The TT selling rate is the exchange rate your bank charges when it sells foreign currency to you so you can send a payment abroad.
TT stands for telegraphic transfer, the bank wire transfer behind most outward payments, and the telegraphic transfer selling rate is its full name.
It is called the selling rate from the bank's viewpoint, because the bank is selling you dollars while you buy them. It sits higher than the mid-market rate you see on Google, since each bank adds its own margin.
On a USD 10,000 invoice, every 50 paise of margin adds ₹5,000 to your debit.
- How it is set - the interbank rate, also called the spot rate, at the moment your bank books the payment, plus that bank's own margin
- When it applies - clean outward payments with no trade documents, such as foreign SaaS bills, service fees, advance payments for imports and tuition abroad
- Its opposite - the TT buying rate, which your bank uses when foreign currency comes into India
TT selling rate meaning, and why the bank calls it selling
Bank rate cards are written from the bank's side of the counter. Your bank quotes a selling rate when it sells foreign currency and a buying rate when it buys, so an outward remittance gets the selling side.
Our guide to inward remittance vs outward remittance covers both directions. You are buying dollars to pay a supplier, so you pay the higher of the two.
The gap between the buying and selling rates is the bank's spread, and money coming into India is covered in full under the TT buying rate.
| Direction of money | Rate your bank uses | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Out of India | TT selling rate | A business paying a supplier or a SaaS vendor abroad |
| Into India | TT buying rate | A payment arriving from an overseas customer |
| Difference between the two | The spread | What the bank earns across a buy and a sell |
Here's how it works on a real payment. Say your Bengaluru company pays a USD 5,000 invoice from a US software vendor on a morning when the interbank rate is ₹90.00. Your bank's rate card that morning reads:
- TT buying rate: ₹89.20, which the bank pays you for dollars coming in
- TT selling rate: ₹90.80, which the bank charges you for dollars going out
You're sending dollars out, so the bank applies the selling rate: USD 5,000 × ₹90.80 = ₹4,54,000, before any flat charges.
At the interbank rate, the same USD 5,000 would cost ₹4,50,000, so ₹4,000 of your debit is the bank's margin.
If that vendor later refunds the full USD 5,000, the money comes back into India at the buying rate, so you get ₹4,46,000. That leaves you ₹8,000 short on dollars that went out and came straight back.
The ₹1.60 per dollar between ₹90.80 and ₹89.20 is the spread.
Rates are illustrative, not today's.
A clean transfer means no trade documents pass through your bank, which just converts your rupees and sends the wire.
Under Rule 4.1 of the Foreign Exchange Dealers' Association of India (FEDAI) rules, an outward remittance is converted at the selling rate your bank quotes for that date, or at an exchange contract rate you booked with the bank.
Correspondent bank charges, and who ends up paying them, depend on how the telegraphic transfer itself is sent.
How banks calculate the TT sell rate on your payment
Your bank takes the interbank rate at the moment it books your payment, adds its margin, and the result is the TT sell rate printed on your debit advice.
Two things set your cost, then: where the market sat at that minute, and the margin your bank chose to add.
The first moves with USD/INR all day and sits outside your control.
The second is a commercial decision by your bank, not a regulated number, so you can question it and, on a large invoice, ask for a finer quote before the money leaves.
How to calculate the TT rate from the interbank rate
The interbank rate moves through the day, and the mid-market rate Google shows sits close to it. Your authorised dealer (AD) bank, the bank licensed to handle your foreign exchange, prices from there.
With illustrative rates, not today's: interbank ₹90.00 plus 80 paise of margin gives ₹90.80, the rate on your debit.
The RBI reference rate is a different number.
Financial Benchmarks India Pvt Ltd (FBIL) has published it each business day since 10 July 2018, as a benchmark to compare quotes against rather than a rate your bank deals with you at.
Your payment gets your bank's rate card instead. We cover the TT buying and selling rates at the banks most businesses pay from:
- HDFC Bank TT buying and selling rates
- ICICI Bank TT buying and selling rates
- Axis Bank TT buying and selling rates
- Kotak Mahindra Bank TT buying and selling rates
Why FEDAI no longer fixes the margin each bank adds
FEDAI rules once set the margins banks could load onto merchant rates, and banks now fix their own exchange margin.
The current 10th edition takes the same approach to fees, stating in its general guidelines that "the member banks are free to determine their own charges for various types of forex transactions".
The same guideline carries RBI's advice that those charges should not be out of line with the average cost of providing the service, and adds that customers with low volumes should not be penalised.
FEDAI also asks each bank to declare the amount up to which it commits to its published card rates.
- Rates differ by bank - the same USD payment on the same day can cost a different amount at SBI (State Bank of India), ICICI Bank or Axis Bank
- A large invoice is worth a quote - above the amount your bank commits to at card rates, ask for a quote before you send
When you pay the TT rate, bill selling rate or card rate
TT selling rate vs bill selling rate comes down to one question: do trade documents pass through your bank?
If they do, as with an import bill sent for collection or under a letter of credit, the bank applies the bill selling rate: the TT rate plus an extra margin for handling the papers.
| Rate | When your payment gets it | What sits on top of the interbank rate | Typical business payment |
|---|---|---|---|
| TT selling rate | A clean wire with no trade documents | Your bank's margin | Foreign SaaS invoices, service fees, advance payments for imports |
| Bill selling rate | An import bill whose bill of lading or letter of credit papers go through the bank | The TT selling margin plus an extra bills margin | Documentary import payments |
| Card rate | An Indian-issued card used on a foreign charge | The card network's rate, then the issuer's forex markup and GST on the markup | SaaS subscriptions billed to a card |
A SaaS bill paid on an Indian card gets the card rate instead. ICICI Bank charges a foreign exchange markup of 3.5% plus GST on most of its personal credit cards.
