Kolkataculture & etiquette

The West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act 1997 applies to Kolkata and Howrah and is among the most tenant-protective regimes in India. A landlord cannot evict at will; a suit lies only on specified statutory grounds, and a deceased tenant's dependent family members living with them can succeed to the tenancy for a period. Older tenancies under the 1956 regime are stronger still, with rents frozen decades ago and occupants who cannot practically be moved. This is why so much of north and central Kolkata is architecturally magnificent and physically decaying — the landlord has no rent worth reinvesting. As an incoming tenant on a modern eleven-month agreement you are outside the worst of it, but the law explains the market you are walking into.

If your visa runs beyond 180 days you must register within fourteen days of the arrival stamp. FRRO Kolkata, at 237 A.J.C. Bose Road, has one of the widest jurisdictions of any FRRO in India: West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Sikkim and six of the eight north-eastern states — Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura. Assam was carved out into a new FRRO at Guwahati in November 2025, so guidance written before then overstates the reach. That still matters, because much of the remaining territory is under Protected Area Permit rules and the office that registers you is also the one you deal with about travelling there.

The Permanent Account Number gates salary, banking and your tax return. Foreign nationals must use Form 49AA — the free instant e-PAN requires an Aadhaar you cannot obtain for six months. Without a PAN, tax is withheld at a substantially higher rate and recovered only by filing.

Under the old tax regime, salaried employees can exempt part of a house rent allowance, and the formula allows 50% of salary in a listed set of cities against 40% everywhere else. For two decades that list was four cities — Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai. The Income-tax Rules 2026, notified on 20 March 2026, widened it to eight from the 2026-27 year by adding Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune and Ahmedabad, so Kolkata's advantage is no longer exclusive — but it survives against Jaipur, Kochi, Goa and every other city outside the eight. Combined with the lowest metro rents in India, this makes the old-versus-new regime calculation genuinely different here, and worth modelling on your own numbers rather than accepting the default.

For five days in September or October the city effectively closes: offices shut, roads are blocked for pandals, hotels are full, movers are unavailable and government counters are dark. It is also the single best thing about living here, inscribed by UNESCO in 2021. Find out the dates for your year the moment you arrive and plan your lease, your registration appointments and any travel around them.

Kolkata's summers are hot and very humid, but the measurable problem is November to February, when air quality deteriorates sharply and the city ranks among India's worst after Delhi. If you have asthma, or young children, an air purifier is a reasonable investment and checking the daily index becomes a habit. The rest of the winter is otherwise the most pleasant weather of the year.