TT Buying Rate: What It Means for Exporters and Your Tax Filing

The TT buying rate is the exchange rate a bank applies when it buys the foreign currency arriving in your account and pays you Indian rupees.

TT stands for telegraphic transfer, and this rate is used for clean inward remittances that need no physical document to clear, such as export proceeds credited by wire, freelance income, and SaaS receipts from overseas clients.

Because the bank is buying dollars from you, the TT buying rate sits below the mid-market rate, and the gap between the two is where your realised value quietly leaks.

If you export services and want to hold on to more of every dollar, a target-rate tool like Xflow's FX AI Analyst can help you convert closer to the true market rate rather than accept whatever the bank quotes on settlement day.

This guide explains what the TT buying rate is, how banks derive it, why it always trails the mid-market rate, how to calculate it, where to check your own bank's card, how it feeds into your income tax working, and how exporters narrow the spread.

Worked examples with real rupee numbers run throughout.

TT buying rate meaning: what it actually is

The TT buying rate is the price at which your bank purchases inbound foreign currency and credits you rupees, when the funds arrive as a clean wire with no bill or draft to be collected.

It applies to most receipts an Indian service exporter sees: export invoices settled by SWIFT, marketplace payouts, and inward remittances routed through your authorised dealer bank.

Two features define it. First, it is a buying rate, so the bank pays you fewer rupees per dollar than the interbank benchmark.

Second, it is a telegraphic transfer rate, reserved for money already sitting with the bank in cleared form, which is why it is better for you than the bill buying rate used when a document still has to be realised.

To see how any buying rate is built, it helps to know what forex rates represent in the first place and how a quoted price differs from the underlying market.

The TT buying rate is one rung on that ladder, and it is the rung that matters most to anyone receiving money from abroad.

TT buying rate vs TT selling rate vs bill buying rate

Banks publish a card of rates, and the label tells you which direction money moves and whether a document is involved.

Getting these four apart is the single most useful thing an exporter can learn, because using the wrong one in a calculation can misstate your realised value by more than a rupee per dollar.

For a service exporter receiving money, the TT buying rate is the one that matters. The TT selling rate only concerns you when you send money abroad, for instance paying an overseas vendor or a foreign software subscription.

The bill buying rate is poorer than TT buying because the bank carries the risk that the underlying bill is not honoured, so it prices that risk into the rate.

The distance from mid-market to your buying rate is the spread. The distance from mid-market up to the selling rate is another spread in the other direction.

A bank earns on both, which is why the round trip of receiving dollars and later paying dollars out is more expensive than either leg looks on its own.

Understanding the difference between a spot conversion today and a locked forward price matters here too; the trade-offs between spot rate vs forward rate decide how much certainty you are paying for when a large receipt is weeks away.

How to calculate the TT buying rate

A bank does not invent the TT buying rate from nothing. It starts with a base or interbank rate, the live wholesale price at which large players trade the currency pair, and then deducts an exchange margin.

The result is what it will pay you. The formula is simple:

TT buying rate = base interbank rate minus the bank's exchange margin.

The mechanism, in order:

• Base rate: The bank takes the prevailing interbank USD/INR rate as its starting reference.
• Exchange margin: It subtracts a margin, typically a few paise to well over a rupee, to cover its cost, risk, and profit.
• FEDAI conventions: The Foreign Exchange Dealers Association of India sets market conventions and rounding practices that member banks generally follow when quoting.
• Published card: The bank posts the final TT buying rate on its daily forex card, refreshed through the day as the market moves.

Worked calculation: if the interbank USD/INR is an illustrative ₹95.70 and your bank sets a ₹0.50 margin, your TT buying rate is ₹95.70 minus ₹0.50, which equals ₹95.20.

Widen the margin to ₹1.00 and the same base rate now pays you only ₹94.70.

Because the margin is a deduction, a larger margin means fewer rupees for you, and two banks starting from the same base rate can pay meaningfully different amounts once their margins differ.

