Compare countries

Two or three countries, side by side, one row per question. Pick up to 3.

Countries

LuxembourgChecked 18 August 2026

Depends on your industryWork: HighEnforcement: Active

In one paragraph: For most businesses, data can leave Luxembourg on the same terms as anywhere else in the European Union: you need the right paperwork, not a local data centre. Finance is the exception, and finance is most of the economy here. Banks and insurers are bound by a secrecy duty that is a crime to break, and a bank that runs its accounts abroad must still keep a daily backup inside Europe.
The catch: The relaxed general answer stops the moment you touch banking, insurance or investment funds. There, three things bite: breaking client secrecy is a criminal offence, not a fine; you may only send client information to a supplier abroad if the client has accepted the outsourcing, the type of information and the country the supplier sits in; and if a bank's accounting system is hosted outside Luxembourg it must still hold a full end-of-day backup on premises inside the European Economic Area. Telecoms firms face a separate 6-month duty to keep call and location records.
Does this apply to me?: Yes. If you sell to people in Luxembourg or watch what they do online, the European privacy rules reach you even with no office here. There is no revenue or headcount threshold to hide under. A company with no base anywhere in Europe must appoint a representative in Europe, though it does not have to be in Luxembourg. The extra Luxembourg-only duties in the national law mostly apply to organisations that are actually set up here.High confidence
Can the data leave the country?: In general, yes, with paperwork. Luxembourg has no national law telling ordinary companies to keep data in the country, and European law actually forbids member states from forcing non-personal data to stay put except on public-security grounds. But this is a banking and fund centre, and the finance rules change the answer. A bank or insurer may only hand client information to a supplier abroad if the client has been told and has accepted which country that supplier is in. And a bank whose accounting system sits outside Luxembourg must still keep a full daily backup somewhere inside the European Economic Area.High confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?: The model is a European approved-list. Sending personal data outside Europe is barred unless the destination is on the European Commission's approved list, or you put an approved safeguard in place first. The list is real and populated. Luxembourg adds no national permit and the regulator does not pre-approve ordinary transfers. In finance, though, you also need the client's acceptance of the destination country before their information moves.High confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?: Yes, the regulators here really work. The privacy regulator is the National Commission for Data Protection, known as the CNPD. It is staffed, it publishes decisions, and in 2025 it handled 846 complaints, 425 breach reports and 59 investigations. It issued the largest privacy fine ever recorded in Europe, against Amazon in 2021. The financial regulator and the insurance regulator are heavyweight supervisors in their own right, and since May 2026 the telecoms regulator also runs the national cybersecurity regime.High confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?: There is a floor and a ceiling, and they collide often. You must keep anti-money-laundering records for 5 years after the relationship ends, patient files for at least 10 years after care ends, and telephone and internet connection records for 6 months. In the other direction, European privacy law says delete personal data once you no longer need it, and the anti-money-laundering law says delete it when the 5 years are up unless another law makes you keep it longer. That last sentence is how Luxembourg resolves the clash: the longest specific legal duty wins, and after that you must actually erase.High confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?: Count four clocks, because they overlap and they start at different moments. Privacy breach: 72 hours to tell the privacy regulator. Telephone and internet providers: 24 hours to report a personal data breach. Cybersecurity incidents at important companies: an early warning in 24 hours, a fuller report in 72 hours, and a final report a month later. Banks and insurers have their own European reporting on top. The trap is that one incident can start all of them at once, on different teams, with different forms.High confidence
What's the trap?: Five things that are not in any summary. (1) Breaking bank or insurance client secrecy is a crime, not a fine, and it survives the end of the job. (2) Your works council can freeze an employee-monitoring project: staff have 15 days to ask the privacy regulator for an opinion, and that request suspends the project for a month. (3) Research projects carry a fixed list of 12 extra safeguards you must apply or justify skipping. (4) Using genetic data for employment or insurance purposes is banned outright. (5) The privacy regulator cannot fine the State or a commune, so a public body has far less to lose than you do.High confidence
What's about to change?: Two dated changes and several switches already in someone's hand. The dated ones: from 12 January 2027 cloud providers must let customers move away with no exit or transfer fees at all, and Luxembourg's new cybersecurity law, in force since 10 May 2026, is still being filled in with guidance and templates. The switches to watch: the European approval of United States transfers is under formal challenge, and the 6-month duty on telecoms firms to keep call records sits uneasily with European court rulings and could be struck at any time.Medium confidence
Hardest industry wall: Finance — Circulaire CSSF 22/806 relative aux arrangements d'externalisation, telle que modifiee par la circulaire CSSF 25/883

