03 July 2012
1. Interest on NRE account is tax free where NRO is taxable in India: It used to be that NRE accounts paid a lower interest than NRO accounts, but recently RBI allowed banks to set up their own NRE rates, and as a result now NRE fixed deposits pay as much as a NRO fixed deposit.
The big difference is that there is no tax in India on the interest on this NRE account, so it makes much more sense to open a fixed deposit using a NRE account instead of a NRO account.
2. NRE accounts are tax free whereas NRO accounts are not: You don’t have to pay any taxes on your NRE account, but interest income on the NRO deposit is taxed in India.