Why the USD TT buying rate today sits below the mid-market rate

The mid-market rate is the midpoint between the buy and sell prices in the interbank market. It is the rate you see on Google or a currency site, and no retail customer actually transacts at it.

The moment a bank quotes you a buying rate, it has already stepped down from that midpoint to build in its margin.

That step-down is the spread. On a single small receipt it looks trivial. On repeated export inflows across a year, it compounds into a large number, because the margin is charged on every dollar every time.

The USD TT buying rate today on any bank card is therefore always a little below whatever the live mid-market USD/INR shows, and the gap is not an error or a fee line you can dispute.

It is the bank's pricing, baked into the rate itself.

This is why the effective rate you are paid, not the mid-market number you saw when the invoice went out, is what decides your take-home.

The larger your volume, the more the buying rate, not your billing, controls what actually lands in your account.

SBI TT buying rate today and SBI TT buying rate history

The State Bank of India card carries a special weight for exporters, and not only because SBI is the largest authorised dealer.

The SBI TT buying rate is the reference the Income-tax framework leans on for converting foreign-currency income, so many businesses track it even when they bank elsewhere.

The SBI TT buying rate today changes intraday and by currency, so a figure quoted at 10am may not hold at 4pm. It is a moving number, not a fixed daily one.

Read the live figure from SBI's daily forex card for a same-day conversion.

For SBI TT buying rate history, which you may need when reconstructing a past receipt or a prior year's income for your return, use the dated card archive or the prescribed reference rate for that date rather than today's live quote.

The rate that governs a transaction is the rate on the transaction date, not the rate on the day you happen to do the paperwork.

TT buying rate for income tax: how it feeds your ITR

The TT buying rate is not only a pricing number; it also shows up in your tax working.

When foreign-currency income or a foreign asset has to be expressed in rupees for your return, the Income-tax Rules prescribe a defined rate rather than any rate you choose.

Rule 115 of the Income-tax Rules sets the rate of exchange for converting income earned in foreign currency, and it references the telegraphic transfer buying rate adopted by the State Bank of India for the relevant date.

For certain conversions the tax framework also points to the FBIL reference rate, the benchmark published by Financial Benchmarks India Pvt Ltd.

Because these are published, dated figures, you should read the exact rate for your applicable date directly from the source rather than a live market quote.

Where to confirm the correct figure, as of August 2026:

• incometaxindia.gov.in for the text of Rule 115 and the conversion rules that apply to your income head.
• FBIL for the official reference rate for a given date.
• RBI for the reference rate history and forex conventions.

This is not tax advice, and the right rate depends on your income type and date. Confirm the treatment with your chartered accountant before filing.

For the broader picture of how inbound money is treated when it lands, the rules around international payment regulations for USD to INR are worth a read.

Bank-wise TT buying rate: where to check your bank's rate

Every authorised dealer bank publishes a daily forex card listing TT buying, TT selling, and bill rates for each currency it handles.

Rates differ from one bank to the next because each sets its own margin over the same interbank base, so the bank-wise TT buying rate is worth comparing before a large receipt.

You will usually find the card in three places: the bank's own website under a forex or treasury rates section, your net banking or business banking dashboard at the point of booking a conversion, and a rate confirmation from your relationship manager for larger tickets.

The table below links the published forex-rate page for each major bank, so you can jump straight to the card and read its current TT buying rate.

• Axis Bank forex rates
• Bandhan Bank forex rates
• Bank of America forex rates
• Bank of Baroda forex rates
• Bank of India forex rates
• Bank of Maharashtra forex rates
• Barclays Bank forex rates
• Canara Bank forex rates
• Central Bank of India forex rates
• Citi Bank forex rates
• City Union Bank forex rates
• DBS Bank forex rates
• DCB Bank forex rates
• Deutsche Bank forex rates
• Federal Bank forex rates
• HDFC Bank forex rates
• HSBC Bank forex rates
• ICICI Bank forex rates
• IDBI Bank forex rates
• IDFC Bank forex rates
• Indian Bank forex rates
• Indian Overseas Bank forex rates
• IndusInd Bank forex rates
• Karnataka Bank forex rates
• Karur Vysya Bank forex rates
• Kotak Mahindra Bank forex rates
• Punjab National Bank forex rates
• RBL Bank forex rates
• SBI forex rates
• SBM Bank forex rates
• South Indian Bank forex rates
• Standard Chartered forex rates
• Tamilnad Mercantile Bank forex rates
• UCO Bank forex rates
• Union Bank forex rates
• Yes Bank forex rates

