Moving Back to India After 25 Years in the US: What It Takes

1. Comfortable in Denver, still thinking of Mumbai

Faraz went to the US for a master's in science and then an MBA, roughly 26 or 27 years ago. Most of that adult life was spent in Denver, Colorado — a clean city in the mountains, an active lifestyle, a strong work culture, and a career that moved from engineering into sales and marketing, with a small business in the last few years.

His wife joined him soon after he moved. They had a settled life, a high quality of life, a home, and later a young family. Nothing was wrong with it. And yet, from the very first years, there was an inkling that he would eventually return to India. It just never materialized as soon as he thought it would.

The pattern he describes will be familiar to anyone who has lived abroad for decades: the return stays in the back of your mind, always a few years away, while the annual two-week trip home keeps resetting the clock. The full guide to moving back to India from the USA covers the structural decisions that make this easier to think through.

2. The decision: no single tipping point

People often expect one dramatic event — a job loss, a family emergency, a single conversation that changes everything. For this family there was no such moment. There was instead an accumulation: getting let go from a long-time company just before COVID, being at home and cut off from the world while their son was very young, and the thinking time that came with it. For others the dramatic event is real. Punit's forced return after 9/11 is the other way this story starts.

Every year they came to India around Christmas for a couple of weeks. Every year those two weeks felt shorter. Their son loved being with family and was always sad to leave. And every single year, seeing parents getting older made the same thought louder: if we do not do it now, we will keep talking about it for years and years and years.

So about a year before the move, they stopped discussing and decided. They would treat the return as a two-year experiment, with the option to pull back if it did not work. That framing — commit fully, but allow yourself to reassess — mattered as much as the plan itself.

Parents getting older is one of the most common reasons NRIs return, and it deserves to be a first-class input into the decision. The guide to choosing India for retirement after decades abroad looks at the family-side and financial-side of that same calculation.

3. The worry that scared them most: their son

Their son was eight. During COVID he was two or three. The single biggest stress point of the entire decision was not money, not careers, not logistics. It was whether their son would adapt — whether they were changing his life too dramatically, and whether he would constantly question them for it.

He was largely English-speaking, with a little Gujarati at home. In Mumbai he went from one language at school to learning Hindi, Marathi and French in third grade — from one language to four, instantly. They brought in a Hindi tutor at home, and still, with the parents speaking English 95% of the time at home, the language transition has been the hardest part.

Food was the surprise. They ate very little Indian cuisine in the US, so their son was raised on other food. Eating Indian food for two weeks a year is one thing; eating it every day for months is another. He still asks for his favourite restaurant in Denver — a place more than a day's travel away.

What made the difference was deliberate preparation: honest conversations, the right school, and a home environment where he could make friends daily. The best schools in India for NRI kids — CBSE, IB and IGCSE guide is where most families should start, and the first-hand account of raising US-born children in India shows what the adjustment actually looks like on the other side.

4. Twelve months of planning, backwards

Planning started in earnest about nine to twelve months before the move, and it was done backwards: fix where you land, then work out what every step takes. He read Reddit forums, researched every source he could find from families who had done it, joined community groups, and started making notes on every category that needed attention.

Housing was relatively simple because family geography decided it — parents, in-laws and siblings are in Mumbai, so the search was confined to the parts of the city that made daily family visits possible. The financial side was broader: taxes in both countries, what to do with each bank account and credit card, whether to keep the 401(k) where it was, and what to physically bring to an apartment far smaller than the Denver house.

Then came execution. Selling the house. Selling the car. Closing some bank accounts and keeping others. Consolidating credit cards and keeping a couple alive. Changing addresses. Setting up a virtual mailbox in the US. Each item ran on its own timetable, which is exactly why the work had to start months early.

The NRI financial checklist for moving back to India walks through the ordering of these steps, and the move-back planner checklist turns them into a timeline you can actually follow.

5. Taxes as US citizens living in India

Being US citizens changed the tax picture fundamentally. The US taxes its citizens on worldwide income no matter where they live, and India taxes residents on worldwide income as well. So the family planned for both sides: US filing obligations continuing from India, Indian filing obligations starting from the move, and the special window of the first three years, when they could be resident but not ordinarily resident in India.

The RNOR status and its tax benefits are the single most searched piece of this subject, and for good reason — getting the window wrong is expensive. A real tax plan for a US citizen returning to India is not a list of forms; it is a sequence of decisions about income, accounts and timing made in the right order. That is where India tax planning for returning NRIs comes in, and the US side — including which income the IRS still wants reported from India — is covered in IRS Publication 54.

6. Careers: stop first, restart deliberately

Both careers went on pause. Faraz's rental-management business was entirely US-focused, so it could not be transplanted to Mumbai. His wife worked for a company with no India presence, so continuing with the same employer was not an option.

Their approach was deliberate: stop, settle the family, understand the Mumbai job market, and only then start looking. The first months were for the son's school, the flat, the dog, the paperwork — not for job hunting. Faraz is now exploring entrepreneurial opportunities again, carrying skills from sales, marketing and running his own business into something new in Mumbai.

That "pause first" pattern is worth copying even when you can keep income flowing. Careers can be rebuilt in India, and the skills that took twenty years to build do not expire at immigration. The story of a non-IT professional returning to India to build a business is a useful reference point, as is the experience of restarting a career in India after working in the US.

