A Global Depositary Receipt (GDR) is a certificate issued by one bank, which allows you to buy shares in a foreign company. It's called "global" because the shareholdings are held not just in that country where the company is registered, but also wherever its shares are traded. A GDR can be attractive for investors because it enables them to take advantage of foreign stock exchange markets without having to deal with strict language barriers or currency conversion issues.In recent years, a lot of businesspeople have started buying shares in foreign companies and more and more are offered depositary receipts (GDR). In general, these are certificates issued in more than one country, and they have the same rights as ordinary shares: ownership, voting rights and dividends. But they also come with some unique features that separate them from ordinary certificates.The best thing about a GDR is that you can buy U.S. stocks and other securities overseas without having to pay the withholding tax, at least not if they have a GDR. The tax advantage here is that you aren't paying taxes on capital gains until you cash them in your home country since the GDR represents the shares being held inside the GDR (the depositary receipt) could be issued in any country and tracked by an online account statement which means when you redeem these shares they will come back to your beneficiary account at the bank which issued the GDR and not directly to you as the holder of these shares since they are not considered real estate specific instruments in US tax law.
