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Institutional Advisory Desk

GIFT City IFSC
Entity Setup, Tax and Compliance — Advised.

IFSCA entity registration, the section 80LA ten-year deduction, GST and FEMA framework, AIF and portfolio-manager set-up, aircraft and ship leasing vehicles — one advisory desk for GIFT City IFSC, run from an office in Satellite, Ahmedabad, about half an hour away.

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Since 2007 19 Years Office 30 Minutes Away in Ahmedabad

Gadhia Associate

IFSC Advisory

Setting up in
India's only IFSC.

Entity structuring, 80LA optimisation and IFSCA compliance under one roof.

15%

Concessional Corp Tax

100%

80LA Tax Holiday (10y)

800+

Registered IFSC entities

$70B+

Cumulative banking-unit transactions

27+

Fund managers on GIFT City AIF regime

1 of 1

India's only aircraft & ship leasing hub

Public IFSCA and GIFT SEZ data as at 2026. Numbers rounded for readability.

Why GIFT City IFSC

The Financial Advantages, In Plain Language

India's only International Financial Services Centre carries a genuinely different tax and regulatory framework from the rest of the country. Here is what actually changes when you operate from inside.

The Ten-Year Deduction

An IFSC unit can deduct 100% of its eligible income under section 80LA for any ten consecutive assessment years out of fifteen, and where minimum alternate tax applies at all it runs at 9% rather than 15% under section 115JB(7).

GST-Free Exports

Services supplied from an IFSC unit to a person outside India, or from one IFSC unit to another, are exempt from GST — competitively priced against Singapore, Dubai and Hong Kong.

USD as Functional Currency

Transactions inside IFSC are in freely convertible foreign currency (typically USD), with a clean FEMA framework that allows non-residents to invest and repatriate without INR conversion friction.

Unified IFSCA Regulator

One regulator — the International Financial Services Centres Authority — covers banking, capital markets, insurance and pensions inside IFSC, replacing the four-regulator matrix that applies elsewhere.

The Six-Pillar Advisory

End-to-End IFSC Advisory, Under One Desk

From choosing the right entity vehicle to running the annual IFSCA compliance calendar — every layer of a GIFT City set-up handled with senior attention.

01

IFSC Entity Setup & IFSCA Registration

Choosing the right vehicle (branch, subsidiary, LLP, unincorporated body), preparing the IFSCA application, and coordinating with SEZ, GIFT SEZ Authority and regulators until the operating licence is issued.

IFSCA ApplicationEntity StructuringLicence Coordination
02

Section 80LA — The Ten-Year Deduction

Structuring operations so the deduction under section 80LA is fully captured: 100% of the unit's eligible income for any ten consecutive assessment years out of fifteen, chosen by the unit, and the reduced minimum alternate tax of 9% instead of 15% under section 115JB(7) where MAT applies at all.

Section 80LATen Consecutive Years9% MAT
03

GST Exemption & FEMA Framework

GST exemption on services supplied from IFSC to non-residents, IGST implications on domestic tariff area transactions, and the FEMA relaxations that make USD-denominated business viable inside the IFSC.

GST ExemptionFEMA ReliefUSD Transactions
04

Fund & AIF Structuring

AIF Category I, II and III set-up inside IFSC, portfolio-manager licensing, family-office structures, and the reporting cadence expected by IFSCA — with tax-neutral treatment for non-resident investors.

AIF I / II / IIIPortfolio ManagersFamily Office
Related desk
05

Aircraft & Ship Leasing Vehicles

Setting up aircraft and ship leasing companies inside IFSC — the only Indian jurisdiction where these operate — with tax-neutral treatment for the leasing income and clear ownership frameworks.

Aircraft LeasingShip LeasingCross-Border
06

IFSC Banking Unit & Insurance Office

Advisory and compliance support for IFSC Banking Units (IBUs), reinsurance offices, insurance intermediary offices, and capital-market intermediaries operating under the IFSCA framework.

