GIFT City AIFs — why they are not SEBI AIFs, and what the rules actually are
What is a GIFT City AIF?
A fund at GIFT City is not a SEBI AIF. It is a scheme launched by a Fund Management Entity registered with the International Financial Services Centres Authority under the IFSCA (Fund Management) Regulations, 2025. The nearest equivalent of a domestic AIF is a restricted scheme, which requires at least USD 150,000 per investor and a USD 3 million minimum corpus.
The thing to get straight first
A GIFT City fund is not a SEBI AIF. It is not registered under the SEBI
(Alternative Investment Funds) Regulations, 2012, it does not carry an
IN/AIF... registration number, and it does not appear in SEBI's register.
That means it is not in this site's directory, which reproduces SEBI's register and nothing else. If you are looking for a specific GIFT City fund here, it will not be found, and that is a fact about the regime rather than a gap in the data.
The phrase "GIFT City AIF" is in wide use and this page uses it because that is what people search for. It is not the regulatory term.
Who regulates what
| Domestic AIF | GIFT City fund | |
|---|---|---|
| Regulator | SEBI | International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA) |
| Governing rules | SEBI (Alternative Investment Funds) Regulations, 2012 | IFSCA (Fund Management) Regulations, 2025 |
| The registered entity | The fund itself is registered | The Fund Management Entity is registered; it then launches schemes |
| The vehicle | An AIF, with schemes | A retail scheme or a restricted scheme |
| Minimum per investor | ₹1 crore | USD 150,000, or accreditation, in a restricted scheme |
| Investors per scheme | 1,000 | 1,000 in a restricted scheme |
| Currency | Rupees | Foreign currency |
| In SEBI's register | Yes | No |
The structural difference worth understanding is in the third row. Under SEBI's regime the fund registers. Under IFSCA's regime the manager registers, as a Fund Management Entity, and then launches schemes under that single registration. So the unit you would look up is not the same unit in the two systems.
The 2022 regulations were repealed
The current framework is the IFSCA (Fund Management) Regulations, 2025, which expressly repeal the IFSCA (Fund Management) Regulations, 2022.
This matters because a large amount of published material about GIFT City funds describes the 2022 framework as current. If a page cites the 2022 regulations today, treat everything else on it as possibly stale too.
The three kinds of Fund Management Entity
Under the 2025 regulations an FME registers in one of three categories, and each tier can do everything the tier below it can.
- Authorised FME — the entry tier. Manages venture capital schemes, and covers FMEs set up by a single family to manage a Family Investment Fund.
- Registered FME (Non-Retail) — pools money from accredited investors, or investors above a specified threshold, by private placement through restricted schemes. May also provide portfolio management services, including for a multi-family office, and act as investment manager for private placement of REITs and InvITs.
- Registered FME (Retail) — pools money from all investors through retail schemes, may act as investment manager for a public offer of REITs and InvITs, and may launch exchange traded funds.
The Registered FME (Non-Retail) running restricted schemes is the closest analogue to a domestic Category I or Category II AIF, and it is what most people mean by a GIFT City AIF.
Restricted schemes — the actual numbers
A restricted scheme is offered on a private placement basis only.
| Provision | Figure |
|---|---|
| Minimum per investor | USD 150,000, or the investor is accredited |
| Minimum for employees, directors and designated partners of the FME | USD 40,000 |
| Joint investors, not more than two, together | At least USD 150,000 |
| Maximum investors in a scheme | 1,000 |
| Minimum corpus of the scheme | USD 3 million |
| Open-ended scheme, may begin investing at | USD 1 million, reaching USD 3 million within 12 months |
For venture capital schemes specifically, the minimum corpus is USD 3 million and the total corpus may not exceed USD 200 million.
Note the structural echo of the domestic regime: a per-investor floor, a 1,000-investor cap, an insider concession, and a joint-investor rule capped at two people. The architecture is recognisable; the numbers and the currency are not the same.
Why the structure exists
GIFT IFSC is treated as offshore for exchange-control purposes, so a fund there can pool foreign currency capital and deploy it without the same route restrictions a domestic rupee fund faces. The common uses are pooling non-resident and foreign capital for investment into India, and giving Indian managers a foreign-currency vehicle for investing outside India.
Whether any of that is advantageous for a given investor depends on residency, tax position and what the fund actually does, none of which this page can answer for you.
What this site can and cannot tell you about GIFT City funds
Can: the regime, the thresholds, the terminology, and how it differs from SEBI's — which is what this page is.
Cannot: which fund houses run which schemes at GIFT IFSC. That information sits with IFSCA, not in SEBI's register, and this site does not reproduce IFSCA's records. Anything published here naming specific GIFT City schemes would be unsourced, and unsourced is the one thing this site will not publish.
If you are searching for a particular house's GIFT City offering, go to IFSCA's own records and to the manager directly. If you are looking for that manager's domestic SEBI-registered funds, those are here — search the directory or browse Category II and Category III.
And as with domestic AIFs, there is no public per-fund performance data for GIFT City schemes either. See why AIF returns are not comparable.
Sources
- IFSCA (Fund Management) Regulations, 2025, amended up to 30 July 2025: regulation 2 (definitions, restricted scheme), regulation 3 (categories of FME), regulation 23 (venture capital scheme corpus), regulation 32 (eligible investors in restricted schemes), regulation 33(2) (minimum corpus), and the repeal and savings provision repealing the 2022 regulations. https://ifsca.gov.in/Common/PreviewPdf?id=21626bde60601ef44a0ed02201813f70&fileName=IFSCA__Fund_Management__Regulations__2025__Amended_up_to_July_30__2025__20250818_0451.pdf
- SEBI (Alternative Investment Funds) Regulations, 2012, for the domestic comparison: SEBI AIF Regulations.
Checked against source on 24 August 2026. Information only, not investment advice.
Checked against source on 24 August 2026. This page is information, not legal, tax or investment advice.