Paying a foreign university fee from India, step by step

A tuition payment has a deadline, a specific amount, and a reference number that has to survive the journey. That makes it unlike most remittances, where being a day late and a few dollars short is merely annoying. Here it can cost a place. This is the sequence that works.

1. 1Fee deadline — the date the university must have the money, not the date you send it.
2. 2Minus five working days — the remittance itself, which is two to five days through the correspondent chain.
3. 3Minus two more days — document verification and the dealer's processing.
4. 4Minus a week, if you need a Form 15CB, which is rare for tuition but not unheard of.

So a fee due on the 30th should be initiated around the 20th. Sending on the 28th is how families end up paying a late fee to save nothing.

• The exact amount on the invoice, not approximately that amount.
• The student ID or invoice number in the payment reference field. Without it the money arrives unattached and someone has to reconcile it by hand.
• Payment to the account named on the invoice. Universities sometimes have separate accounts for tuition and deposits.

Correspondent banks deduct their charges from the amount in transit under the default SHA option, so USD 12,000 sent can become USD 11,970 received. The university records an underpayment. Send under OUR, where you bear those charges and the full amount lands, or add a buffer of USD 30 to 50. This one decision prevents most tuition payment problems.

• Education remittances attract TCS at 5% above ₹10 lakh for the financial year, rather than the general 20%.
• Where the fees are funded by a loan from a specified financial institution, TCS is nil at any amount.
• The loan sanction letter must be produced at the time of remitting. Producing it afterwards does not retrospectively remove the TCS.
• TCS is recoverable against your tax liability either way, but nil beats 5% and 5% beats 20%.

1. 1Admission or enrolment letter from the university.
2. 2The fee invoice showing the amount and the due date.
3. 3The university's bank details — SWIFT, IBAN or routing number, account name and number.
4. 4Student's passport and visa.
5. 5Remitter's PAN and passport.
6. 6The A2 declaration with the education purpose code — S0301.
7. 7The loan sanction letter, if a loan is funding it.