Guide
Who qualifies as an Accredited Investor in India
SEBI sets the tests, an accreditation agency issues the certificate, and the figures below are the ones your application is measured against.
Checked against SEBI’s framework and the agency’s own guidance on 23 Sept 2026 · 6 min read
The short answer
Accreditation is a financial test, not an application you can argue
An Accredited Investor is someone SEBI’s framework treats as able to assess an investment without the protections a retail investor gets. It is decided on numbers: your income, your net worth, and how much of that net worth sits in financial assets. You meet a threshold or you do not, and an accreditation agency — not the fund you want to invest through — checks and issues the certificate.
One certificate serves every manager: an AIF, a PMS or an angel fund can rely on the same document, and it stays valid for two or three years. Without one, a manager cannot treat you as accredited however well it knows you.
The thresholds
The tests, in full
Meet any one line in your group. The figures are SEBI’s, and they are the ones your application is measured against.
| Test | Threshold |
|---|---|
| Individuals, HUFs, family trusts and sole proprietors — meet any one | |
| Annual income | ₹2 crore or more |
| orNet worth, not counting the home you live in, with at least ₹3.75 crore of it in financial assets | ₹7.5 crore or more (₹3.75 crore financial) |
| orAnnual income and net worth together (net worth not counting the home you live in), with at least ₹2.5 crore of the net worth in financial assets | ₹1 crore income with ₹5 crore net worth (₹2.5 crore financial) |
| Companies, LLPs, other trusts and partnership firms | |
| Body corporate — net worth | ₹50 crore or more |
| Trust, other than a family trust — net worth | ₹50 crore or more |
| Partnership firm | each partner qualifies on the individual limits above |
Net worth is everything you own minus everything you owe, not counting the home you live in. Financial assets are things like shares, mutual funds, bonds and deposits. They do not include property, gold or your home. An LLP is tested like a company.
What counts as net worth
Net worth is everything you own minus everything you owe, not counting the home you live in.
What counts as a financial asset
Financial assets are things like shares, mutual funds, bonds and deposits. They do not include property, gold or your home.
Which test applies
It depends who is applying, not who is investing
The applicant is whoever will hold the certificate — the person, the HUF, the company. Pick the wrong one and the figures are read against the wrong test.
- You, personally
- The individual tests: income, or net worth, or the two together. Meeting any one is enough.
- An HUF
- The individual tests, on the HUF’s own income and net worth — not the Karta’s personal figures.
- A family trust
- The individual tests, on the trust’s own figures.
- A sole proprietorship
- The individual tests. The proprietor applies on their own PAN — a proprietorship has none of its own.
- A company or an LLP
- The net worth test for a body corporate. Income does not substitute for it.
- A trust other than a family trust
- The net worth test, at the same level as a body corporate.
- A partnership firm
- Each partner must qualify on the individual tests. The firm itself files no figures of its own.
How long it lasts
Two years or three, decided by your figures
The length is not a choice you make. It follows from how many completed financial years you can satisfy.
2-year certificate
You met a threshold in the last financial year.
3-year certificate
You met a threshold in each of the last two financial years.
Evidence
What you have to produce
Declaring a figure is not enough — each one has to be evidenced, in the format the agency expects. Most applications that come back do so over a document, not over the money.
- PAN and current KYC
- A Chartered Accountant's certificate of net worth, showing the financial-asset split
- Income proof — ITR acknowledgements or a CA-certified income statement
- Supporting statements for the assets declared
Entities provide their own constitutional documents as well, and a partnership firm needs a certificate for each partner. The exact list for every applicant type is on how it works.
Where people get it wrong
Four honest mistakes
These account for most of the applications that fail on the figures rather than the paperwork.
Counting the home you live in
Your primary residence is excluded from net worth. A property portfolio counts; the house you live in does not, and this is the single most common reason a comfortable balance sheet falls short.
Missing the financial-asset floor
The net worth tests carry a minimum that must be held in financial assets — shares, mutual funds, bonds, deposits. Land, gold and buildings do not count towards that part, however large.
Using this year’s figures
The tests are read against completed financial years, evidenced by your ITR and your CA’s certificate. Income you are on track to earn this year does not qualify you yet.
Assuming a fund can waive it
No manager can accept you as an Accredited Investor without a certificate from an accreditation agency. Only a narrow institutional set — governments, QIBs, Category I FPIs, sovereign wealth funds, multilateral agencies — is accredited without applying. An individual never is.
Check yourself
Put your own figures in
The calculator runs the same tests our application uses. It works in your browser — nothing you type is sent anywhere, saved, or seen by us.
Your result
Enter your figures and choose “Show my result”. Each of SEBI’s tests will show as met or not met here.
After you qualify
What applying involves
You pay our filing fee, complete the application and upload your documents; we check the figures and the formats, file with the agency, and answer its queries. The agency charges its own fee and decides the application.