Form 26AS is the tax credit statement linked to your PAN. What it contains changed for AY 2023-24, and most published guides still describe the old version. The download route is below if that's all you came for.
The short version
- What it shows now - tax deducted at source (TDS) and tax collected at source (TCS) reported against your PAN, plus refunds paid to you and any TDS/TCS defaults recorded by the department. Ten parts, numbered Part I to Part X.
- What it no longer shows - advance tax and self-assessment tax you paid, and high-value financial transactions reported under the Statement of Financial Transactions (SFT). From AY 2023-24 both moved to the Annual Information Statement, or AIS.
- Where to get it - the income tax e-filing portal, your bank's net banking, or the TRACES website. All three are named as official routes.
- Why to check it before filing - the credit you claim in your return has to match what deductors have actually deposited against your PAN. Anything unmatched is a credit you may not get.
How to Download Form 26AS (Portal, Net Banking, and the PDF Password)
Three official routes exist, and the TRACES taxpayer FAQ names all three: the e-filing website at incometax.gov.in, your bank's net banking, and the TRACES website. Statements go back to AY 2009-10. Most people use the e-filing route, so start there.
Download from the income tax e-filing portal
- Log in at the income tax e-filing portal with your PAN and password.
- Open the e-File menu.
- Go to Income Tax Returns.
- Choose the option to view your Form 26AS.
- Read the disclaimer and confirm. You are redirected to the TDS-CPC portal (TRACES).
- Agree to the usage terms and proceed.
- Select the assessment year and the format you want, then download.
- Net banking, without an e-filing login - if your PAN is linked to an account whose bank is authorised for this service, reach the same statement from the tax or TDS section of your net banking dashboard, no e-filing credentials needed. The contents are identical.
- The PDF password - your date of birth in DDMMYYYY format, no separators, so 15 January 1990 is 15011990. For a non-individual PAN, use the date of incorporation.
- Which format - view in HTML, download as PDF, Text or Excel. Use Excel to reconcile line by line. One catch: a statement with more than 1,500 entries downloads only as Text, which you convert yourself, and a high-volume ITeS firm will hit this.
How to Read Your Form 26AS Entries
The file opens as a deductor-by-deductor list rather than a computed total. Each part is organised by the entity that reported the transaction, so you're reading a set of claims made about you.
Deductor-wise entries: TAN, name, and the amount credited
Every TDS line in Part I carries four fields, and they're worth reading together:
- Deductor TAN - the identifier that tells two similarly-named clients apart, and the reference you quote back to a deductor about a missing entry
- Deductor name - the client or payer as they appear in the statement
- Amount paid or credited - the gross figure the deductor booked against you
- Tax deducted - read alongside the amount, never on its own
A mismatch between the amount and your invoice value usually means the deductor booked a different gross figure rather than a different rate.
Matching each entry to the quarter it belongs to
Entries appear against the quarter of deduction, but they only appear after the deductor has filed the TDS statement for that quarter. That is a quarterly cycle, so there is a lag by design.
A worked case: an Indian client deducts TDS on your March invoice, inside Q4. You check in April and the entry is either absent or sitting unmatched.
By July, once that client has filed the Q4 statement, it shows as final. Nothing went wrong in either month.
Status flags and what "provisional" means
Each entry carries a booking status, and the TRACES taxpayer FAQ confirms four codes exist for it. In common use they are read as:
- F - final, where a non-government deductor's payment has been matched against the TDS or TCS statement filed
- P - provisional, applicable to government deductors only, pending verification by the pay and accounts office
- U - unmatched, where the deductor has not deposited the tax or has given wrong particulars
- O - overbooked, where the deductor has claimed more credit than was actually deposited
U and O are the two to act on. Both mean the credit is not yet yours to claim cleanly.
26AS Reconciliation Before You File Your ITR
Reconciliation here means one thing: proving that every rupee of credit you intend to claim has a matching, final entry against your PAN. Do it before you file.
Reconciling against your own invoice and receipt records
- Pull your invoice and receipt records for the financial year, with amounts, dates and client names.
- Download the statement for the current assessment year, and open Parts I and VI for TDS and TCS, plus Part VII for refunds.
- Match each entry to a source document by deductor TAN and amount.
- Flag every entry showing status U or O. Those credits are not final.
- List amounts in your books that have no matching entry at all.
- Check AIS separately for what this statement no longer carries: SFT transactions, and the advance tax and self-assessment tax you paid.
- Where AIS disagrees with your records, submit feedback on that specific entry.
For export receipts the matching document is your bank documentation rather than a TDS certificate. Typically that means the Foreign Inward Remittance Certificate or its advice equivalent, which evidences the receipt rather than any tax on it.
