Seven states take 94% of India's FDI. Here is who gets what, and why

Between October 2019 and March 2026, India received ₹27.26 lakh crore (about $341.6 billion) in FDI equity inflows, according to the government's latest fact sheet. Foreign direct investment, or FDI, is money a foreign company or investor puts into an Indian business to own a stake in it. The state-wise table shows that this money did not spread evenly. It piled into a few places.

Seven states, 94%

Seven states and UTs took 94.3% of the total (FIN2DAY calculation): Maharashtra (31.5%), Karnataka (20.5%), Gujarat (14.6%), Delhi (12.9%), Tamil Nadu (5.7%), Haryana (5.2%) and Telangana (3.9%). The other 26 states and UTs, plus amounts not assigned to a state, shared the remaining 5.7%.

The government's own fact sheet measures shares in US dollars and puts Maharashtra at 31%, Karnataka at 21% and Gujarat at 15%, which matches our rupee-based figures closely.

The second tier

After the top seven, the numbers fall away fast. The next seven states received between ₹12,600 crore and ₹30,000 crore each. Rajasthan, at ₹30,035 crore, got about 1.1% of the total.

The bottom of the table

The seven north-eastern states listed (Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura) together received about ₹277 crore. That is 0.01% of the total, and roughly 3,100 times less than Maharashtra alone (FIN2DAY calculation). Mizoram recorded ₹0.44 crore, Nagaland ₹0.52 crore and Manipur ₹1.01 crore. Ladakh recorded ₹1.70 crore. The table lists no figure for Sikkim, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands or Lakshadweep.

Why so concentrated?

Business Standard asked economists. Biswajit Dhar of the Council for Social Development said FDI follows infrastructure, strong markets and port access. Madan Sabnavis, chief economist at Bank of Baroda, said opportunity and the presence of industry are the main drivers, and that states without heavy industry or strong financial infrastructure will not attract FDI.

The same article notes that ease-of-doing-business rankings do not explain the map. Andhra Pradesh was the best-performing state in three of the four ranking years the article examines (2015, 2016, 2017 and 2019) and runner-up in the fourth, yet it received ₹14,120 crore, a sliver of Maharashtra's ₹8.59 lakh crore.

Even big deals are small next to the totals

Google's $4.58 billion investment, routed through Jio Platforms, is the largest single deal Business Standard names for Gujarat. It is still only about 9% of Gujarat's $50.6 billion total (FIN2DAY calculation). Bosch's $4.03 billion is the largest named for Karnataka. The big numbers come from many investments adding up. See our Jio Platforms explainer for the company itself.

Delhi is slipping

Delhi led India's FDI table from 2000 to March 2006 with 24.69%. Maharashtra has led since. Business Standard says Karnataka's and Gujarat's shares rose after the pandemic as Delhi's fell.

Read the numbers with care

• ProvisionalThe state-wise figures are provisional and cover only data maintained from October 2019. Before that, data was grouped by RBI regional office.
• Gross, not netThese are gross equity inflows. Net FDI, which subtracts money taken out, fell to about $1 billion in FY25 and recovered to about $7 billion the next year, according to Business Standard.
• Where it landsThe tables record the state attached to each remittance. They do not say what each state did with the money.

Educational content only, not investment advice.