IBU AdvisoryReinsuranceCapital Markets
The Numbers, Side by Side

GIFT City vs Singapore vs Dubai (DIFC)

A quick comparison of the three financial hubs Indian founders and family offices actually evaluate.

ParameterGIFT City IFSCSingaporeDubai DIFC
Corporate tax rate15% concessional (Sec 80LA)17% (partial exemptions)9% (from June 2023)
Tax holiday100% for 10 of first 15 yearsGrants case-by-caseNone (0% zone ended)
GST / VAT on exportsExempt on services to non-residents0% GST on exports0% VAT on exports
RegulatorIFSCA (single unified)MASDFSA
CurrencyUSD (freely convertible)SGD / USDUSD / AED
Physical set-up costLow (SEZ office rents)HighHigh
Ease for Indian foundersHome jurisdiction, no visaEmployment pass requiredResidency required

Rates and framework as at 2026. Case-specific benefits depend on the exact entity type and business activity.

Sectors We Advise

Every Regulated Vertical Inside GIFT City IFSC

IFSC Banking Units

Insurance & Reinsurance

AIFs & PMS

Fund Management

Aircraft Leasing

Ship Leasing

Fintech & TechFin

Bullion & Commodities

The Engagement

Four Clear Stages, No Surprises

1

Discovery Call

We map your business, the IFSC vehicle that fits, and the licences you will need before committing to a structure.

2

Structure & Filing

Draft the IFSCA application, incorporate the entity through GIFT SEZ, obtain LOA / LOI and complete the operating licence process.

3

Tax & FEMA Set-Up

Optimise Section 80LA, register for GST where required, and set up the FEMA-compliant USD banking and reporting workflow.

4

Ongoing Compliance

Quarterly IFSCA returns, annual audit, Section 80LA disclosures and continuous monitoring of IFSCA circulars — retained advisory.

Before the First Filing

What the IFSCA Application Asks For

An IFSC set-up is a documents exercise before it is a tax exercise. Send whatever you already hold and we will tell you precisely what is still missing — gaps at this stage are normal, and far cheaper than gaps discovered after an application is in.

The entity and its promoters

  • Certificate of incorporation, MOA and AOA of the applicant or parent
  • Audited financial statements for the last three years, where they exist
  • Shareholding pattern, and the ultimate beneficial owner declaration
  • KYC for every promoter and proposed director: PAN or passport, address proof, photograph
  • Board resolution approving the IFSC application and naming the authorised signatory
  • Group structure chart, where the applicant sits inside a larger group

A foreign parent will need its documents apostilled or consularised. That step takes weeks in some jurisdictions and is the most common reason a timeline slips, so it starts on day one rather than when the form asks for it.

The activity and the business plan

  • A written description of the activity you intend to carry on inside the IFSC
  • Three-year projections: revenue, cost base, and headcount
  • Where your customers are resident, which decides the GST and export position
  • The licence class you believe you need, or the activity and we will map it
  • Any existing regulatory registrations held in India or abroad
  • Draft agreements with the parent, the group, or anchor clients

Activity classification is the single decision that drives everything else — the licence, the capital, the staffing and whether income falls inside section 80LA. It is worth getting right before a form is touched.

People, capital and premises

  • Net-worth certificate or capital commitment, where the activity is regulated
  • CVs and qualification proof for the proposed key managerial personnel
  • Fit-and-proper declarations for directors and designated officers
  • Proposed premises inside GIFT SEZ: lease, allotment letter or co-working agreement
  • Banking arrangement in freely convertible currency
  • Proposed compliance officer and the internal reporting structure

Several licence classes require named individuals with specific qualifications resident in India. Where you do not yet have them, that is a recruitment runway to plan for, not a box to tick, and we will say so on the first call.

The three cost buckets, kept separate

Our fee. Advisory, drafting and filing. Fixed, and quoted in writing after the first call rather than from a web page, because the scope of a back-office unit and a Category III AIF are not comparable.

Statutory cost. IFSCA application and licence charges, plus GIFT SEZ fees. These belong to the regulator and the authority, they change, and we pass them through at what they are.