What to do when a deductor's TDS is missing
Go to the deductor first. A missing or wrong entry is generally fixed by the deductor filing a correction statement, so that is where the fix usually has to start.
Raising it with the portal on its own is unlikely to move an entry the deductor hasn't reported.
Quote four things when you raise it:
- The deductor's TAN - as it appears in the statement
- The quarter of deduction - not the month you were paid
- The invoice - number and value
- The deducted amount - as you have it recorded
If the deductor confirms the deposit but the entry still doesn't appear, that points at wrong particulars in their statement rather than a missing payment.
Filing when your statement and your books disagree
Where a gap won't resolve, take the filing decision with your CA rather than from a guide.
Claiming a credit that has no final entry against your PAN invites a mismatch notice, and leaving out a credit you're entitled to costs you the money.
What you can do without advice is document the gap:
- The entry - the part it sits in, the deductor and the amount as it appears
- The date you raised it - and what the deductor said in reply
Refer to the department's own guidance or a qualified professional for the filing call itself.
Remittances you can trace back to the right invoice without a bank statement hunt.
What Form 26AS Contains Today, and What Moved to AIS in AY 2023-24
From AY 2023-24 onwards, this statement carries TDS and TCS type data, refunds and defaults. Nothing else.
The advance tax and self-assessment tax you paid by challan are no longer viewable in it, and neither are SFT-reported high-value transactions. Both sit in AIS now.
That matters practically, because a large share of published guides still describe the old lettered structure as current. A reader working from one of those opens the file looking for Part C or Part E and finds nothing.
The parts of Form 26AS as it stands now
The government FAQ sets out the current structure explicitly, split into "prior to AY 2023-24" and "AY 2023-24 onwards". Here is the AY 2023-24 onwards side, with what each part means for a services exporter.
| Part | What it shows | Who reports it | Typical entry for a service exporter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Part I | Details of tax deducted at source | Indian deductors, via quarterly TDS statements | An Indian client's TDS on your professional or technical fees |
| Part II | TDS for Form 15G/15H cases | Banks and other payers | Usually blank; relates to no-deduction declarations |
| Part III | Transactions under the proviso to s.194B, first proviso to s.194R(1), proviso to s.194S(1), s.194BA(2) | Payers in those specific categories | Rarely populated for a services business |
| Part IV | TDS under s.194-IA, 194-IB, 194M, 194S, seller or landlord or payee side | Buyers, tenants, payers | Sale of property, or rent received |
| Part V | Transactions under the proviso to s.194S(1) per Form 26QE, seller of a virtual digital asset | Reporting entity | Not applicable to most exporters |
| Part VI | Details of tax collected at source | Collectors, including banks | TCS an Indian bank collected from you |
| Part VII | Details of paid refund, sourced from CPC-TDS | Income Tax Department | A refund already released to you |
| Part VIII | TDS under s.194-IA, 194-IB, 194M, 194S, buyer or tenant or payer side | You, where you were the deductor | Rent or contractor payments you deducted on |
| Part IX | Transactions and demand payments under the proviso to s.194S(1) per Form 26QE, buyer side | Reporting entity | Not applicable to most exporters |
| Part X | TDS/TCS defaults from processing of statements | Income Tax Department | A default flagged where you filed a TDS statement |
Source: official TRACES taxpayer FAQ, last reviewed 31 March 2026.
What moved out and into AIS
Two things left. Advance tax and self-assessment tax details, which used to sit in old Part C, are now viewable in AIS for AY 2023-24 onwards.
SFT details, which used to sit in old Part E, no longer appear here at all.
Two acronyms are worth pinning down before you go looking in AIS:
- SFT, the Statement of Financial Transactions - information on certain high-value financial transactions reported under Section 285BA of the Income-tax Act, 1961. It was known as the Annual Information Return before AY 2017-18.
- TIS, the Taxpayer Information Summary - a component inside AIS rather than a separate download. It aggregates by category, showing the value originally reported and the value after any feedback you submit.
Worth correcting one thing that often gets stated the other way round. Form 15G/15H related TDS did not move to AIS. It is still here, as Part II.
Why older guides still show lettered parts
Before AY 2023-24 the structure was lettered, and it ran like this:
- Parts A, A1 and A2 - TDS, 15G/15H cases, and property, rent and contractor TDS on the payee side
- Part B - TCS
- Parts C and D - tax paid other than TDS/TCS, and paid refunds
- Parts E, F and G - SFT, the buyer or tenant side, and TDS defaults
- Part H - GSTR-3B turnover
Three separate things happened to those letters at the AY 2023-24 cutover. The FAQ prints both structures without mapping one onto the other, so the correspondence below is matched by category, not quoted.
