Documentary evidence proving where the specific money used in a transaction originated. A core component of due diligence for every investment-migration application.
Source of Funds (SoF) is the evidentiary trail showing where the specific funds being invested in a CBI / RBI programme actually came from. Acceptable sources include salary income (evidenced by employment contracts and payslips), business profits (evidenced by audited accounts and dividend resolutions), the sale of a property or business (sale agreement plus bank-statement reconciliation), inheritance (probate documents plus bank trail), and investment returns.
SoF is distinct from Source of Wealth (SoW), which is the broader origin of the applicant's total net worth — including assets not used in the transaction. Most programmes require SoW for high-net-worth applicants in addition to SoF on the transaction-specific funds.
The most common SoF rejection ground is "unexplained gap" — funds that appear in an account without a traceable origin from a legitimate source.