India drew a big part of its foreign investment last year from the United States and Singapore. Together, the two countries brought in more than one-third of all the money that flowed into India as foreign direct investment in 2024–25, new data from the Reserve Bank of India shows, as per reports.
The central bank released provisional findings from its latest census on foreign liabilities and assets of Indian companies. The survey covered firms that either received investments from abroad or invested in other countries.
Out of 45,702 companies that took part, 41,517 had some form of foreign or overseas investment on their books as of March 2025.
A large number of these were subsidiaries of foreign companies, in most cases, one overseas investor owned more than half of the firm’s shares, the report said.
The total value of FDI in India during the year was INR 68.75 lakh crore. The United States accounted for 20 per cent of that, followed by Singapore with 14.3 per cent, Mauritius with 13.3 per cent, the United Kingdom with 11.2 per cent and the Netherlands with 9 per cent. A year earlier, India had received INR 61.88 lakh crore in FDI.
Manufacturing continued to be the top magnet for investors, drawing nearly half of all FDI at market value. The services sector came next, though at a smaller share.
Indian firms, too, invested more abroad. Outward direct investment was valued at INR 11.66 lakh crore in 2024–25. Singapore was the biggest destination, getting 22.2 per cent of the total. The United States came next at 15.4 per cent, followed by the United Kingdom at 12.8 per cent and the Netherlands at 9.6 per cent.
Over 97 per cent of all the companies that took part in the census were unlisted, yet they held most of the FDI equity capital in India. Non-financial firms made up a little over 90 per cent of that capital.
As per the RBI data, Indian companies expanded their overseas investments faster than foreign investors increased theirs in India. Outward investment grew by 17.9 per cent, while FDI coming into the country rose by 11.1 per cent. This meant that for every rupee Indian firms sent abroad, nearly six rupees came in. However, the ratio slipped slightly from 6.3 to 5.9 over the year.
