Is Binance Legal in India? FIU Status and Rules (2026)
Yes. Binance has been FIU-IND registered since 2024, after an ₹18.82 crore penalty. What that means for P2P, TDS, tax and your money in 2026.
Yes, Binance is legal to use in India. It is registered with the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU-IND) as a reporting entity, after being blocked in January 2024 and paying an ₹18.82 crore penalty in June 2024. It is not banned today, but it is an offshore exchange with no direct rupee bank deposits, so money moves through P2P trades and more of the tax paperwork falls on you.
Key takeaways
- Binance registered with FIU-IND in May 2024 and was fined ₹18.82 crore in June 2024 for serving Indians without registering earlier.
- It was not among the 15 offshore platforms FIU-IND moved to block in September 2026.
- FIU registration is an anti-money laundering registration. It is not an RBI licence or a guarantee of safety.
- Rupees go in and out only through Binance P2P, which carries a real risk of bank account freezes.
- Gains are taxed at 30% plus cess, and you should check yourself whether 1% TDS was deducted on your trades.
Is Binance banned in India?
No. Binance was blocked for about seven months in 2024, and that is where the "banned" idea comes from. Since March 2023, every business that exchanges, transfers or holds crypto for Indian customers has had to register with FIU-IND under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). Binance served Indians without doing so, and FIU-IND acted. Here is the full sequence:
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| March 2023 | Crypto service providers brought under the PMLA. They must register with FIU-IND, verify customers and report suspicious trades. |
| 28 December 2023 | FIU-IND issued show-cause notices to nine offshore platforms, including Binance, KuCoin, Kraken and Bitfinex, and asked the IT ministry to block their websites. |
| January 2024 | Binance's app was removed from Apple's App Store in India and its websites were blocked. |
| May 2024 | Binance registered with FIU-IND as a reporting entity. |
| 19 June 2024 | FIU-IND ordered a penalty of ₹18.82 crore for Binance's failure to meet its PMLA duties while it operated unregistered. |
| August 2024 | Binance's website and apps worked again in India. The same month, the GST intelligence wing (DGGI) sent Binance a show-cause notice seeking ₹722 crore in GST on fees from July 2017 to March 2024. Binance said it was cooperating. |
| April 2025 | Binance asked all Indian users, old and new, to redo KYC, including their PAN. |
| 20 May 2026 | Binance, WazirX and ZebPay appeared before Parliament's Standing Committee on Finance, which is reviewing crypto policy. |
| September 2026 | FIU-IND named 15 more offshore platforms for blocking. Binance was not on the list. |
A GST show-cause notice is a demand, not a final ruling, and we have not seen a public outcome. It does not affect whether you may use the exchange. You can read the full list of platforms targeted in September 2026 in our story on FIU-IND blocking 15 offshore exchanges.
Is Binance FIU registered? What registration means
Yes. The government told the Lok Sabha that 54 crypto service providers had registered with FIU-IND by 9 March 2026, and Binance is one of only a handful of offshore names among them. You can check any platform against our list of FIU-registered crypto exchanges.
Being a reporting entity means Binance must follow the same anti-money laundering rules as CoinDCX or ZebPay. FIU-IND's updated guidelines, issued on 8 January 2026, spell those rules out in detail. Registered platforms must:
- verify customers with a live selfie, record the location and IP address at sign-up, and confirm the bank account with a small test credit (a "penny drop");
- record wallet addresses and transaction hashes, and send sender and receiver details with crypto transfers in real time (the "travel rule");
- collect information on transfers to and from self-hosted wallets and apply extra checks where the risk is higher;
- refuse to handle transactions linked to mixers and treat privacy coins as outside their risk appetite.
What registration does not mean matters just as much. There is no RBI licence or "RBI approval" for any crypto exchange, Indian or foreign; we explain this in our guide to the so-called RBI-approved crypto exchange list and in is CoinDCX RBI approved. Registration also gives you no deposit insurance, no SEBI-style investor protection and no Indian ombudsman. Crypto itself is legal to buy, hold and sell, but it is not legal tender; our explainer on whether cryptocurrency is legal in India covers the wider law.