7. What they kept in the US

One of the most useful parts of the story is what they did not close. They kept most of their financial assets in the US, planning to shift things over gradually as they settled. They consolidated bank accounts, kept a couple of international credit cards alive, and used a virtual mailbox to keep a US address active for their accounts.

Why keep US credit cards? Because without an Aadhaar card, getting an Indian credit card is not straightforward — there are workarounds, but it is not easy. Their international cards kept working for travel and for the transition period, until Indian credit options opened up once they became eligible.

Keeping the US infrastructure alive also means keeping your US phone number after moving to India, because a decade of accounts uses it for one-time passwords. And the question of which cards to keep and which to close is exactly what the US credit cards guide for movers works through. When money does move to India, the NRE and NRO account rules decide how it can come — RBI's deposit regulations are the official source.

8. The senior dog: Denver to Mumbai via Germany

After the son's adjustment, the second-biggest stress of the entire move was the dog. A 12-year-old, never flown before, travelling from Denver to Mumbai. The first question was not paperwork — it was whether she was healthy enough for the journey at all.

Moving a pet, they learned, is in many ways more complicated than moving a person. She was too large for the cabin, so she travelled as commercial cargo — and commercial cargo cannot be booked like a passenger ticket. Only certain companies can book it, so they used a pet relocation company, which was expensive but essential. The route was Denver to Germany to Mumbai, with US, German and Indian paperwork, health certificates, vet checks and precise timing windows, all compressed into the few days before travel.

Then, a week before departure, Germany changed its rules for everyone: no transition period, then two days after pushback, and their travel dates fell outside it. Flights had to be changed, paperwork redone, and a new requirement met — Faraz's wife had to fly on the same flight as the dog, which meant coordinating passenger seats and cargo availability across two completely different booking systems on the same airline.

India, ironically, was the easiest part. His wife landed first, went to customs in Mumbai in the middle of the night, waited outside while their Indian agent handled the processing, and the dog arrived safe. The lesson they pass on: use an agent who genuinely understands the process on both ends — the US side and the Indian side.

The official starting points for pet travel paperwork are the US Department of Agriculture's APHIS pet travel guidance for the US export side and India's Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying for import requirements — the two ends of the same certificate trail.

9. The first three months in Mumbai

Planning a return and living it are two different things. They knew Mumbai: the noise, the chaos, the difference from the US in cleanliness and services. Knowing it from vacations is not the same as living through it — dealing with government offices, applying for a driver's licence, setting up bank accounts, adjusting to a pace of life that does not match the US.

There are also things India does better. UPI transactions settle in seconds, anywhere, from street vendors to big businesses. Online orders arrive in minutes. Blinkit, Zepto and the rest have made convenience genuinely world-class.

Their son made friends in the building and at school, and loves visiting family. He is also going through his own moving pains — leaving friends was hard, and the language and food are daily reminders that he did not choose this move. The parents answer the same way every time: we are going through this together. If you want to understand the failure modes before they happen, the account of why families struggle after moving back to India names them plainly.

10. The moment it felt worth it

A few weeks before the interview, Faraz's father had a health scare. Had they still been in the US, it would have been a midnight call and an urgent flight across the world. Instead, they were already there. His father is recovering, and Faraz was present for it.

That moment crystallized the decision. Not because everything in Mumbai is easy — he is explicit that it is not — but because the reason for the move became real in a way planning could not make it. And when asked whether they ever question the move, his answer is honest: about ten times a day. They keep returning to the reason, take it a day at a time, and let the positives accumulate.

11. What he would tell you

His advice for anyone considering a return after decades abroad is practical, and it is the same advice that comes up in almost every story on this site:

• Know exactly why you are moving. Not what anyone else thinks you should do — what you actually want. Family is a legitimate reason. So is anything else you can name clearly. Debate it with your spouse, think it through, and be sure.
• Make the timing right for the family. The move date is a compromise between the children's school year, careers, and the tax position. Do not let one variable, especially tax, override the others.
• Stop talking and decide. The decision does not have to be permanent. He frames it as a two-year chapter with an option to reassess — but he went in fully committed, not half-hearted.
• Plan, and then plan more. Planning was his way of making an overwhelming change manageable. Every category — housing, schools, banks, taxes, pets, shipping — got its own list, and the work started months before the flight.

The school decision is the one most families get stuck on. And when you start executing, the return timeline planner lays out what needs attention 12 months, 6 months and 3 months before the move — this story is, in effect, one family's run through that exact timeline.

A real family's experience, shared with permission. General information, not financial, legal, immigration or tax advice. Rules for pet travel, taxation and residency change and depend on your circumstances, so confirm with a qualified professional and the official sources before acting.

Related guides

• We raised our US-born kids in India — what actually happened
• Best schools in India for NRI kids: CBSE, IB and IGCSE
• Why families struggle after moving back to India
• Keeping your US, UK or Canada phone number after moving to India
• Financial checklist for NRIs moving back to India
• NRE and NRO accounts for returning NRIs

No single dramatic event pushed this family out of Denver. The accumulation did — too-short visits, ageing parents, and a child who deserved more than a two-week version of his family. The return is not a moment; it is a sequence of decisions, and the ones taken late under time pressure are the ones that cost the most. Start the planning early, keep your reasons clear, and remember that questioning the move ten times a day is normal — as long as you keep returning to the reason.

General information based on a recorded interview with the family. Not financial, legal, immigration or tax advice. Pet import, tax and residency rules change and vary by country and circumstance; always confirm with official sources and a qualified professional.