Offshore bank account with online International wire-transfer facility for Indians
Well first off, I would advice you to do this research yourself. You should not base your selection off someone's opinion such as mines.  With that being said, these are some factors I suggest you consider and research before talking to an offshore bank account: Now, when opening an offshore account most offshore banks do not require you to be present at all. You can open an account simply by calling them or filling out their application online. However, be prepared to provide them with some information to verify who you are and the nature of your business such as a notarized passport along with other various forms of information that they may require. Just think of what your local bank requires is generally what they will ask as well. Here is a compiled list of offshore bank accounts to consider: These banks overall have a range between $0 - $1 million (domestic currency) minimum deposits. Most of them ranging from $1000-$5000. It all depends on the type of account, the nature of the account, and the business associated with the account. India does allow Resident Indians to open USD accounts. Most leading National and Private Banks offer this. You can receive funds and send funds subject to some norms. All Indian Banks are offering USD accounts known as multicurrency account, where you can hold your fund, this account also permits you to book the USD to INR rates in advance if you require. You can keep your money in this account and also can remit the same back to source or other destination country.
I can only imagine the regulatory difficulty you're going through, and for that I empathize. First, bankers everywhere mostly do not know if a bank policy is due to regulation or internal rules.  Other banks may be more flexible, but only the most reputable should be used. Re Paypal, they first deposit 1 USD and then withdraw it, but things may be different in Cyprus.  Also, Paypal now has debit cards, so if Paypal is permitted to issue cards in Russia then it could presumably be used in Cyprus.  Again, local regulation notwithstanding.  Paypal now has phone support at the very back of their site, so I suggest a call to them. In countries that permit, Western Union can be used to wire money into an account from cash. The Bitcoin route should be used as a last resort.  You could wake up tomorrow losting 25% easy.  The regulations are a distant second compared to this problem. With all of the above methods, there will be varying delays from days to weeks. Is it liable for taxation in India? Taxation does not depend on whether to transfer money to India or keep it in GCC. It depends on your tax status. In a given Financial year; 1st April to 31st March, if you are outside of India for more than 182 days, your are Non-Resident Indian, NRI for tax purposes.  If you are NRI, income earned outside of India is not taxable in India [even if you transfer the funds to India]. If you are not an NRI, you income in GCC will be taxable in India [Even if you keep the money in GCC]. We both send our salary into a friends account in India and then transfer an amount to our own accounts This is an incorrect practise, If you are NRI, you should not be holding a Savings account, it should be converted into NRO and you can if you want open an NRE account. For your friend where you are transferring money, if there is an income tax audit, there would be quite a few questions asked and your friend has to establish and keep records that this is not GIFT, but more of a convenience agreement. I use xoom.com to transfer money to India. I've been using them for over 2 years now, they are the fastest and the cheapest for me (the funds are usually available the same day). They seem to have added a lot of European countries to their list. Definitely worth a shot. No, in your situation it is not possible. Mostly, only three types of accounts are available to individuals: So, a complete foreigner can open account in India, only if he is working in India, a type of Savings account, and that account too will be linked to his resident status. If he leaves work, he needs to close this account. Edit: There are business accounts, and current accounts, but those are available only to businesses. Further read at SBI gives a good snapshot Yes, you can transfer money to your account, any bank will do it. The conversion charges will be there i.e. the diff between USD and the rate at which the bank sells it, usually Rs. 2/-, appx. In addition, transaction charge (not very high). As for taking from friends & repaying in India, check UAE tax treatement for taking money from friends (is it considered as your income & are you liable for taxes). As for giving back, get some documentation done as a loan, otherwise your friends may be considered to be taking gift/consideration/income from you and taxed. Most straight forward way is to transfer the money from your mother's account. Depending on how tech savvy your client is you could potentially use bitcoin. There is some take of indian regulators stopping bitcoin exchanges, meaning it might be hard to get your money out in your local country but the lack of fees to transfer and not getting killed on the exchange rate every time has a huge impact, especially if your individual transaction sizes are not huge. There are several ways to minimize the international wire transfer fees: Transfer less frequently and larger amounts. The fees are usually flat, so transferring larger amounts lowers the fee percentage. 