What Binance offers Indian users today
| Feature | How it works for Indians |
|---|---|
| Rupee deposits | No direct bank or UPI deposit. You buy USDT from another user on Binance P2P and pay them by UPI or bank transfer. |
| Rupee withdrawals | No direct bank payout. You sell USDT on P2P to a buyer who pays your bank account. |
| Spot trading | Hundreds of coins against USDT and other crypto. Fees are in our Binance review. |
| Crypto withdrawals | Allowed to your own wallet or another exchange, for a network fee per coin. |
| Futures and other products | Access varies by country, so check what your account shows before you plan around it. |
| TDS | Not handled the way Indian apps handle it. Check your own statements (see below). |
Binance also runs its own token, BNB, which gives a discount on trading fees. One BNB was about ₹73,760 on 1 October 2026 and is ₹73,664 right now; see the BNB price in INR.
In May 2026 Binance said publicly that no Indian law, regulation or guideline sets limits on crypto withdrawals, and it lets users move coins to their own wallets. Several Indian apps are stricter. That makes Binance attractive to people who want self-custody, but withdrawals from a registered platform are still recorded and can be reported. If you plan to hold coins in a wallet you control, read our guide on whether MetaMask is legal in India.
On our editorial scores, which are not paid for, Binance rates 7.5/10 and sits sixth, behind CoinDCX, Giottus, CoinSwitch, Mudrex and ZebPay. It scores top marks for liquidity and coin choice and low marks for rupee access. If you mainly want to buy Bitcoin or Ethereum with rupees, compare our pick for the best crypto app in India first.
P2P: where the real risk sits
Binance P2P holds the seller's crypto in escrow and releases it when the seller confirms your payment. The escrow protects the crypto side. It does not protect your bank account. If the rupees you receive when selling turn out to come from a fraud victim, police can freeze your account, sometimes for months, even if you did nothing wrong. Our guide to P2P trading and bank account freezes explains how this happens and how to reduce the risk.
P2P also costs more than it looks. USDT traded at about ₹96 on 1 October 2026. As an illustration, if a P2P seller asks ₹98 per USDT, ₹1,00,000 buys about 1,020 USDT instead of about 1,042, a hidden cost of roughly ₹2,000 before any trading fee. Always compare the P2P rate with the live USDT price in INR.
A safer way to reach your bank is to send USDT from Binance to an FIU-registered Indian exchange that accepts crypto deposits, sell it there for rupees and withdraw by IMPS or NEFT. We walk through that route in how to convert USDT to INR and how to withdraw crypto to your bank account. The same method works for coins held in a self-custody wallet, as shown in our guide to withdrawing from Trust Wallet to a bank account.
TDS and tax on Binance trades
Indian tax applies to you as an Indian resident, wherever you trade. Gains on crypto are taxed at a flat 30% plus 4% cess under the rules introduced as Section 115BBH. Nothing except the cost of buying can be deducted, losses cannot be set off against other income or carried forward, and every sale or swap must be reported in Schedule VDA of your return.
Worked example: you buy BNB worth ₹1,00,000 on Binance and later sell it for ₹1,30,000. Your gain is ₹30,000. Tax is ₹9,000 (30%) plus ₹360 cess, a total of ₹9,360. The 1% TDS on a ₹1,30,000 sale would be ₹1,300. If that TDS was deducted and deposited against your PAN, it appears in your Form 26AS and AIS and counts towards the ₹9,360.
TDS is where Binance users get caught out. Indian apps deduct 1% automatically on every sale. On Binance, do not assume it has happened:
- Check your records. Download your Binance transaction and tax statements and compare them with the TDS entries in your Form 26AS and AIS.
