As announced in the Statement on Developmental and Regulatory Policies dated October 01, 2025, it has been decided to rationalize regulations pertaining to External Commercial Borrowing (ECB) included in the Foreign Exchange Management (Borrowing and Lending) Regulations, 2018 issued under FEMA, 1999. Salient features of proposed regulations are as under:

1. The borrowing limits are proposed to be linked to a borrower’s financial strength and ECB are proposed to be raised at market determined interest rates.

2. The end-use restrictions and Minimum Average Maturity requirements are proposed to be simplified.  

3. The borrower and lender base eligible for ECB transactions is being expanded to enhance opportunities of credit flow for productive commercial use.

4. Reporting requirements are being simplified to ease compliance obligations.

The draft amendment to the Foreign Exchange Management (Borrowing and Lending) Regulations, 2018 pertaining to the ECB framework is available on the RBI website for public response.

Comments/ feedback on the draft regulations may be submitted through the link given below. Alternatively, it may also be forwarded via email to ecbframework@rbi.org.in by October 24, 2025, with the subject line “Feedback on draft ECB framework”.