In the first two months of the fiscal year, Nepal received Rs 436.36 billion in remittances, up 23.9% from a year earlier. The figures come from the Nepal Rastra Bank report on the country's current macroeconomic and financial situation, published on October 15. On the surface it reads like a triumph: more money than ever, arriving faster. Underneath, one number is moving the other way. Approvals for new foreign-employment departures fell 13.2% over the same period.
The money and the workers are diverging. The inflow keeps growing while the pipeline of new workers behind it narrows. Remittance is the largest single engine of Nepal's economy, so the split matters, and it matters differently depending on which side you trust. If the existing stock of Nepalese working abroad carries the flow, a dip in new departures is a detail. If the flow needs a constant feed of new workers, it is an early warning.
Two months, Rs 436 billion
The two months in question are Shrawan and Bhadra, roughly mid-July to mid-September. The first brought Rs 215.05 billion in remittances, up 21.2% from the same month a year earlier. The second brought Rs 221.31 billion, up from Rs 174.67 billion a year before, a 26.7% rise. The second month alone supplied just over half of the two-month total, and its acceleration is what lifted the cumulative growth rate from 21.2% after one month to 23.9% after two. Net secondary income, the broader transfer category in the balance of payments, reached Rs 469.44 billion, up from Rs 384.88 billion a year earlier.
The dollar version is growing half as fast
Measured in US dollars, the same inflows total $2.85 billion, up 13.5% from a year earlier. Last year's two-month dollar growth was 27.6%, which means the pace of growth has roughly halved. The gap between the rupee figure and the dollar figure comes down to the exchange rate: a weaker rupee flatters rupee-denominated growth. Households spend in rupees, so the 23.9% number describes what families feel. But the dollar figure describes Nepal's capacity to pay for imports, and there the deceleration is visible.
Fewer new departures, more returning workers
Final approvals for first-time foreign employment numbered 78,320 in the two months, down from 90,198 a year earlier, a decline of 11,878 or about 13.2%. Re-entry approvals, the category for workers returning to jobs abroad, moved the other way: 51,136 against 45,884 last year. The approval system is effectively shifting toward returning workers and away from first-time departures.
This is not a contradiction, mechanically speaking. Remittances in any given period are sent mostly by workers who left in earlier periods, so a fall in new approvals does not reduce this quarter's inflow. But it describes the stock that future inflows will draw on. A system in which fewer new workers leave and a growing share of approvals go to returnees is running its biggest economic inflow on a narrowing base. The central bank's figures do not break down how much of the increase came from higher earnings, shifts toward higher-wage destinations, or exchange-rate effects, so the sustainability question has to be asked against incomplete information.
What the money buys the country
Gross foreign exchange reserves rose to Rs 4,065.78 billion by mid-September, from Rs 3,897.67 billion at the start of the fiscal year. In dollar terms the reserves reached $26.48 billion, enough to cover imports of goods and services for 17 months and 24 days. The current account ran a surplus of Rs 94.59 billion in the first month, and the overall balance of payments a surplus of Rs 90.34 billion. In that same month, remittances of Rs 215.05 billion stood against a merchandise trade deficit of Rs 148.74 billion, with exports covering only 20.6% of imports. The inflow more than financed the goods deficit, which is the entire reason the external accounts look as comfortable as they do.
The connection to domestic liquidity is direct. When foreign currency arrives, the central bank buys it and pays rupees into the banking system; in the first month it injected Rs 101.87 billion that way through net foreign-exchange purchases of $665.8 million. Deposits at banks and financial institutions actually fell 0.3% in the month to Rs 8,256.21 billion while private-sector credit rose 0.4% to Rs 5,880.64 billion, and deposit rates have dropped to 3.15% from 4.02% a year earlier. Money is coming in, reserves are at records, and banks still pay savers less than half the inflation rate.
Two months is a short window
A two-month reading is noisy, and the base it is compared against was itself high: last year's opening two months saw remittance growth of 33.1%. Approval data is also seasonal, tied to hiring cycles in destination countries and the Dashain calendar at home. None of that erases the direction, though. Two consecutive NRB monthly reports now show new approvals running below last year while remittance growth leans on the existing migrant stock. If the trend holds through the year, the inflow's biggest driver will be workers who are already abroad sending more, not more workers going abroad.
The uncomfortable arithmetic is simple. A rising inflow built on a shrinking pipeline is not unstable in the short run, which is exactly why it rarely gets questioned in the short run. It becomes a question later, all at once, if the pipeline keeps narrowing and the returns from abroad stop growing. For now, the record reserves and the surpluses are real. The unresolved question is whether the country is reading them as strength, when part of what they measure is an inflow whose foundation is getting thinner.
This article is published for research and education purposes only. It is not investment advice, and nothing here should be read as a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security. Figures cited reflect publicly reported information at the time of writing and may be revised.