U.S.A, Singapore accounted for one-third of FDI during FY25: RBI census

In October 2025, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) released the provisional result of the 2024-25 round of the annual census on foreign liabilities and Assets (FLA).

• As per the census, the United States of America (USA) and Singapore accounted for over one-third of the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in India during 2024-25.

Key Highlights

Census Scope: This covers the cross-border liabilities and assets of the Indian entities (companies, limited liability partnerships (LLPs), alternative investment funds (AIFs) and partnership firms) with inward/outward direct investment (DI).

Information collected: The census captures detailed information on:

• Market value of liabilities and assets of Indian DI entities arising on account of cross-border direct and other investments.
• Trade parameters (viz., activity sector, sales, purchase, exports, and imports), in addition to identification particulars of a reporting entity.

Participants: Out of the 45,702 entities that participated in the latest census, 41,517 reported the presence of foreign direct investment (FDI) and/or overseas direct investment (ODI) in their balance sheets as on March 2025.

• Of these entities, 33,637 had also reported in the previous census round, and 7,880 have newly reported in the current round.
• Over three-fourths of the companies that reported inward direct investment were subsidiaries of foreign companies.

Key Findings:

Top Sources: Apart from the USA and Singapore, the other top sources included Mauritius, the United Kingdom (UK) and Netherlands.

• In case of ODI also, Singapore, the United States and the United Kingdom were the top destinations.

Investment Overview: More than 97% of the responding DI entities were unlisted in March 2025 and that captured most of the FDI equity capital in India.

• Non-financial companies held 90.5% of the FDI equity at face value.

Percentage Distribution:

Of the total FDI during 2024-25 was Rs 68,75,931 crore, the share of the US was 20 per cent, followed by Singapore (14.3 per cent), Mauritius (13.3 per cent), the UK (11.2 per cent) and the Netherlands (9 per cent).

• In case of outward direct investment (Rs 11,66,790 crore), the share of Singapore was 22.2 per cent, followed by the US (15.4 per cent), the UK (12.8 per cent) and the Netherlands (9.6 per cent) during 2024-25.

Market Value terms: The market value of total FDI in unlisted companies surpassed that in listed companies as at end March 2025.

• In terms of market value, the growth of ODI (17.9%) outpaced the growth of FDI (11.1%) in India, in rupee terms during 2024-25.

Sector Specific: Manufacturing sector accounted for the highest share of total FDI equity capital at market value (48.4%) as well as at face value (37.8%).

• The services sector ranked second in FDI equity, led by ‘information and communication’ and ‘financial and insurance activities’.