Economy

The figure used here is the updated provisional estimate in National Accounts Statistics 2026, which replaced the 5 June release that had put FY 2025-26 real growth at 7.7%. Nominal growth in the August update is 8.6%. Constant-price GDP for the year is ₹324.70 lakh crore in that table. A later quarter can still revise a provisional year. Until that happens, this is the official account.

World Bank Data360, read in October 2026, still places India in the lower-middle-income group, with 2025 GDP per capita near US$2,700 and population rounded to 1.5 billion. Rapid aggregate growth and modest income per person describe the same economy. Income per person is the figure both a mass consumer market and a services-export market have to price against.

The Reserve Bank’s annual balance-of-payments table records software-services exports of US$132.4 billion in April–December 2025. That nine-month column is provisional, and it is the cleanest official window on the export engine that staffs Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai and parts of the National Capital Region. Implementation work for foreign clients and a product company hiring from the same colleges are different firms. Both still pay rent.

Manufacturing’s weight in the growth print has been large in the latest completed year; the sectoral story belongs with the manufacturing page, where announced capacity and operating output are separated. Agriculture still employs a much larger share of people than its share of output. A monsoon, a procurement price and a city warehouse are three links in one chain, and only the warehouse is a property asset.

Household consumption is the other large domestic fact. Private spending grew faster in FY 2025-26 than in the year before, on the June provisional discussion of that release. GRIP uses the August growth rates for the headline and does not rebuild the consumption line from a secondary write-up. The retail page is where payments, shops and logistics are read.

For April–August 2026 the Reserve Bank’s 15 October release shows merchandise exports of US$219.9 billion and imports of US$366.0 billion. Services exports were US$180.0 billion and net services US$85.8 billion. Net transfers were US$66.8 billion. Net foreign direct investment was US$13.8 billion, after outward direct investment of US$17.7 billion. None of these is a full-year result.

The nine-month private-transfer line in the annual report, US$103.2 billion for April–December 2025, is the nearer official proxy for money sent home. It covers nine months rather than a calendar year, and only part of what the diaspora does. Portfolio flows swing inside a year and make a poor caption for a building. Trade, firms and forums are on the international page. People are on the diaspora page.

Company law and the foreign-exchange regime are national. Land, stamp duty, electricity distribution, many labour rules and most building permissions are state matters, and in the large cities they are municipal as well. A firm that is lawful in Karnataka still needs Haryana or Tamil Nadu approvals if the next campus is there. GST, in place since 1 July 2017, replaced a stack of indirect taxes with one national tax. Returns are filed nationally. The administration of a plot stays local.

Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Telangana carry a disproportionate share of formal offices, ports and factories. Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh carry a disproportionate share of people. GRIP does not print a state-output ranking. The difference is structural, which is why a national growth rate is a poor way to choose a city.