Running cost. Premises inside the SEZ, the minimum staffing your licence class requires, audit, and the banking arrangement. Usually the largest of the three and the one plans underestimate.

Where to Find Us

Half an Hour From GIFT City

The nearest office is Satellite, in Ahmedabad — roughly half an hour up SG Highway, which makes a morning meeting and a return trip ordinary rather than an expedition. Junagadh remains the main office, where the firm has worked since 2007. We come into GIFT City itself for the meetings that belong there: the SEZ authority, a walk-through of proposed premises, an investor session your counsel wants to sit in on.

Ahmedabad Office

Nearest to GIFT City

B-301, Krishna Complex, Rajpath Bunglows RoadOpp. Devashish Complex, Satellite, Ahmedabad - 380015

Open in Maps

Junagadh Office (main)

Office No. 314, 3rd Floor, Punit Shopping CentreM.G. Road, Junagadh - 362001

Open in Maps

When we are reachable

Monday to Saturday, 10:00 am to 7:00 pmSunday by appointment

+918200528355 WhatsApp the IFSC desk contact@gadhiaassociate.com
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Frequently Asked

GIFT City IFSC — Practical Answers

What is GIFT City IFSC and who is it for?+
GIFT City IFSC — India's International Financial Services Centre in Gandhinagar — is a special economic zone designed to compete with global financial hubs like Singapore, Dubai and Mauritius. It is meant for banking units, insurance offices, capital-market intermediaries, fund managers, aircraft and ship leasing companies, fintech firms, and non-financial services delivered to non-residents. The single regulator is IFSCA (International Financial Services Centres Authority).
What tax benefit does Section 80LA give an IFSC unit?+
A deduction of 100% of the unit's eligible income, for any ten consecutive assessment years the unit chooses out of the fifteen beginning with the year it got its IFSCA permission. The choice matters: a unit that will take three years to become profitable should not be burning holiday years on losses, and that decision is made once. Where minimum alternate tax applies at all, section 115JB(7) runs it at 9% instead of 15%. The ordinary corporate rate applies to anything falling outside the deduction, so the structuring question is which income sits inside it — and that is settled by the activity and the vehicle, not by the return.
Are services from a GIFT City IFSC unit exempt from GST?+
Yes — services supplied from an IFSC unit to a person outside India, or from one IFSC unit to another, are treated as exports and are exempt from GST. Services supplied from IFSC to a person in the Domestic Tariff Area (i.e. the rest of India) are taxable under the normal GST framework. Correct invoicing and place-of-supply analysis is critical to keep the exemption clean.
What business activities are permitted inside GIFT City IFSC?+
Broadly: banking (IBUs), insurance and reinsurance, capital-market intermediaries, portfolio managers, AIFs across Category I / II / III, family offices, aircraft and ship leasing, precious-metals trading, fintech, ancillary services, and increasingly non-financial services delivered to non-residents (accounting, legal, back-office). Each activity requires its own IFSCA licence.
Can an NRI or foreign company set up a unit in GIFT City IFSC?+
Yes. IFSC entities can be owned by Indian residents, non-residents (NRIs, OCIs, foreign nationals) or foreign companies. FEMA restrictions that apply to the rest of India are significantly relaxed inside IFSC — this is one of the specific reasons the SEZ was created. We handle both the FEMA framework and the parallel IFSCA regulatory clearance.
How long does IFSC entity registration take?+
For a non-financial services entity delivering back-office or advisory services, typical timelines are 8 to 12 weeks from application to operating licence. Regulated activities (banking, insurance, fund management) take longer — usually 4 to 6 months — because IFSCA licensing has additional net-worth, personnel and capital-adequacy requirements to satisfy. We map the exact runway upfront so there are no surprises.
Do you also handle ongoing compliance for existing GIFT City units?+
Yes. Beyond set-up, we handle quarterly IFSCA reporting, annual audit and Section 80LA disclosures, GST returns for taxable domestic transactions, TDS and payroll for staff based inside IFSC, and monitoring of new IFSCA circulars that affect your unit type. Most clients retain us as their long-term IFSC compliance desk.
Where would we actually meet you?+
