Exercising from India

Does anyone have insights into how employees in India can more easily exercise via Carta? I see another post in here about ESOP exercises so it may be the same issue. There seem to be local restrictions. I’d love to hear from anyone who has worked on this. Adam

Insights for India-based Employees

We did some digging internally and here are a few things that may be helpful, though we invite those in the community to share their experiences as well!

There are a few separate things that can cause friction for India-based employees exercising via Carta, depending on the situation:

1. Bank wire restrictions

Some Indian banks (HDFC in particular) have been known to flag or block outbound wires to Carta's US bank account. If an employee hits this, the most reliable workarounds are:

• Use a different bank for the wire (ICICI, Axis, etc. tend to work)
• Use an international money transfer service like Wise
• Share Carta's Equity Transaction Payment Terms with the bank. This clarifies that Carta is the escrow administrator accepting funds on behalf of the company, which sometimes resolves the bank's concern.

2. Tax withholding

Carta supports India tax withholding configuration. Admins can review and adjust jurisdiction rates under Compliance & Tax > Tax Jurisdictions and Rates. More details in the support article.

3. Regulatory / valuation requirements (FEMA / Rule 11UA)

If the blocker is regulatory, for example the employee's bank or legal advisor is asking for an India-specific fair value determination under FEMA, that falls outside what Carta provides. You'd need to engage a third-party firm for that piece, and then record the exercise in Carta once the regulatory requirements are satisfied.

Hope this helps, and curious to hear from others in the community who've navigated this!