Checking two or three cards before a large receipt takes a few minutes and can be worth thousands of rupees, because the margin is charged on the full amount you convert.

Worked examples: what the TT buying spread costs different exporters

Numbers make the spread concrete. Here are four situations exporters actually meet, each with named figures.

Priya, a Pune SaaS founder, receives $8,000

Her US client pays for a quarter of licences. The mid-market USD/INR is an illustrative ₹95.70; her bank's TT buying rate is ₹95.20, a spread of ₹0.50 per dollar. At mid-market she would receive $8,000 times ₹95.70, which is ₹7,65,600.

At the TT buying rate she receives $8,000 times ₹95.20, which is ₹7,61,600. The spread costs her ₹4,000 on one receipt. Across four such quarters that is ₹16,000 a year lost purely to conversion, before any wire fees.

Rahul, a freelance developer, compares SBI TT against mid-market

He earns $3,000 a month from a single overseas client. At the same ₹0.50 spread, each month costs him $3,000 times ₹0.50, which is ₹1,500.

Over twelve months that is ₹18,000, roughly a month's worth of his software and hosting bills, quietly handed back at conversion rather than kept.

Meera, a $250,000 exporter, negotiates a better rate

Her design studio clears $250,000 a year. On a ₹0.50 spread she loses $250,000 times ₹0.50, which is ₹1,25,000. She uses her volume to push her bank down to a ₹0.30 margin.

Her new annual spread cost falls to $250,000 times ₹0.30, which is ₹75,000. The negotiation alone saves her ₹50,000 a year, and it worked only because she could show steady, sizeable inflows.

Arjun converts foreign income for his ITR

He earned $12,000 in consulting fees across the year and must state it in rupees on his return. He cannot use the market rate he saw when each payment landed.

Under Rule 115, he applies the prescribed SBI TT buying reference for the relevant date, cross-checked against the FBIL reference rate. He pulls the dated figures, applies them per receipt, and hands the working to his CA.

The lesson is that for tax the rate is fixed by rule and date, not by what looked best at the time.

Now scale the first example. An exporter clearing $1,000,000 across the year at the same ₹0.50 spread loses ₹5,00,000, five lakh rupees, purely to the margin. That is money earned and invoiced, then handed back at conversion.

How exporters get closer to the mid-market rate

You cannot make a bank pay you the mid-market rate, because the margin is how it earns on the trade. What you can do is choose a receiving path built around the mid-market rate and reduce the margin you accept.

Xflow settles at the mid-market rate rather than a marked-down buying rate, which removes the built-in spread that a bank card carries.

On top of that, the FX AI Analyst lets you set a target rate and place a limit order, so conversion happens when your rate is reached instead of at a random moment.

Together these can deliver up to 50% in FX savings against a conventional bank route, depending on your currency, volume, and timing. The FX AI Analyst is a target-rate tool, not investment advice.

The banking partner behind your receiving account also shapes the outcome, which is why USD virtual accounts and the bank standing behind them are worth checking before you commit volume.

Xflow's receiving accounts route through a JP Morgan Chase virtual banking arrangement, with automatic eFIRA generated for every receipt so your FEMA and EDPMS trail stays clean.

For recurring receipts, holding proceeds in a USD account in India also gives you room to convert when the rate is favourable rather than on the day the money happens to arrive.

Timing and margin together decide your realised value, and both are within your control once you step off the plain bank-card path.

Frequently asked questions