At B-301, Krishna Complex, Rajpath Bunglows Road, opposite Devashish Complex, Satellite, Ahmedabad 380015 — roughly half an hour from GIFT City up SG Highway, which makes a morning meeting and a return trip entirely normal. The main office is Junagadh, where the firm has worked since 2007, and we come to GIFT City itself for the meetings that belong there: a session with the SEZ authority, a walk-through of proposed premises, an investor meeting your counsel wants to attend. Everything else runs on documents and calls, which is how most of this work is done anyway.
What will an IFSC set-up cost in fees?+
You get a written quote after the first call, split so you can see what is ours and what is not. There are three separate buckets and conflating them is how people get surprised: our advisory and filing fee, which is fixed and quoted upfront; the statutory and regulator costs, which are IFSCA's application and licence fees plus GIFT SEZ charges and are what they are; and the recurring operating costs, mainly premises inside the SEZ, the minimum staffing your licence class requires, audit and the banking arrangement. We will not quote the first bucket from a web page, because a non-financial back-office unit and a Category III AIF are not the same engagement. We will give you the shape of all three on the first call so you can decide whether to proceed before paying anybody anything.
Is there a minimum capital or net worth requirement?+
It depends entirely on the licence class, and this is the question most worth asking early because it decides whether the plan is viable at all. Non-financial and ancillary services carry no capital-adequacy condition of the kind a regulated activity does. Regulated activities each carry their own: fund management entities, portfolio managers, banking units, insurance intermediaries and finance companies all have separate net-worth floors, personnel conditions and in some cases a requirement for specific key managerial persons resident in India. We check your intended activity against the current IFSCA framework before anything is drafted, because the honest answer is sometimes that a different vehicle or a different activity classification gets you where you want to go for a fraction of the capital.
Can an existing Indian company set up a unit, or does it need a new entity?+
Either works and the choice has consequences. An existing Indian company can operate in the IFSC through a branch — an IFSC Banking Unit is structurally exactly that — which keeps one legal entity and one set of accounts, with the unit's income carved out for section 80LA purposes. A separate subsidiary or LLP gives cleaner ring-fencing, which matters when outside investors or a different risk profile are involved, and is usually what a fund or leasing vehicle wants. The deciding factors are normally the activity, whether non-residents will hold equity, and how the group wants the profits to travel. We map both before you commit, because converting afterwards is expensive.
We only want a back-office or support unit, not a financial licence. Is that allowed?+
Yes, and it is one of the faster-growing parts of the IFSC. Ancillary and non-financial services delivered to non-residents — accounting and bookkeeping, legal and secretarial support, IT and back-office processing, research and analytics — are permitted activities under the IFSCA ancillary services framework, with lighter conditions than a regulated financial licence and a shorter runway to a licence. The tax and GST position still has to be built properly: the deduction under section 80LA, the export treatment of services supplied to persons outside India, and the taxable position on anything billed into the rest of India. That last one is where otherwise clean set-ups go wrong.
What does the ongoing compliance calendar actually look like?+
For a typical unit: periodic returns and reporting to IFSCA on the cadence its licence class specifies, an annual audit, the section 80LA claim and its supporting disclosures with the income tax return, GST returns where there are taxable domestic supplies, quarterly TDS returns and payroll filings for staff inside the IFSC, and the SEZ-side reporting that comes with operating in a zone. On top of that, IFSCA issues circulars frequently enough that reading them is itself part of the engagement — a condition can change for your unit type without anybody writing to you. That is the part clients tend to retain us for after set-up.
Ready to Structure Your IFSC Set-Up?

A Private Consultation With Our IFSC Desk

Bring your vehicle idea, your investor structure, or the licence you're considering. We'll map the runway, the tax stack and the compliance calendar so you know exactly what a GIFT City set-up will look like — before you commit.

Book Consultation +918200528355