SEBI’s Swagat-FI Reforms: A Paradigm Shift In Foreign Portfolio And Venture Capital Investment
- IJLLR Journal
- 1 day ago
- 1 min read
Shubham Pathak, GITAM University
SEBI, on December 3r,d 2025, updated its framework around foreign investors and amended the SEBI (Foreign Portfolio Investors) Regulations, 2025, and SEBI (Foreign Venture Capital Investors) Regulations, 2025. One of the major changes brought about by the amendments is Single Window Automatic & Generalised Access for Trusted Foreign Investors (SWAGAT-FI). This framework has relaxed the onboarding and ongoing compliance for a specific set of Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs)- viz., Government-owned funds and certain regulated Public Retail Funds that are objectively verified as belonging to a low-risk category. The initiative seeks to reduce procedural complexity for both Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) and Foreign Venture Capital Investors (FVCIs), facilitating seamless registration, compliance, and investment in India. The amendments rationalise the eligibility criteria under the framework and revise the fee structure to promote long-term investment and reduce administrative complexity.
Foreign Portfolio Investor (FPI) are overseas investors who are registered under Chapter II of SEBI (Foreign Portfolio Investors) Regulations 2019. They include foreign governments, banks, pension funds, corporate bodies, charitable endowments etc. Foreign Venture Capital Investors (FVCI) are investors incorporated and established outside India, who are registered with SEBI. In order to simplify the regulatory framework around foreign investment, SEBI introduced a measure to provide a single access route to investment in India.
