Schedule FA · RSUs and ESPP shares
RSUs and ESPP shares in Schedule FA
Vested RSUs and ESPP shares held with a US broker are foreign equity and belong in Table A3. The basics — one row per lot, peak value, the SBI rate — live in the main guide. This page answers the three questions that come up after that: the lot you never sold, the units that haven’t vested, and what cost basis each lot carries.
Vested but never sold
Do vested-but-unsold shares still count?
Yes. Schedule FA reports the holding, not a sale. A lot that vested and simply sat in your broker account all year is a foreign asset you held during the calendar year, so it is a Table A3 row — with its initial value, its peak value and its 31 December closing value — even though you never sold a share and realised no gain. Selling is what adds a proceeds figure; it is not what makes the lot reportable.
Not yet yours
What about RSUs that haven't vested at year-end?
The mainstream position is that unvested RSUs are not reported in Schedule FA: until they vest, the shares are not yours — they are future compensation the company still controls, and you hold no asset to disclose. The reporting clock starts at vesting, when the shares land in your equity-plan account.
A view to be aware of
A minority view treats an RSU grant as a beneficial interest that should be disclosed from the grant year. Because the point is genuinely contested and turns on your specific plan terms, confirm the treatment with your chartered accountant rather than assuming either answer. GetScheduleFA reports the vested lots that appear on your statements; it does not adjudicate whether a grant is itself disclosable.
The cost figure
What cost basis does each lot carry?
RSU lot
Its acquisition cost is the fair market value on the vesting date — the value already taxed as a perquisite in your salary — and its acquisition date is the vest date, not the grant date. Every vest is its own lot with its own date and cost.
ESPP lot
Its acquisition cost is the price you actually paid on the purchase date — the discounted purchase price, not the undiscounted market price — and its acquisition date is the purchase date. Each purchase window is its own lot.
Whichever it is, that native cost then converts to rupees at the SBI TT-buying rate for the lot’s own date, exactly as the worked example shows. Because the treatment of RSU perquisite value and ESPP discounts interacts with your salary and capital-gains computation, confirm the specifics with your CA.
How we help
Every vested lot, from the statement
Upload your Charles Schwab or Interactive Brokers statements and GetScheduleFA builds one Table A3 row for every vested RSU lot and every ESPP purchase — each at its own acquisition date and cost, its peak on the daily-maximum basis, and its closing value, with the SBI rate date and statement line behind every rupee. A lot bought in an earlier year takes its real cost from that year’s statement, which we ask for rather than estimate. See a finished sample workpaper for what that looks like.
One row per vest, one per purchase.
Upload your Schwab or IBKR statements and get a filing-ready Schedule FA CSV for your RSU and ESPP holdings, every figure traced to its source, emailed within 24 hours.
Get your Schedule FA prepared