The number of fund management entities registered at GIFT International Financial Services Centre in Gandhinagar has risen from 45 in March 2022 to 217 in March 2026. DeshGujarat, citing Union Finance Ministry data released this week, puts the intermediate steps at 65 in 2023, 104 in 2024 and 162 in 2025. Four years, roughly a five-fold rise, and no year in which the count fell.
Read the three numbers separately
The same data set carries figures that get quoted interchangeably and should not be. Total registrations and authorisations granted by the International Financial Services Centres Authority went from 110 in March 2021 to 1,193 in March 2026. The number of entities operating at GIFT IFSC on 31 March 2026 was 652, of which 487 are domestic and 165 foreign. A single firm can hold several authorisations, so the 1,193 figure counts licences, not companies, and the 652 is the closer answer to how many businesses have actually set up there.
Within that, the growth is uneven. Banking units went from 15 to 37 over the five years. Insurance entities went from 18 to 70. The catch-all group of market infrastructure institutions, fintechs and finance companies went from 77 to 869, which is where most of the headline expansion sits.
Committed is not the same as deployed
For anyone judging whether GIFT is working, the fund numbers are more useful than the licence count. Cafemutual, working from IFSCA’s quarterly data, reported cumulative commitments to alternative investment structures at GIFT of USD 39.09 billion at the end of FY26, against USD 15.74 billion a year earlier. Cumulative capital actually raised stood at USD 19.51 billion. Capital actually invested stood at USD 16.95 billion.
So of the money investors have promised, fund managers at GIFT have called in about half and deployed roughly 43 per cent. That spread is normal for private funds, which draw money down over several years rather than at signing. It also means the commitment figure is a forward promise, and the state should not be read as having attracted 39 billion dollars of live capital today. The number to track over the next four quarters is whether raised capital keeps closing the gap or whether commitments run ahead of drawdowns.
What this means on the ground in Gandhinagar
Registrations are cheap to count and easy to announce. Employment and occupancy are neither, and they are what decides whether GIFT becomes a working financial district or a favourable tax address with a skeleton office behind it. A fund manager can satisfy a physical-presence requirement with a small team while the investment decisions stay in Mumbai, Singapore or Dubai.
For Gandhinagar residents, the practical tests are visible without any data release. Do the towers fill through the working week or only on board-meeting days? Do the shuttle and BRTS links from Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar run full at peak hours? Do local hiring notices ask for compliance, fund accounting and back-office roles, which stay put, or only for relationship managers, who travel? Residential and retail demand in Gandhinagar has been priced for years on GIFT’s promise. The licence count moving up does not settle whether that promise is being kept.
What to watch
- The FY27 quarterly bulletins from IFSCA, and whether the FME count keeps adding roughly 15 firms a quarter, the pace Cafemutual recorded between December 2025 and March 2026.
- The amendments IFSCA approved to its Fund Management Regulations in July, aimed at easing operating requirements for managers. Their effect will show up in scheme launches, not registrations.
- Vibrant Gujarat 2027, where GIFT will be central to the state’s pitch. Expect the 217 and the 39 billion to be quoted from the same stage. They measure different things.
Sources: DeshGujarat, Cafemutual, IFSCA
This report was written with AI assistance from the publicly reported sources linked here; each fact was cross-checked against at least two of them.