The Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA) is an Act of the Parliament of India that regulates the acceptance and utilisation of foreign contributions or hospitality by individuals, associations, and companies. The Act is administered by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). Its origin lies in the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 1976, which was enacted to check foreign influence in India's social, political, and economic discussions. The 1976 Act was repealed and replaced by the more stringent Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010, which received Presidential assent on September 26, 2010. The Act's core purpose is to ensure that foreign funds are not used for any activities detrimental to the national interest, security, or public order.
The mechanism requires any person or association intending to receive foreign contributions to obtain a certificate of registration or prior permission from the MHA. Section 3(1) of the Act prohibits certain persons, including candidates for election, judges, members of any Legislature, and government servants, from accepting foreign contributions. A significant recent change was the enactment of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Act, 2020, which came into force on September 29, 2020. This amendment introduced several key restrictions: it reduced the cap on using foreign contribution for administrative expenses from 50% to 20% (Section 8(1)), prohibited the transfer of foreign contribution to any other person (Section 7), and mandated that all foreign contributions must be received in a designated "FCRA Account" at a specified branch of the State Bank of India (SBI) in New Delhi (Section 17). The 2020 amendment also included "public servant" in the list of prohibited recipients under Section 3(1)(c).