IndiaChecked 18 August 2026

Depends on your industryWork: HighEnforcement: Waking up

In one paragraph: India's general privacy law is unusually relaxed about sending data abroad — it bans transfers only to countries on a government blacklist, and that blacklist is currently empty. But specific industries have hard walls: payments data, insurance records and telecom network data must stay inside India. The main law is passed but most of it only becomes enforceable in May 2027, and the regulator has no members yet.
The catch: The permissive headline is true only until you touch payments, insurance, telecom infrastructure, government cloud, public-health records or detailed mapping data. In those six areas India is one of the strictest jurisdictions in the world.
Does this apply to me?: Yes, it reaches you even with no office in India. The law applies to any organisation anywhere in the world that processes Indians' data in connection with offering goods or services to people in India. There is no size or revenue threshold to fall below.High confidence
Can the data leave the country?: In general, yes — freely. India's approach is a blacklist: the government may name countries you cannot send data to, and as of today it has named none. Six industries are the exception and are covered below.High confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?: Nothing to sign, no government approval, no standard contract. Unlike Europe, India requires no paperwork to send personal data abroad under the general law — the only question is whether the destination is on the blacklist, and nothing is. Sector rules override this completely.High confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?: On paper, the Data Protection Board of India. In practice, nobody yet — the Board legally exists but as of August 2026 has no chairperson and no members. The government advertised the five posts in May 2026 and re-advertised in June, and they were still vacant in August. Sector regulators, by contrast, are fully active: the central bank, the insurance and securities regulators, the telecom department and the national cyber agency all enforce today.High confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?: There is both a floor and a ceiling. From May 2027 every organisation must keep processing logs for at least one year. Tax records run six years, company books eight, and security logs 180 days. In the other direction, large consumer platforms must delete a user's data three years after they last engaged — with 48 hours' warning to the user first.High confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?: Two clocks, and this trips up almost everyone. You have SIX HOURS to report a cyber incident to India's national cyber agency — one of the shortest deadlines in the world. Separately, from May 2027, you must tell the privacy regulator and affected individuals without delay, then file a detailed report within 72 hours.High confidence
What's the trap?: Four things that catch people out. (1) A child is anyone under 18 — there is no lower age of digital consent as there is in Europe, and targeted advertising to under-18s is banned outright. (2) A consent manager must be an Indian company with about $2.3m of net worth, so a foreign entity cannot be one. (3) If designated a 'significant' organisation you must have a data protection officer physically based in India who answers to the board. (4) The general law expressly preserves stricter sector rules, so its liberal transfer regime gives you nothing if you touch payments, insurance or telecom.High confidence
What's about to change?: Three dates matter. 13 November 2026: consent managers must register. 13 May 2027: the whole law becomes enforceable, and the government has publicly refused to extend it or exempt startups. At some point before then, the Board should get its members — at which point enforcement switches on.High confidence
Hardest industry wall: Payments — Storage of Payment System Data
Telecoms — Telecommunications (Authorisation) Rules, 2026
Insurance — IRDAI (Maintenance of Information by Regulated Entities and Sharing of Information by the Authority) Regulations, 2025
Securities — Cybersecurity and Cyber Resilience Framework, control PR.DS.S2
All industries — Directions under section 70B(6) of the Information Technology Act, 2000