HDFC Bank lists 3.5% on foreign currency spends on its PIXEL range of cards.
At the illustrative rates above (₹90.00 interbank, ₹90.80 selling), the trade-off is per-transaction markup against per-transfer flat fees.
Banks set those flat fees themselves: one bank's July 2021 schedule listed ₹750 commission plus ₹250 for the SWIFT message on a non-import outward remittance, so check your own bank's current schedule.
- On a USD 50 bill - the card adds about ₹186 in markup and GST, so it is cheaper at this size. A wire adds about ₹1,265 once its ₹40 margin, ₹45 GST on the conversion (the floor under the Rule 32(2)(b) slab method) and a flat charge near ₹1,000 plus ₹180 GST on that charge are counted
- On a USD 25,000 invoice - the card's markup and GST stay at about 4.1% of the bill, while the wire's margin, GST and flat charge plus GST on the charge together come to roughly 1%, so the wire is far cheaper. The cards vs bank transfers comparison weighs the two routes in more depth
For USD software bills, we let you convert once instead of on every card charge.
You top up your Xflow balance with a USD SWIFT transfer to Xflow Payments Inc. from your Indian bank, which applies its TT selling rate and usual flat charges to that one transfer.
You then pay USD-billed vendors from a USD virtual card, with a separate card per department if you want one.
Because the top-up is itself a wire, this suits recurring USD spend across several tools more than a single small bill, and the walkthrough on how to pay for Microsoft 365 shows the flow.
Fund one USD balance for all your recurring software bills
How to check the outward remittance exchange rate your bank applied
Your bank's debit advice for an outward payment shows the rupees taken and the foreign amount sent, which is enough to work out the rate you actually paid and how much margin sat inside it.
Run these checks on your last payment, or on a quote before your next one:
- Find the effective rate - divide the rupees debited by the foreign amount sent, after taking out any flat charges the advice lists separately.
- Compare it with the reference for that date - look up the FBIL reference rate or the mid-market rate at booking time, then multiply the gap by the units sent to get roughly what you paid in margin.
- Check which rate was used - if documents went through the bank, expect the bill selling rate on the advice, not the TT rate.
- Note the purpose code while the advice is open - banks' current lists carry more than one software code, such as S0807 (off-site software imports) and S0802 (software consultancy or implementation), so confirm with your bank which one fits a subscription on Form A2. Other codes are listed under purpose code for outward remittance.
- Ask before the next large payment - SBI's rate card says published rates are indicative and the rate live at the moment of debit applies, so request a quote on a big invoice.
If you want the wider reasons a bank's rate rarely matches Google's, bank foreign exchange rates sets out the gap between the two.
Frequently asked questions
The selling rate column shows what your bank charges to sell you foreign currency.
Most rate cards split it into a TT column for clean wires, a bill selling rate for documentary imports and a separate rate for cash or cards, each priced with a different margin.
The buying columns work the other way, for currency the bank buys from you.
On SBI's card, the column you need is headed TT SELL, beside TT BUY, BILL BUY and BILL SELL, and the card is timestamped to the minute. The SBI forex rates page walks through it.
Yes. Tuition fees abroad and family maintenance go out at the bank's TT selling rate, like any clean outward payment.
The difference is the scheme: individuals send them under LRS, where TCS applies on amounts above ₹10 lakh a year from 1 April 2025.
A business paying a supplier or a software vendor remits outside that scheme, so the ₹10 lakh threshold and TCS do not apply to your company's payments. Our guide to the Liberalised Remittance Scheme covers the individual limits.
The refund rate depends on which way the money moves.
A refund a vendor sends back to you comes into India, so your bank converts it at the TT buying rate under FEDAI Rule 4.4. A refund you send abroad is an outward remittance, priced at TT selling under Rule 4.1.
Cancelled forward contracts follow FEDAI Rule 6.4(ii):
- A forward you booked to buy dollars - a sale contract from the bank's side, cancelled at the TT buying rate under Rule 6.4(ii)(b)
- Cancelling prior purchase contracts - contracts under which the bank buys foreign currency are cancelled at the TT selling rate under Rule 6.4(ii)(a)
- Either kind, cancelled before maturity - the appropriate forward TT rate applies under Rule 6.4(ii)(c)
When you ask to cancel on or before maturity, Rule 6.4(i)(a) has the bank recover from you, or pay you, the difference between your contracted rate and the rate at which the contract is cancelled.
Yes. ICICI Bank, Axis Bank and Standard Chartered work it out on the Rule 32(2)(b) slab method, where GST on currency conversion is 18% of a deemed value of the conversion, far smaller than the amount you send.
On a USD 2,000 payment at the illustrative ₹90.80 rate, that works out to about ₹253.
A bank can instead charge it on the actual difference from the reference rate under Rule 32(2)(a), and GST on foreign exchange sets out both methods.
Card payments work differently.
There the issuer charges 18% GST on the markup fee itself, with no slabs, so ₹157.50 of markup on a USD 50 bill carries ₹28.35 of GST. Keep the two apart when you total a month of software spend.
