Chartered Accountant · ICAI M.No. 153926 · FRN 136869W
3-year track record
Plus a minimum spend on genuine activities over those years. Confirm the current spend threshold.
Newer NGOs: prior permission
A specific donor and project can be approved via prior permission.
Meeting the track-record test, and the alternative
The core eligibility for full FCRA registration is a genuine track record: the organisation should normally have been registered and operating for at least three years and have spent a reasonable amount — a minimum laid down in the rules — on its core charitable activities over those years, demonstrated through audited accounts. The idea is that registration goes to established, functioning NGOs, not freshly-formed shells. Newer organisations, or those without the spend history, aren’t shut out: where they have a specific foreign donor and a defined project in view, they can apply for prior permission, which approves that particular contribution and purpose rather than granting open-ended eligibility. Beyond the track record, the office-bearers must satisfy fit-and-proper conditions (no relevant convictions or prosecutions, not engaged in activities against the public interest), and the organisation must have a clear charitable, religious, educational, economic, social or cultural purpose. The designated SBI New Delhi FCRA account is needed in either route. So the practical question for a young NGO is usually whether to wait until it has the three-year record for full registration, or to proceed now via prior permission for a known grant. Confirm the current spend threshold and conditions, which the FCRA rules set and have revised.