and the ITR instructions are specific about it. This guide covers which rate, which date, which period, and where to get the numbers.

The prescribed rate: SBI TT buying rate

The instructions issued with ITR-2 and ITR-3 say that the rate of exchange for converting foreign currency values in Schedule FA is the telegraphic transfer buying rate of the State Bank of India. That is the same rate Rule 115 of the Income-tax Rules uses for converting foreign income, so one data source serves both the income schedules and the asset schedule.

Three things trip people up here:

• It is not the RBI reference rate. The RBI figure is a mid-rate computed by FBIL; SBI's TT buying rate is a bank's buying quote and sits a little below it. On 9 November 2026 the USD numbers were 93.60 (SBI TT buying) and 93.8579 (RBI reference).
• It is not the rate your broker or bank applied when you remitted money. That rate includes the bank's margin and is irrelevant to the schedule.
• It is not today's rate. Each figure is converted at the rate on its own date, as set out below.

The period is January to December

Schedule FA follows the accounting period of the foreign country, and for most jurisdictions the instructions fix that as the calendar year. For assessment year 2026-27 (financial year 2025-26) the relevant period is 1 January 2025 to 31 December 2025. Assets acquired in January to March 2026 appear in next year's return, not this one.

This matters for the exchange rate because the closing value is converted at the rate on 31 December, not 31 March. Many spreadsheets quietly use the financial-year closing rate and overstate or understate every holding.

Which date for which column

Where the schedule and Rule 115 point at slightly different dates, for instance for dividend income that also appears in Schedule OS, most practitioners use the Rule 115 date for the income figure and the actual date for the asset-value columns, and keep a note of the approach. Consistency across years is what an assessing officer looks for.

Worked example: US shares in a brokerage account

You bought 50 shares of a US company on 10 March 2025 at USD 180, the price peaked at USD 260 on 15 October 2025, and it closed 2025 at USD 240. Your working paper looks like this:

As a sanity check, the RBI reference rate on 31 December 2025 was 89.9198 INR per USD. The SBI TT buying rate for the same day will be a few paise below that, so a closing value near ₹10.7 lakh is the right order of magnitude. If your spreadsheet shows ₹11.3 lakh you have used a 2026 rate by mistake.

Worked example: RSUs that vested during the year

RSUs enter Schedule FA on the vesting date, because that is when you acquire the shares. The initial value is the fair market value on vesting converted at the SBI TT buying rate for that date. The same FMV, converted under Rule 115 at the rate on the last day of the month before the vesting month, is the perquisite in your salary. The two rupee figures will differ by a few days of currency movement; that is expected and both are correct in their own schedule. The full treatment is in the RSU and ESPP exchange rate guide.

Where to get historical SBI TT buying rates

SBI publishes its forex card rate as a PDF and overwrites it every business day. There is no official archive, which is why Schedule FA takes so long every July. Your options:

• Your own saved sheets. If you download SBI's PDF on acquisition, peak and year-end days you have primary evidence. Few people do.
• Community archives. The open-source SBI FX RateKeeper project stores the daily TT rates as CSV files from 2020 onwards, with the source PDFs. Many Schedule FA tools on GitHub read from it.
• AllRatesToday SBI board. The keyless endpoint https://allratestoday.com/api/open/bank-rates/in/sbi?ccy=USD returns today's TT buying and selling rate with SBI's own time stamp, and &date=YYYY-MM-DD returns the stored snapshot for a past day. Snapshots are kept from October 2026, so it covers calendar year 2026 onwards, not 2025.

For the RBI reference rate, which you need as a cross-check and for FEMA-side reporting, dated tables back to 2003 are on the RBI exchange rate API and in the open RBI reference rate history download.

Automating next year's schedule

The cheapest fix is to stop reconstructing rates after the fact. A script that runs every business day and stores the SBI TT buying rate for the currencies you hold gives you every acquisition, peak and closing rate when filing season comes:

import json, urllib.request, datetime, csv

url = "https://allratestoday.com/api/open/bank-rates/in/sbi"
board = json.load(urllib.request.urlopen(url))
today = datetime.date.today().isoformat()

with open("sbi_tt_buying.csv", "a", newline="") as f:
    w = csv.writer(f)
    for r in board["rates"]:
        if r["ccy"] in ("USD", "EUR", "GBP"):
            w.writerow([today, r["ccy"], r["buy"], r["sell"], board["bank_updated_at"]])

Pair it with your broker's monthly statements and Schedule FA becomes a lookup rather than a research project. Keep the bank_updated_at stamp: SBI's board can change during the day and the stamp shows which quote you relied on.

FAQ

Which exchange rate is used for Schedule FA?

The ITR instructions direct that foreign currency values in Schedule FA be converted at the telegraphic transfer (TT) buying rate of the State Bank of India. The RBI reference rate is a different, slightly higher mid-rate and is not the prescribed rate for this schedule.

What period does Schedule FA cover for AY 2026-27?

The calendar year 1 January 2025 to 31 December 2025. Schedule FA follows the accounting period of the foreign jurisdiction and the instructions fix it as the calendar year ending before the financial year closes, so it does not match the April to March financial year used elsewhere in the return.

Which date's rate do I use for peak value and closing value?

Peak value is converted at the SBI TT buying rate on the date the peak occurred. Closing value is converted at the rate on the last day of the accounting period, 31 December. If SBI published no card rate on that day, use the last published rate before it and note which day you used.

Do I have to report US stocks and RSUs in Schedule FA?

Yes, if you were a resident and ordinarily resident and held them at any time during the calendar year, including vested RSUs and ESPP shares held in a foreign broker account. Each holding is reported with initial value, peak value, closing value and income, all in rupees.

Where can I get the SBI TT buying rate for a past date?

SBI publishes only the current day's card rate as a PDF. For historical rates use a saved copy of SBI's sheet, a community archive such as the open-source SBI FX RateKeeper CSV files, or the dated SBI board on AllRatesToday, which keeps daily snapshots from October 2026 onwards.