For most of the last twenty years, the question of foreign law firms in India has been discussed as though it were binary. Either the market opens or it does not. Firms have accordingly treated it as an event to wait for, and may have insufficiently prepared for it, on the reasonable ground that there is little to prepare for until the answer is known.
The Bar Council of India published the Draft Advocates (Amendment) Bill, 2026 on 18 July, and the Ministry of Law and Justice circulated it two days later. Consultation closed on 31 July. It has not been enacted and may change. But it is the most specific statement in some years of what a foreign firm would actually be permitted to do here. There is a narrow, but useful, answer there.
What it says
The Bill gives Indian law firms statutory recognition for the first time, defining a firm as a partnership, LLP or company of advocates and requiring registration with the Bar Council of India and the relevant State Bar Councils. That is the headline domestically and it is a substantial change.
For foreign firms the relevant provisions do something different. They take the BCI’s existing Rules for Registration and Regulation of Foreign Lawyers and Foreign Law Firms, published in 2023 and amended in 2025, and codify them into the Advocates Act itself.
The scope granted is limited and stated plainly. Foreign lawyers and foreign law firms would not appear before Indian courts, tribunals or statutory authorities, and would not claim the rights of advocates enrolled on a State roll. Registration under the foreign framework does not amount to enrolment; the two remain legally distinct, and an earlier provision permitting foreign nationals to enrol as advocates is proposed for removal. What is permitted is participation in international commercial arbitration matters, together with a fly-in fly-out basis for temporary work, subject to reciprocity and to rules that the BCI may frame only with the prior approval of the Central Government.
So the permission on offer is not general practice rights. It is a defined lane, and the lane is international arbitration.
Relevance takes longer than legislation
A general opening would favour the largest firms, as general openings usually do. What is proposed instead favours firms whose India-relevant work already sits inside the permitted lane, which is a different and much smaller set.
A firm whose India exposure consists of arbitrations seated in Singapore, London, Paris or Dubai involving Indian parties is describing the exact activity the draft contemplates, and is in a materially better position than a full-service firm that would need court access to make an office worthwhile.
Reciprocity means the jurisdiction of qualification is part of the analysis, so the position of a firm qualified in England differs from one in the BVI, Jersey, Hong Kong or Austria, and none of those should be assumed equivalent. And the requirement of prior Central Government approval for the rules means the timetable is political rather than administrative, which is a reason to be sceptical of any confident prediction about when this becomes operative.
GIFT City is often inaccurately described as the only route by which a foreign firm can hold a presence in India. The BCI registration route has existed since 2023, and the IFSC is an additional path rather than the sole one. A firm that has been waiting for GIFT to become viable may have been waiting for the wrong thing.
What follows for positioning
The instinct on reading a development like this is to ask whether to open an office. For most boutiques that is the wrong question, and not worth it consuming the whole discussion.
But if we ask what permitted activity rewards, it is international arbitration involving Indian parties. Relevance lies in being the firm that Indian counsel, Indian corporates, lenders and funders already think of for that work. That asset is built through co-counsel relationships, arbitration appointments, and by being visible to the specific people who allocate this work. Registration is hardly a requirement to drive relevance and establishing relevance takes longer than the legislative process will.
Firms that hold that position when the framework becomes operative will find registration a formality that confirms something already true. Firms that do not will find that registration confers a permission they have no immediate use for.
The practical reading
Nothing here requires action this quarter. The Bill is a draft, the consultation has closed, and the rules that would give it operative effect are subject to a further approval process.
What it does provide is an unusually specific description of the shape of eventual access, and enough time to be correctly placed before it arrives. For a firm with existing India-facing arbitration work, that means treating the corridor relationships as the priority and the registration question as a later administrative step. For a firm without that work, it is a reason to be honest that the draft does not create an opportunity so much as describe one that would have to be built first.
Lawfinity Solutions advises international law firms on cross-border legal market positioning. If the India corridor is a live question for your firm, we would be interested in a conversation. Lawfinity works with one firm per jurisdiction. Engagements begin with a single conversation about your firm’s current position and where the corridor question is live for you. Write to Prachi Shrivastava