Seven lettered parts carried over and were renumbered:
| Old part | Current part (matched by category, not an official mapping) |
|---|---|
| Part A, TDS | Part I |
| Part A1, TDS for Form 15G/15H | Part II |
| Part A2, property, rent and contractor TDS, payee side | Part IV |
| Part B, TCS | Part VI |
| Part D, paid refunds | Part VII |
| Part F, property, rent and contractor TDS, payer side | Part VIII |
| Part G, TDS defaults | Part X |
Three were dropped with no equivalent in the current list: Part C (tax paid other than TDS/TCS), Part E (SFT) and Part H (GSTR-3B turnover). So GST turnover reporting through this statement has been discontinued too.
Parts III, V and IX have no predecessor in the pre-AY 2023-24 lettered list. They cover the s.194B, s.194R, s.194S and s.194BA provisos plus the Form 26QE virtual-digital-asset entries.
The old scheme had no slot for those categories. Guides written before the cutover, or copied from ones that were, still show the old set.
Clearing up the high-value-transaction scrutiny fear
Large bank withdrawals and other high-value transactions are an AIS feature now, not a feature of this statement. If a reportable transaction of yours surfaces anywhere, it may surface in AIS through the SFT feed.
Being reported is routine. Reporting entities file these statements as a matter of course, and an entry appearing is not the same as your return being picked for scrutiny.
Form 26AS vs AIS vs Form 16: Which One You Actually Need
Three documents, overlapping numbers, and only one of them is the record of what has been credited against your PAN. Here is what each covers, so you know which to open for which question.
| Document | What it covers | Issued by | Where to get it | When you need it | What it will not show |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Form 26AS | TDS and TCS reported against your PAN, refunds paid, TDS/TCS defaults; Parts I to X | Income Tax Department, through CPC-TDS (TRACES) | E-filing portal, net banking, or TRACES | Confirming the tax credit you can claim in your return | Advance tax and self-assessment tax you paid, SFT high-value transactions, any foreign tax withheld abroad |
| AIS (Annual Information Statement) | The broader set: TDS/TCS data plus SFT transactions, advance and self-assessment tax, interest, dividends, securities and mutual fund transactions, foreign remittance data; includes TIS and a feedback facility | Income Tax Department, through the e-filing portal | E-filing portal only, not TRACES | Cross-checking everything the department has been told about you | A deductor-issued certificate of deduction; AIS reports what entities filed, it does not certify it to you |
| Form 16 | A TDS certificate for salary income, showing salary paid and tax deducted by that employer for the year | Your employer | From the employer directly, not downloadable by you | Filing a return that includes salary income | Anything outside that employment, including your export receipts |
Source: official TRACES taxpayer FAQ and the incometax.gov.in AIS FAQ.
When the three documents disagree
There's no official statement on which of these prevails if their figures conflict. So treat what follows as working practice rather than a cited rule.
- Reconcile both statements against your own records first - your invoices and receipts are the reference point, not either document
- Where an AIS entry looks wrong - use the feedback facility on that specific entry, which is what AIS is built to accept
- For the TDS and TCS figure itself - Form 26AS is sourced from what deductors actually filed with CPC-TDS, so it's the document to take back to a deductor when a credit is missing.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Checking Form 26AS
Five errors account for most of the confusion readers report, and each has a quick check that settles it:
- The AY-versus-FY trap - the download screen asks for an assessment year, not a financial year, and the two are one apart (FY 2025-26 income is AY 2026-27). Pick the FY by habit and the statement looks alarmingly empty, the most common reason people wrongly conclude their clients never deducted. Check the year selector first.
- Treating a missing entry as proof nobody deducted - a missing line means nothing has been reported yet, not that the deduction never happened. Check your remittance advice or the client's payment breakdown before you accuse anyone.
- Expecting foreign client withholding to appear - it is never in here, in any part; the reason is structural, and the exporter section below sets it out. The deduction side of a payment abroad is a separate question in TDS on foreign payments.
- Hunting high-value transactions here instead of in AIS - SFT transactions stopped appearing from AY 2023-24. Finding nothing here is not evidence they were not reported. Open AIS.
- Downloading once in July and stopping - entries land as deductors file, so the statement you pulled in July is not the one that exists later. Re-check before you file, and again if you revise.
Form 26AS for Service Exporters and ITeS Businesses
If you invoice foreign clients, most of what you're looking for isn't in here. Knowing which parts can and cannot evidence your position saves a filing season of searching for entries that were never going to be there.
What does appear for a service exporter
- Part I - your Indian clients' deductions, deductor-wise, usually Section 194J (professional and technical fees) or 194C (contract payments). Both look identical here: TAN, name, amount credited, tax deducted, status.
