SBI TT Buying Rate Lookup

Every foreign salary credit, RSU vesting, dividend, capital gain or overseas bank balance you report in your ITR has to be converted to rupees at a specific rate — not whatever a currency converter shows today. Rule 26 and Rule 115 of the Income-tax Rules point to the State Bank of India’s telegraphic transfer buying rate on a specific date. SBI does not keep a historical archive of its own rates, so we maintain one — 31 currencies, daily, since January 2020.

Currency

Date required

SBI does not publish a rate every working day. If no rate was published on the exact date requested, this shows the most recent date before it with a published TT buying rate, and always states which one was used.

Currency

From

Average excludes dates where SBI did not publish a TT buying rate. Useful for period-average requirements such as Rule 115 salary conversion.

Which date does Rule 115 actually fix?

This is the part people get wrong most often. Rule 115 does not use the date you were paid, and it does not use the date you file — it fixes a “specified date” that is different for each head of income:

Head of income	Specified date
Salary — including an RSU or ESOP perquisite	Last day of the month immediately preceding the month the salary is due, or paid in advance/arrears
Interest on securities	Last day of the month immediately preceding the month the income is due
Dividends	Last day of the month immediately preceding the month the dividend is declared, distributed or paid
Capital gains	Last day of the month immediately preceding the month the asset is transferred
House property, business/profession, other sources — incl. ordinary foreign bank interest	Last day of the previous year (31 March)

The row people miss most is the last one. Ordinary interest on a foreign savings or fixed deposit account is not “interest on securities” — it falls under other sources, and takes the 31 March rate, not a month-end rate close to when it was credited.

Schedule FA works differently again: each figure converts at the rate on its own relevant date — the peak balance at the rate on the date the peak occurred, and the closing balance at the 31 December rate, since Schedule FA follows the calendar year rather than the financial year.

What our own archive actually shows — verified, not assumed

Rather than tell you a rate lookup is reliable and leave it there, here is exactly what checking our own USD archive (1,608 published dates, January 2020 – July 2026) turns up:

54 dates carry a TT Buy of zero — and every single one of them is a Saturday, when SBI dealt no telegraphic transfer. A rate of zero is not a rate; the tool steps back to the last date with a real published figure and tells you it did.
23 of the 78 month-ends between January 2020 and June 2026 have no usable TT buying rate — including 31 December 2023, which happens to be exactly the date Schedule FA closing balances for AY 2024-25 need. The nearest preceding card becomes the one to use.
12 dates carry two published cards on the same day — SBI occasionally revises its rate card intraday. This tool shows the later of the two, since that is the rate that was actually in force by end of day.
JPY and THB are quoted per 100 units, not per unit — a JPY TT Buy of 57.86 means ₹0.5786 per yen, not ₹57.86. Missing this divides or multiplies your converted figure by a hundred.

None of this is unusual or a flaw in the archive — it is simply what SBI actually published, and it is exactly the kind of detail that is easy to miss reading a single day’s rate card in isolation.

Three things worth double-checking

It is not the RBI reference rate

The Reserve Bank of India stopped computing its own reference rate on 10 July 2018; FBIL has published the benchmark since. That is a different number from a different institution, and it is not what Rule 26/115 ask for — they specifically require SBI’s TT buying rate.

It is not today’s rate

The specified date almost never matches the date you were credited or the date you file. For salary, it is the month before the month the salary fell due. For ordinary foreign bank interest, it is 31 March, regardless of when through the year the interest actually accrued.

TT Buy, not TT Sell, Bill, Card or CN

SBI publishes several buy/sell rates — Telegraphic Transfer, Bill, Forex Travel Card, Currency Notes. Converting foreign income into rupees for tax purposes uses TT Buy specifically. The other columns have no role in this computation.

When SBI published no rate on your date

Rule 115 fixes the date but is silent on what to do when SBI dealt no telegraphic transfer that day. There is no CBDT circular prescribing a fallback. The common, defensible practice — and the one this tool follows — is to step back to the last date on which SBI actually published a TT buying rate, apply that consistently, and keep the dated card on file as support.

Frequently asked

What is the SBI TT buying rate?

The rate at which the State Bank of India buys foreign currency through a telegraphic transfer — one of several rates SBI publishes daily. The Explanation to Rule 26 defines it as the rate of exchange adopted by SBI for buying such currency, with regard to RBI guidelines. Rule 115 adopts the same definition for converting foreign income generally.

Which date applies to my foreign salary or RSU vesting?

The TT buying rate on the last day of the month immediately before the month the salary became due, or was paid in advance or arrears. An RSU or ESOP perquisite is taxed as salary, so the same date applies.

Why can’t I just use a Google currency conversion?

A live conversion gives today’s market mid-rate, not SBI’s published TT buying rate on the specific date the Rules require. The two numbers can differ meaningfully, and that mismatch is exactly what an assessing officer will flag first.

How often is this archive updated?

Daily, via an automated process that reads SBI’s own published rate card. If a date you need shows as unavailable, it most likely means SBI itself did not publish a TT buying rate that day.

Sources

Reference only. Rates shown are taken from SBI’s own published rate cards via an independent community archive; we are not affiliated with the State Bank of India. Always verify the applicable rate and date against your specific facts before using a figure in a filed return.

The rate is the easy part. Whether a foreign account needs Schedule FA at all, which threshold applies, and what to do if a prior year was missed — that is where NRI and RSU clients actually need judgment, not just a number.

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