3% is a lot. In big banks, receiving is usually ~$15. If you transfer $1000 at a time, its 1.5%, if you transfer $10000 - it's much less, accordingly. If you have the time - have them send you checks (in US dollars) instead of wire transferring. It will be on hold for some time (up to a couple of weeks maybe), but will be totally free for you. I know that many banks have either free send and/or receive. I know that ETrade provides this service for free. My credit union provides if for free based on the relationship level, I have a mortgage with them now, so I don't pay any fees at all, including for wire transfer. Consider other options, like Western Union. Those may cost more for the sender (not necessarily though), but will be free for the receiver. You can get the money in cash, or checks, which you can just deposit on your regular bank account. For smaller amounts, it should be much cheaper than wire transfer, for example - sending $500 to India costs $10, while wire transfer is $30. Online money transfer facility from Axis Remit is a quick and easy way to transfer money from USA to India. AxisRemit is Axis Bank's flagship inward remittance service enables you to transfer money to your beneficiaries through the most efficient channels like online money transfer, exchange houses and money transfer operators. Most of the people need to remit the money to their precious persons like family, friends and also others. Now a days this type of transmission is simple by Etawakal online money transfer than other remittance services. Etawakal is reliable, safe and secure. http://tawakalexpress.net/Etawakal.aspx The data provided in your question is irrelevant. The data that you provided in the comments (that you're physically present in the US while doing the work) is the only relevant information needed to answer your question. You will need to pay taxes in the US for the earnings. The company invoicing the US client will also need to pay taxes in the US for its earnings from these invoices. You can transfer between bank accounts and deposit whatever you want anywhere you want, no-one cares (with respect to the US taxes, check with Indian tax accountant about Indian requirements). very simple.  RBI has stopped connecting Indian Bank's to Paypal, for deposit or withdrawal. You need to use a third party website (Online wallet etc) to send whatever money you have in the Paypal account.  Connect your Bank account with the third party website, and withdraw the money My account is with Indian Bank, if that's relevant. Indian Bank already has SWIFT BIC. Is there any way I can receive such international transfers in my account if the bank branch itself is not SWIFT enabled? The Branch need not be SWIFT enabled. However the Bank needs to be SWIFT enabled. Indian Bank is SWIFT enabled and has several Correspondent Banks in US. See this link on Indian Bank Website Select USD as filter in bottom page. It will list quite a few Banks that are correspondent to the Indian Bank. Click on the Link and it will give you more details. For example with Citi Bank as Correspondent. In the Beneficiary account details fill in your account details etc and send this to the company and they should be able to send you a payment based on this. "For the financial year 1 April 2014 to 31 March 2015, as you have [or will be] spent more than 182 days outside India, you would be treated as ""Non-Resident"" [NRI] for tax purposes.  If you are NRI  Show my Kuwaiti Income in my Income Tax Return?   Pay any tax on the money that I am sending to savings bank accounts in India You need not Pay Tax on your income outside India. i.e. there is no tax obligation created. It cannot be declared in Tax Returns. However any interest you earn on the money deposited in India would be subject to taxes. Will my wife have to show the income and/or pay the income tax on the money that I am sending to her savings bank accounts? There is no Income to you wife [Income is something you earn] and hence its out of scope from Income Tax act. It would fall under gift tax rules. As per Gift Tax one can transfer unlimited funds between close relatives. Hence there is No tax. It would be better if you open an NRO/NRE account and transfer funds into that account" "Can you tell me please, is it really hard to make international wire transfer for payment my job and can i resolve this problem without using third party services? This is mostly a barrier, the form at times is quite complicated. For Russia, one has to enter ""Purpose of remittance"" ... at times select intermediate banks, give BIC and other details. This can become unnerving to people who are not used to it.  The other option you can try is set-up a credit card gateway and get funds via cards." If you're in the UK, there's a free service here that lets you trace lost bank accounts. If you're in a different country, try Googling to see if that country has a similar service.