How long does a cross-border share transfer take in India?

The stages that drive timeline are: obtaining PAN/TAN for the parties (1-2 weeks), securing board and shareholder consents where a shareholders' agreement requires them (2-4 weeks, longer if multiple shareholders are involved), any required valuation of the target's assets or shares (2-3 weeks), drafting and finalising the Share Purchase Agreement, and closing mechanics including withholding tax payment and share certificate transfer (1-2 weeks). Post-closing FEMA and tax filings then run on their own statutory deadlines after closing, not before.

Transactions stall most often not because any single stage is slow, but because stages that could run in parallel — valuation and consent-gathering, for example — get sequenced one after another instead.