Nepalis living abroad were unable to vote in the country's March 5 general election despite years of legal pressure to make it possible, and a new draft law meant to update the rights of the diaspora reportedly does not include voting or the right to stand for office either.
The Election Commission confirmed in January that neither out-of-country voting for the diaspora nor out-of-constituency voting for the general public would be arranged for the March polls, citing insufficient time to put legal and technical systems in place. Commission spokesperson Narayan Prasad Bhattarai said at the time that enabling diaspora voting "requires at least two years of preparation."
The decision came despite a 2017 Supreme Court ruling that directed the government to "make all necessary arrangements for ensuring the voting rights of all Nepalis living abroad." The court said Nepali citizens who had not renounced their citizenship or acquired another country's citizenship, and who held a valid voter ID card, should be allowed to vote from overseas. The court's Judgment Enforcement Directorate reminded the Election Commission of the order as recently as last July, after pressure from lawyers linked to the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP).
In the weeks before the election, the interim government under then-Prime Minister Sushila Karki drafted an ordinance intended to clear the legal hurdles to overseas and out-of-constituency voting. According to the Kathmandu Post, the ordinance moved between the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs for review but was ultimately not endorsed by the Cabinet, after officials concluded that legal clearance alone would not be enough without the logistical and diplomatic groundwork to run the vote.
A new NRN law, still without the vote
Since April, the government has circulated a draft of a new Non-Resident Nepali (NRN) Act intended to replace the 2008 law that currently governs diaspora status. Government messaging around the draft has promised continuity of citizenship by descent, ancestral property rights, and an annual diaspora investment bond initially floated at Rs 1 trillion. However, according to reporting on the circulating draft, it would still bar non-resident Nepalis from voting or standing for election — leaving the core demand behind the years-long legal fight unresolved.
ICN could not independently confirm the bill's current status in Parliament as of publication. The most recent detailed reporting on its contents dates to May 2026, when the draft was still described as "circulating" rather than tabled for a vote. Readers should treat any specific provisions described here as reflecting that draft, not a finalised law, until Parliament takes it up.
The current NRN Act, in force since 2008, already excludes voting rights, the right to hold public office, and a Nepali passport for NRN status holders it grants only economic, social and cultural rights, such as limited property ownership and the ability to open Nepali and foreign-currency bank accounts. The 2008 law also excludes anyone holding citizenship of a SAARC country (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Maldives, Afghanistan) from NRN status altogether a restriction that campaigners, including for the roughly 140,000-strong Nepali-Bhutanese diaspora resettled in Western countries, have criticised as being carried
into the new draft as well.What this means for you
If you are a Nepali citizen living abroad, you currently cannot vote in Nepali elections unless you travel back to your home constituency in person as an estimated 148,000-plus Nepalis did by air in the month before the March election, according to Department of Immigration arrival figures. There is no confirmed timeline for when, or whether, overseas voting will become available for a future election.
If you hold foreign citizenship and are eligible for NRN status, your rights in Nepal remain limited to the economic, social and cultural provisions under the existing 2008 Act property, investment and banking access, not political participation regardless of what the pending bill eventually contains.
