Count your days in India the way the department will.

The test counts days in India, not days at sea. An Indian citizen who leaves India for employment abroad, or as crew of a ship, is non-resident if in India for fewer than 182 days in the financial year. In a 365-day year that means at least 184 days outside India, and 185 in a leap year such as FY 2027-28. Being outside India for 182 days is not enough.

Days on a ship outside Indian territorial waters are days outside India. For a voyage that starts or ends at an Indian port, Rule 126 of the Income-tax Rules 1962 (FY 2025-26) and Rule 8 of the Income-tax Rules 2026 (from tax year 2026-27) go further: the whole period from the sign-on date to the sign-off date in your Continuous Discharge Certificate is excluded, even days the ship spends in Indian waters. If you fly out to join a ship abroad, count from your passport stamps.

The department's position is that both count as days in India. Some tribunals have held that the day of arrival should be excluded. This calculator counts both by default, which is the safe position; you can switch to the tribunal view to see the difference, but do not plan a contract around a one-day margin.

It can. If your income from Indian sources — rent, interest on NRO deposits, capital gains, but not salary earned on a foreign ship — exceeds ₹15 lakh, a visiting Indian citizen becomes resident at 120 days where they have spent 365 days or more in India in the preceding four years, and is then resident but not ordinarily resident. A citizen who is not liable to tax in any other country and has Indian income above ₹15 lakh is deemed resident (not ordinarily resident) regardless of days. Tick the ₹15 lakh box to see the stricter line.

Salary earned by a non-resident seafarer for services rendered outside India on a foreign ship is not taxable in India merely because it is credited to an NRE account in India — CBDT Circular 13/2017 says so expressly. If you become resident and ordinarily resident for the year, your worldwide income, including that salary, is taxable in India.

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