Donate to an NGO in Nepal From Abroad: The Real Rules

If you want to donate to an NGO in Nepal from abroad, the first thing to sort out is not a payment method. It is a permission. Under the Social Welfare Act, 2049 (1992), a Nepali organisation must get approval from the Social Welfare Council before it accepts material, technical or economic assistance from a foreign country, a foreign organisation or a foreign individual. Only a small amount — up to Rs 200,000 in a year, for work to be completed at once — may be taken on prior notice to the Council instead. That one rule explains almost everything that feels strange about giving to Nepal from outside it.

We are a non-profit organization in Nepal registered and working in Ganeshman Charnath Municipality, Dhanusha, Madhesh Province. We get these emails — usually from Nepalis abroad, sometimes from people who visited the Terai once. This page is the answer we would give by return.

The rule almost nobody states

Section 16 of the Social Welfare Act, 2049 is short and specific. An organisation wanting assistance from a foreign source submits a project proposal and application to the Social Welfare Council; the Council decides within 45 days; and approved economic assistance has to be channelled through a commercial bank operating inside Nepal. The Act names individuals as a foreign source, not only governments and agencies.

Two honest cautions. The Rs 200,000 figure has stood since 1992 and is small today — a few thousand dollars of goodwill crosses it quickly, and it is an annual total for the organisation, not a per-donor allowance. And the Act is a framework; the Council's current procedure, forms and fees sit on top of it. Before anyone acts on this page, they should confirm the position with the Social Welfare Council or a Nepali lawyer. We are describing the law we operate under, not giving you legal advice.

Why page one sends you to a foreign intermediary

Search for how to give to Nepal and you land on US and UK platforms, or on an international charity's country programme. There is no conspiracy in that. Those organisations exist in your country, so they can issue the receipt your own tax office recognises, take your card in your currency, and absorb the compliance work on the Nepal side. They disclose a platform fee and a card-processing fee; the remainder goes to a partner they have already vetted.

What they cannot do is make that partner be the organisation you were actually looking for. A small ward-level body in Dhanusha with no English-language fundraising department does not appear on those platforms, and the money you meant for it goes somewhere else entirely. The route is legitimate; it is just not the route most diaspora donors think they are taking.

Which rails are legitimate, and which is the red flag

An inward bank transfer to the organisation's own account

This is the rail the Act points at. The money arrives by SWIFT into a current account held in the registered name of the organisation, at a commercial bank in Nepal, against an approval or a notice the Council has on file. Your bank will ask for a purpose; the receiving bank will ask the organisation for its registration, PAN and Council paperwork. That friction is the control working, not a sign that something is wrong.

eSewa, Khalti, connectIPS and Fonepay QR are domestic rails

A merchant wallet account in the registered name of an organisation is a perfectly good way to receive donations — from inside Nepal. These are not international card gateways. Cross-border QR acceptance in Nepal has grown fast, but it is built for travellers physically in the country paying with their home wallet: Fonepay has connected UnionPay and wallets from more than 13 countries to its merchant network. Sitting in Sydney or Doha, you cannot scan a Nepali charity's QR and have it work the way a bank transfer does.

A personal account is the red flag

If anyone asks you to send a foreign donation to a named individual's account, a personal wallet number, or a relative who will “pass it on”, stop. This is exactly the pattern the Council itself has flagged. In 2020 the Social Welfare Council told the Kathmandu Post that foreign funds transferred in individuals' names are difficult to trace, and that NGOs operating outside its scrutiny carry money-laundering risk — at the time, of 106,092 registered organisations only around half were affiliated to the Council. The Council proposed that banks freeze accounts of unaffiliated organisations taking foreign funds without its knowledge. A genuine organisation will never ask you to route around that.

Before any of this, run the ordinary checks: how to check if an NGO in Nepal is registered sets out the four documents and the one phone call that settle it, and what to check before donating to a charity in Nepal covers the receipt you should expect.

What this non-profit organization in Nepal can accept today

Plainly: we will not take a foreign transfer into any account until the approval or notice the Act requires for that particular amount and purpose is in place and confirmed in writing. If you write to us from abroad, you will get a straight answer about what stage we are at, not a payment link. If the answer is no for now, we will say so and tell you what we can do instead.

Everything we run inside Nepal — the causes this charity in Dhanusha works on, from clean and safe drinking water to scholarships and women's skill training — is funded through domestic rails: membership fees, local giving, ward and provincial programme support. That is not modesty about our ambitions. It is what the law lets a locally registered organisation do without a Council file.

Five ways to help from abroad that break nothing

1. Ask first, send second. One email establishes whether the organisation can legally receive what you want to send this year. Ours goes through the contact page.
2. Give through someone resident in Nepal. A parent, sibling or friend in Nepal donating from their own Nepali account is a domestic donation, cleanly receipted, with no foreign-assistance question attached. It is also the only route on this list that earns the Nepali income tax deduction on donations — for them, not for you.
3. Fund goods bought in Nepal rather than shipping them. Imported in-kind consignments attract customs and clearance problems that swallow the value. What actually gets used is covered in donating books and uniforms to an NGO in Nepal.
4. Route it through a company's Nepal entity. If you work for a firm with a Nepali subsidiary or a bank with a CSR allocation, that allocation is domestic money and a far simpler instrument. See CSR partnership with an NGO in Nepal.
5. For disaster relief, use the government portal. The Prime Minister Disaster Relief Fund accepts international cards in USD through its official portal, which states a convenience fee of 3.5 percent or USD 1, whichever is higher. It is the state's channel, not a charity's, but it works from anywhere and it is not a personal account.

What may change

In August 2025 the government circulated a draft Association and Organisation Act consolidating the 1961, 1977 and 1992 laws, with tiered registration by working area and a ten-member directive committee. The NGO Federation called it restrictive rather than facilitating, and its chair argued for a single transparent door for approving foreign funds. It is a draft, not law. Until it passes, Section 16 is the rule.

Questions people actually ask

Can I just wire money to a Nepali NGO's bank account?

Only if that organisation has the Council approval or has filed the prior notice for it. The transfer may well leave your bank; the problem lands on the receiving side, and the organisation carries it.

Does an NRN donation count as foreign assistance?

The Act lists foreign individuals as a source, and in practice what the bank sees is an inward foreign-currency remittance. Holding Nepali citizenship does not obviously change how the money is classified when it arrives. Confirm with the Council or a lawyer rather than assuming.

Can I use eSewa or Khalti from outside Nepal?

Not as a foreign donor paying with a foreign card. Those wallets settle in rupees for account holders in Nepal; cross-border QR is aimed at visitors already in the country.

Will I get a tax receipt I can use at home?

A Nepali organisation issues a Nepali receipt. Your own tax authority will almost certainly not recognise it. If a deduction in your country matters to you, a registered charity in your country is the honest route, and you should accept that it decides which Nepali partner receives the funds.

How do I know an organisation is telling me the truth about its approval?

Ask for the registration certificate, the current renewal, the PAN and the Council affiliation certificate, and verify the registration at the District Administration Office of the district named on it. Any organisation that treats those four requests as an insult has answered you.

If you are abroad and want to help in Ganeshman Charnath or elsewhere in Dhanusha, write to us before you send anything — tell us what you want funded and we will tell you, in writing, what we can and cannot legally accept right now, and which of the five routes above fits. You can read about our non-profit organization in Nepal first, and reach us through the contact page.