- Part VI - TCS an Indian bank collected from you, typically an outward-remittance item, so marginal if your flows run inward.
What no longer appears: the advance tax and self-assessment tax you pay by challan moved to AIS from AY 2023-24. If you pay quarterly advance tax on export income, that trail is now an AIS trail.
Foreign client withholding: why it is absent, and where you claim it
The statement only reflects tax deposited with the Indian government by an Indian deductor or collector, and all ten parts trace back to that.
So when a US client withholds tax before paying you, that tax goes to a foreign authority. There is no Indian TDS statement, no TAN, and no CPC-TDS record, so it lands nowhere in the form.
The credit is still real. You just claim it elsewhere: foreign tax withheld on income also taxed in India is claimed as Foreign Tax Credit through Form 67.
Your 26AS entries evidence the Indian credit; Form 67, with the withholding evidence attached, supports the foreign leg. The two never feed each other, so keep the evidence sets separate.
Reconciling entries against your FIRC and bank remittance records
The receipt side of an export invoice needs its own paper trail, and for most exporters that is where reconciliation actually breaks down.
- From an Indian client - a Part I entry you can read off the statement
- From a foreign client - a bank credit that needs matching to an invoice, a purpose code and a remittance document
Xflow's receiving accounts are designed for that side of the problem. Each settlement carries its own eFIRA, the electronic Foreign Inward Remittance Advice.
So the receipt record exists per transaction rather than being requested from a bank at year end. That doesn't change what your 26AS shows, but it gives you a settlement-level record to reconcile your books against.
Chasing FIRCs at filing season instead of reconciling exports.
What Changes Under the New Income-tax Act
Everything above uses the Income-tax Act, 1961 framing, because that is what governs the FY 2025-26 and AY 2026-27 return you're filing now. Two dates matter here, and only one of them affects that return.
- What governs the return in front of you - the Income-tax Act, 1961. This statement is generated under Section 285BB, with the format set out in Rule 114-I of the Income-tax Rules, 1962.
- What is expected to change - according to public reporting on its passage, the Income-tax Act, 2025 received assent in August 2025 and commences from April 2026, applying from Tax Year 2026-27 onwards.
Practitioner commentary expects the statement to be renumbered and re-cited under the new Act, with the same content and purpose. Until the new numbering is confirmed in the gazetted rules, this page keeps the Income-tax Act, 1961 references that govern the return you file now.
The Bottom Line on Form 26AS
Two things about this document changed in AY 2023-24 and most guides haven't updated:
- The parts were renumbered - it runs from Part I to Part X, not Part A to Part H
- The scope narrowed - it no longer carries the advance tax, self-assessment tax or high-value transaction data that moved to AIS
Use it for one job: confirming that the TDS and TCS credit you claim has a final entry against your PAN.
- Before you file - reconcile it against your own invoice and receipt records
- Where an entry shows U or O - chase the deductor rather than the department
- Closer to your filing date - re-check, because entries keep landing all year
And if you earn from abroad, don't look for foreign withholding in it. That credit runs through Form 67, while your receipt-side paperwork runs through your bank or payments provider.
For ITeS exporters both trails need to hold up in the same filing season.
Export receipts and their remittance paperwork arriving in one place.
Frequently Asked Questions
Form 26AS is the PAN-linked tax credit statement you use to confirm what TDS and TCS deductors have reported and deposited against your PAN before you claim that credit in your return.
Log in at incometax.gov.in, open the e-File menu, go to Income Tax Returns, select the option to view your Form 26AS, confirm the disclaimer, then download from the TRACES screen you are redirected to.
Without e-filing credentials, use net banking on a bank account linked to your PAN, where that bank is authorised by the Income Tax Department for this service.
The password is the taxpayer's date of birth in DDMMYYYY format, per the TRACES taxpayer FAQ. Someone born on 15 January 1990 enters 15011990, with no separators.
Your PAN is the login itself. The statement is generated per PAN, so logging in at the e-filing portal with your PAN returns your statement. There's no separate PAN lookup.
No. Form 26AS carries TDS/TCS data, refunds and defaults. AIS carries that plus SFT transactions, advance and self-assessment tax, interest, dividends and more.
No. It only reflects tax deposited with the Indian government by an Indian deductor or collector. Foreign withholding is claimed through Form 67, and how that income is taxed in India is covered in tax on foreign income.
Not from AY 2023-24 onwards. SFT-reported high-value transactions moved to AIS on the e-filing portal. No threshold figures are stated here.
Sources: Income Tax Department and the TRACES taxpayer FAQ (Form 26AS / Annual Tax Statement); incometax.gov.in Annual Information Statement FAQ.
