Sourced, dated, and checkable.
The terms that recur across the corpus, defined once. Each is linked on first use in a guide rather than re-explained every time.
Last updated 26 August 2026
18 terms. This grows with the corpus.
A channel under which qualifying foreign investment may proceed without prior case-by-case approval, subject to sectoral conditions and to the minimum investment threshold. Its scope has been changed by cabinet decision more than once; treat any statement of its current limits as requiring verification against the gazette.
See also Minimum investment threshold
Bank or financial institution licensed by Nepal Rastra Bank. Licences are issued in classes — commercial banks, development banks, finance companies and microfinance institutions — and the class determines what business may be done.
See also NRB
Nepal's official calendar, running roughly 56 years and 8 months ahead of the Gregorian calendar. Statutes and fiscal years are named in BS — the Income Tax Act 2058 is the Act of 2002. Confusing BS with AD is the most common factual error in writing about Nepali business law, which is why every date here carries both.
See also Fiscal year
The department under the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies that registers industries, classifies them by scale and category, and approves foreign investment below the Investment Board threshold.
See also IBN
The annual act passed alongside the budget that amends tax rates, thresholds, exemptions and fee schedules for the coming fiscal year. It is the reason most tax and fee content in Nepal has a twelve-month shelf life.
See also Fiscal year
Nepal's fiscal year runs from mid-July to mid-July and is named in Bikram Sambat. FY 2083/84 corresponds to 2026/27. Tax rates, thresholds and many statutory fees are reset annually by the Finance Act passed with the budget, so a figure is only meaningful with its fiscal year attached.
See also Finance Act
The Foreign Investment and Technology Transfer Act, 2075 (2019) — the governing statute for foreign investment in Nepal. It sets the permitted forms of investment, the approval requirement, the negative list of restricted activities, and the framework for technology transfer agreements. Amended by the omnibus act of March 2025.
See also Negative list
The Financial Action Task Force's list of jurisdictions under increased monitoring for anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorist-financing deficiencies. Listing does not prohibit transactions, but it raises correspondent-banking friction, cost and documentary burden in practice.
See also NRB
Investment Board Nepal, the body chaired by the Prime Minister that handles large projects above a stated threshold, with the Department of Industry handling the rest. The threshold determines which door an investor knocks on, and getting it wrong costs months.
See also Department of Industry
Nepal's scheduled transition out of the United Nations' least developed country category, which would end certain preferential trade access. The timing has been the subject of a deferral request, so it should be described as pending rather than settled.
The minimum capital a single foreign investor must commit. Certain information-technology activities have been exempted from it by ministerial notice. Because the figure and the exemptions both move, we date every statement of them.
See also FITTA
Nepal Electricity Authority, the state utility. It holds the transmission and distribution monopoly and is the principal offtaker for private generation. Proposals to unbundle it into separate generation, transmission and distribution companies have been announced but not executed.
See also PPA
The schedule of activities in which foreign investment is prohibited or capped. Its practical effect is that the first question for any foreign investor is not how to invest but whether the activity is open at all. Certain services — including travel and trekking agencies — are reserved for Nepali investors.
See also FITTA
Nepal Rastra Bank, the central bank. It licenses and supervises banks and financial institutions, administers the foreign exchange regime, licenses payment system operators and providers, and records inbound foreign investment.
See also BFI
Non-Resident Nepali. A defined status carrying investment and property rights that differ from those of a foreign investor, and from those of a resident citizen. Which of the three categories a person falls into determines what they may buy.
See also FITTA
The Office of the Company Registrar, which incorporates companies and maintains the register. Registration with the OCR gives a company legal existence; it does not give it permission to trade. Registration, industry approval, sector licensing and operating permission are four distinct things.
See also Department of Industry
Power Purchase Agreement — the long-term offtake contract between a generator and, in practice, the Nepal Electricity Authority. Whether a PPA is obtainable at all, and on what terms, is the binding constraint on Nepal's hydropower sector rather than capital or resource.
See also NEA
Taking money out of Nepal — dividends, sale proceeds, capital, royalties or loan servicing. It depends on the original inflow having been correctly routed and recorded, which is why an error at entry surfaces years later at exit.
See also NRB