The eight framework questions answered for each selected country
Question	LuxembourgChecked 18 August 2026	IndiaChecked 18 August 2026
The three ratings	Depends on your industry Work: High Enforcement: Active	Depends on your industry Work: High Enforcement: Waking up
In one paragraph	For most businesses, data can leave Luxembourg on the same terms as anywhere else in the European Union: you need the right paperwork, not a local data centre. Finance is the exception, and finance is most of the economy here. Banks and insurers are bound by a secrecy duty that is a crime to break, and a bank that runs its accounts abroad must still keep a daily backup inside Europe.	India's general privacy law is unusually relaxed about sending data abroad — it bans transfers only to countries on a government blacklist, and that blacklist is currently empty. But specific industries have hard walls: payments data, insurance records and telecom network data must stay inside India. The main law is passed but most of it only becomes enforceable in May 2027, and the regulator has no members yet.
The catch	The relaxed general answer stops the moment you touch banking, insurance or investment funds. There, three things bite: breaking client secrecy is a criminal offence, not a fine; you may only send client information to a supplier abroad if the client has accepted the outsourcing, the type of information and the country the supplier sits in; and if a bank's accounting system is hosted outside Luxembourg it must still hold a full end-of-day backup on premises inside the European Economic Area. Telecoms firms face a separate 6-month duty to keep call and location records.	The permissive headline is true only until you touch payments, insurance, telecom infrastructure, government cloud, public-health records or detailed mapping data. In those six areas India is one of the strictest jurisdictions in the world.
Does this apply to me?	Yes. If you sell to people in Luxembourg or watch what they do online, the European privacy rules reach you even with no office here. There is no revenue or headcount threshold to hide under. A company with no base anywhere in Europe must appoint a representative in Europe, though it does not have to be in Luxembourg. The extra Luxembourg-only duties in the national law mostly apply to organisations that are actually set up here.High confidence	Yes, it reaches you even with no office in India. The law applies to any organisation anywhere in the world that processes Indians' data in connection with offering goods or services to people in India. There is no size or revenue threshold to fall below.High confidence
Can the data leave the country?	In general, yes, with paperwork. Luxembourg has no national law telling ordinary companies to keep data in the country, and European law actually forbids member states from forcing non-personal data to stay put except on public-security grounds. But this is a banking and fund centre, and the finance rules change the answer. A bank or insurer may only hand client information to a supplier abroad if the client has been told and has accepted which country that supplier is in. And a bank whose accounting system sits outside Luxembourg must still keep a full daily backup somewhere inside the European Economic Area.High confidence	In general, yes — freely. India's approach is a blacklist: the government may name countries you cannot send data to, and as of today it has named none. Six industries are the exception and are covered below.High confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?	The model is a European approved-list. Sending personal data outside Europe is barred unless the destination is on the European Commission's approved list, or you put an approved safeguard in place first. The list is real and populated. Luxembourg adds no national permit and the regulator does not pre-approve ordinary transfers. In finance, though, you also need the client's acceptance of the destination country before their information moves.High confidence	Nothing to sign, no government approval, no standard contract. Unlike Europe, India requires no paperwork to send personal data abroad under the general law — the only question is whether the destination is on the blacklist, and nothing is. Sector rules override this completely.High confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?	Yes, the regulators here really work. The privacy regulator is the National Commission for Data Protection, known as the CNPD. It is staffed, it publishes decisions, and in 2025 it handled 846 complaints, 425 breach reports and 59 investigations. It issued the largest privacy fine ever recorded in Europe, against Amazon in 2021. The financial regulator and the insurance regulator are heavyweight supervisors in their own right, and since May 2026 the telecoms regulator also runs the national cybersecurity regime.High confidence	On paper, the Data Protection Board of India. In practice, nobody yet — the Board legally exists but as of August 2026 has no chairperson and no members. The government advertised the five posts in May 2026 and re-advertised in June, and they were still vacant in August. Sector regulators, by contrast, are fully active: the central bank, the insurance and securities regulators, the telecom department and the national cyber agency all enforce today.High confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?	