- P2P purchases. When you buy crypto directly from another person, the rules put the duty to deduct 1% TDS on you, the buyer, once your payments cross ₹50,000 in the year (₹10,000 for some taxpayers). Individuals usually deposit it using Form 26QE. This is hard to do in practice on P2P, and it is one reason the tax department has questioned Binance users.
- Notices. In 2025 the Income Tax Department sent notices to Indians who traded on Binance, asking for proof that TDS was deducted or reasons why it did not apply. If you get one, our guide on what to do after a crypto tax notice helps.
Keep every P2P order, payment screenshot and trade export. The basics are in what 1% TDS on crypto means, and the crypto tax calculator does the arithmetic.
How Binance compares with other platforms Indians ask about
| Platform | Type | FIU-IND position | Our guide |
|---|---|---|---|
| Binance | Offshore exchange | Registered in 2024 after a ₹18.82 crore penalty | This page |
| Bybit | Offshore exchange | Fined ₹9.27 crore by FIU-IND in January 2025 | Is Bybit legal in India? |
| OKX | Offshore exchange | Told Indian users in March 2024 to withdraw by 30 April 2024, citing regulatory hurdles | Is OKX available in India? |
| Hyperliquid | Decentralised exchange | Not registered | Is Hyperliquid legal in India? |
| Trust Wallet, MetaMask | Self-custody wallets | Wallet software does not hold your funds, so the rules apply differently | Is Trust Wallet FIU registered? |
Binance also owns Trust Wallet, a separate self-custody app with its own TWT token; our page on how to buy the Trust Wallet token in India covers that token.
Is Binance safe for Indian users?
Legal and safe are different questions. Binance offers strong account security tools and the deepest trading markets in the world. But for an Indian user it has four weak points:
- It is an offshore company. Disputes are not handled by Indian courts or an Indian regulator in the way a complaint against an Indian exchange would be.
- P2P exposes your bank account to other people's money, as explained above.
- Tax is on you. Missing TDS or unreported swaps can turn into notices and interest.
- Rules can change. Parliament's finance committee is still reviewing crypto policy, and FIU-IND can act against any platform that stops complying.
A sensible approach is to keep only trading money on Binance, move long-term holdings to a wallet you control or a registered Indian exchange, and turn on an authenticator app, an anti-phishing code and withdrawal address whitelisting.
Using Binance from India within the rules
- Install the app only from the official store listing or binance.com, and complete KYC with your PAN.
- Fund your account through P2P using a bank account in your own name, with high-rated merchants, and never move the chat or payment off Binance.
- Do not use a VPN to reach products that are not offered to Indian accounts. It can cause KYC and withdrawal problems.
- Export your trade history every quarter and check your TDS position.
- Report every sale and swap in Schedule VDA when you file your return.
Our step-by-step guide on how to trade crypto on Binance from India shows each screen, and the full Binance review covers fees and features in depth.
FAQ
Is Binance legal in India in 2026?
Yes. Binance is registered with FIU-IND and Indians can legally use it. You still owe 30% tax on gains and must report your trades in Schedule VDA.
Is Binance banned in India?
No. It was blocked from January 2024 until it registered with FIU-IND and paid an ₹18.82 crore penalty, and it has worked in India since August 2024.
Is Binance FIU registered?
Yes. Binance registered with FIU-IND as a reporting entity in May 2024, so it must follow India's anti-money laundering rules, including KYC and reporting.
Is Binance RBI approved?
No, and no crypto exchange is. The RBI does not licence crypto exchanges; FIU-IND registration is the requirement that applies.
Does Binance deduct TDS in India?
Do not assume it does. Check your Binance statements against Form 26AS and AIS, and remember that on P2P purchases the duty to deduct 1% TDS falls on the buyer.
Can I withdraw money from Binance to my bank account?
Not directly. You either sell USDT on Binance P2P to a buyer who pays your bank, or send it to an FIU-registered Indian exchange, sell it for rupees and withdraw.
This article is AI-assisted, educational and general in nature. It is not financial advice and never a guarantee of profit. Every trade is at your own risk on your own exchange. See our risk disclosure and editorial policy.
