Your invoice will not have Indian GST on it
This is the first thing overseas finance teams get wrong, and they get it wrong expensively — they budget an extra 18% that never appears.
Under GST, an export is a zero-rated supply, and services exported out of India count. The supplier can either export under a bond or Letter of Undertaking without paying integrated tax and claim back its unused input credit, or pay the tax and claim a refund of it. Either route, the tax is not passed to you. Your invoice shows a fee and nothing else.
What you should see instead of a tax line is a declaration on the face of the invoice — some version of "supply meant for export of services under LUT without payment of integrated tax". If an Indian agency is adding 18% to a foreign client's invoice, ask why. There are edge cases where a supply to a foreign buyer doesn't qualify as an export of services, but they're narrow, and "we always charge it" isn't one of them.
A domestic Indian client on the same retainer does pay the 18%, and reclaims it as input credit. We've written that arithmetic out in GST on digital marketing services. You skip the step entirely.
FIRC, eBRC, and why your agency will chase your bank reference
Here's the part that surprises new overseas clients: three weeks after you pay, someone from the agency emails asking for the SWIFT reference or the remittance advice. It reads like bureaucracy. It isn't optional.
India tracks the foreign exchange it earns, and the reporting sits under FEMA — which is why your bank is asked for a purpose code and why the agency's bank has to match your payment to an invoice. An Indian exporter of services has nine months from the date of export to realise and repatriate the proceeds, and its bank issues an electronic Bank Realisation Certificate once the money lands and is matched to the invoice. A Foreign Inward Remittance Certificate does the same job for a single inward payment. Between them they are the agency's evidence that the export happened and was paid for in foreign currency — which is what the zero-rating rests on.
Services are easier than goods here: exporters of services can export without filing a declaration up front, but they remain liable to realise the money. The reconciliation happens after the fact, which is precisely why the agency needs your reference number to point at.
The practical version for you: pay from the entity named on the contract, quote the invoice number in the wire, and forward the remittance advice the same day. Do that and nobody asks you again.
What your own finance team will ask for
Five documents cover almost every onboarding we've been through. Most of them already exist; the last one only matters if your jurisdiction withholds.
- Nothing on that list is unusual, and none of it should take an agency more than a day. If it does, you've learned something about how they run.
- Ask for all of it in the first week, not in month four when your auditor asks.
| Document | Who produces it | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| Tax invoice, marked as an export of services | The agency | Your accounts payable file, and the agency's GST return. |
| Master agreement or signed SOW | Both of you | Your finance team's evidence that the service is real and the price is agreed. |
| Purpose code on the outward remittance | Your bank, from your instruction | Tells the Indian banking system what the payment is for. Get it wrong and the money sits in a queue. |
| FIRC or eBRC | The agency's bank, after the money lands | Proof the export was realised in foreign exchange. Never yours to produce, often yours to enable. |
| Indian tax residency certificate, plus a W-8BEN-E for US payers | The agency, on request | Only needed where your own country requires it before applying a treaty rate. |
What the wire actually costs — and where the India saving shrinks
The reason to hire in India is a real cost difference, covered honestly in why SEO costs less in India. The reason that difference is smaller than your spreadsheet says is almost never tax. It's the two costs nobody quotes.
The first is the FX spread. Your bank converts at a rate that is not the interbank mid-rate, and the gap is inside the rate rather than on a line. You will not see it on any statement. The second is fees — your outward wire charge, plus whatever a correspondent bank deducts in transit, which usually arrives as the agency's invoice being paid short by twenty dollars and someone having to reconcile it.
We can't tell you your bank's spread, and anyone who quotes you a universal figure is guessing. What we can do is show you what a given spread costs on our published fees, so you can price your own bank's answer.
| Monthly fee | Annual fee | At a 1% spread | At a 2% spread |
|---|---|---|---|
| ₹75,000 — SEO, standard | ₹9,00,000 | ₹9,000 | ₹18,000 |
| ₹99,000 — Organic Growth Engine | ₹11,88,000 | ₹11,880 | ₹23,760 |
| ₹1,75,000 — Own Everything Stack | ₹21,00,000 | ₹21,000 | ₹42,000 |
Withholding is your jurisdiction's question, not the agency's
Some countries require a payer to withhold tax on payments to a foreign service provider. Some don't. Some apply a lower treaty rate if the recipient produces a tax residency certificate. India has tax treaties with most of the countries our overseas clients sit in, but which rate applies to you is determined by your law, not ours.
So the honest answer is: ask your own accountant before the first invoice, not after. What you should not accept is an agency that shrugs at the question, and what you should not do is withhold silently and pay short. An Indian agency that receives 85% of an invoice with no explanation will assume it's a bank deduction and chase you for the rest.
Settle it in the contract: state whether the fee is gross or net of withholding, and who supplies which certificate. Two sentences at signing prevents a quarter of awkward emails. What should be in an SEO contract covers the clauses either side of it.
How we invoice overseas clients
Same published prices as everyone else — SEO from ₹75,000/mo, smaller sites from ₹40,000, the Organic Growth Engine bundle at ₹99,000, the full stack at ₹1,75,000. Quoted in rupees, invoiced in rupees, with no Indian GST because the supply is an export.
Ad spend is separate, at cost, with no media markup, and we'd rather the ad accounts sat in your name and on your card — which for an overseas client also removes a currency conversion from the loop.
Month to month after the first quarter, thirty days' notice, and you keep every asset. That last part matters more across a border than it does across a city: the further away the agency is, the more the exit terms are the only leverage you have. More on that in Indian agencies serving global clients.