There is a floor and a ceiling, and they collide often. You must keep anti-money-laundering records for 5 years after the relationship ends, patient files for at least 10 years after care ends, and telephone and internet connection records for 6 months. In the other direction, European privacy law says delete personal data once you no longer need it, and the anti-money-laundering law says delete it when the 5 years are up unless another law makes you keep it longer. That last sentence is how Luxembourg resolves the clash: the longest specific legal duty wins, and after that you must actually erase.High confidence	There is both a floor and a ceiling. From May 2027 every organisation must keep processing logs for at least one year. Tax records run six years, company books eight, and security logs 180 days. In the other direction, large consumer platforms must delete a user's data three years after they last engaged — with 48 hours' warning to the user first.High confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?	Count four clocks, because they overlap and they start at different moments. Privacy breach: 72 hours to tell the privacy regulator. Telephone and internet providers: 24 hours to report a personal data breach. Cybersecurity incidents at important companies: an early warning in 24 hours, a fuller report in 72 hours, and a final report a month later. Banks and insurers have their own European reporting on top. The trap is that one incident can start all of them at once, on different teams, with different forms.High confidence	Two clocks, and this trips up almost everyone. You have SIX HOURS to report a cyber incident to India's national cyber agency — one of the shortest deadlines in the world. Separately, from May 2027, you must tell the privacy regulator and affected individuals without delay, then file a detailed report within 72 hours.High confidence
What's the trap?	Five things that are not in any summary. (1) Breaking bank or insurance client secrecy is a crime, not a fine, and it survives the end of the job. (2) Your works council can freeze an employee-monitoring project: staff have 15 days to ask the privacy regulator for an opinion, and that request suspends the project for a month. (3) Research projects carry a fixed list of 12 extra safeguards you must apply or justify skipping. (4) Using genetic data for employment or insurance purposes is banned outright. (5) The privacy regulator cannot fine the State or a commune, so a public body has far less to lose than you do.High confidence	Four things that catch people out. (1) A child is anyone under 18 — there is no lower age of digital consent as there is in Europe, and targeted advertising to under-18s is banned outright. (2) A consent manager must be an Indian company with about $2.3m of net worth, so a foreign entity cannot be one. (3) If designated a 'significant' organisation you must have a data protection officer physically based in India who answers to the board. (4) The general law expressly preserves stricter sector rules, so its liberal transfer regime gives you nothing if you touch payments, insurance or telecom.High confidence
What's about to change?	Two dated changes and several switches already in someone's hand. The dated ones: from 12 January 2027 cloud providers must let customers move away with no exit or transfer fees at all, and Luxembourg's new cybersecurity law, in force since 10 May 2026, is still being filled in with guidance and templates. The switches to watch: the European approval of United States transfers is under formal challenge, and the 6-month duty on telecoms firms to keep call records sits uneasily with European court rulings and could be struck at any time.Medium confidence	Three dates matter. 13 November 2026: consent managers must register. 13 May 2027: the whole law becomes enforceable, and the government has publicly refused to extend it or exempt startups. At some point before then, the Board should get its members — at which point enforcement switches on.High confidence
Hardest industry wall	Finance — Circulaire CSSF 22/806 relative aux arrangements d'externalisation, telle que modifiee par la circulaire CSSF 25/883	Payments — Storage of Payment System Data Telecoms — Telecommunications (Authorisation) Rules, 2026 Insurance — IRDAI (Maintenance of Information by Regulated Entities and Sharing of Information by the Authority) Regulations, 2025 Securities — Cybersecurity and Cyber Resilience Framework, control PR.DS.S2 All industries — Directions under section 70B(6) of the Information Technology Act, 2000