Form 26AS is your consolidated annual tax statement, linked to your PAN, that shows the tax deducted, collected and paid on your behalf during a financial year.
It is issued under Section 285BB of the Income-tax Act, through Rule 114-I, and accessed on the income-tax e-filing portal, which redirects you to TRACES to view or download it.
Think of it as a tax passbook: the TDS a client or bank deducts, such as TDS on professional fees, plus the TCS, advance tax and self-assessment tax recorded against your PAN, refunds, any tax demand and details of proceedings, in one statement.
Two things are worth knowing up front, because most older guides get them wrong.
First, the detailed high-value and financial-transaction data those guides describe now sits mostly in the Annual Information Statement (AIS), not in Form 26AS, and the current statement is organised in Parts I to X, not the old A, B, C, D format.
Second, when it comes to claiming your TDS credit in your income tax return, Form 26AS is the document to rely on.
This guide covers what it shows, how to download it, the password, how it differs from the AIS and TIS, and what it means for foreign income and the foreign tax credit.
The essentials, before the detail:
- What it is: a PAN-linked annual statement of tax deducted, collected and paid, under Section 285BB.
- What it shows: TDS, TCS, advance and self-assessment tax, refunds, tax demand and proceedings.
- Where to get it: the income-tax e-filing portal, which redirects to TRACES; no separate application is needed.
- What it is for: matching your tax credits before you file, so your ITR agrees with what the department has recorded.
- What it is not: the place your full financial transactions or foreign taxes appear; those sit in the AIS, or are claimed through Form 67.
What is Form 26AS?
Form 26AS is the annual tax-credit statement the Income Tax Department maintains against your PAN.
Every time someone deducts tax before paying you, or collects tax from you, or you pay tax yourself, that entry is meant to land in your 26AS.
It is the government's own record of the tax already accounted for in your name, which is why it is the reference point when you file.
In plain terms, your Form 26AS pulls together:
- Tax deducted at source (TDS) by employers, banks, tenants and clients, such as the tax a business deducts before paying you a fee.
- Tax collected at source (TCS) by sellers and by banks on certain foreign remittances.
- Advance tax and self-assessment tax you have paid directly.
- Refunds the department has paid you during the year.
- Tax demand and proceedings, so any dispute or outstanding demand is visible in one place.
Because it is tied to your PAN and updated as deductors file their returns, 26AS is dynamic.
An entry appears only once the deductor has both deposited the tax and filed the return that reports it, which is the root of most mismatches, covered further down.
What does Form 26AS show? The Part I to Part X structure
This is where many guides, and even Google's own answer box, are out of date. The old A, B, C, D layout was replaced years ago. The current Form 26AS is organised into Parts I to X.
| Part | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Part I | Tax deducted at source (TDS) |
| Part II | TDS where no deduction was made against Form 15G/15H |
| Part III | Transactions under specific provisos (for example Section 194B, 194R, 194S) |
| Part IV | TDS on property, rent, certain payments and virtual digital assets (deductor side) |
| Part V | Transactions in virtual digital assets reported through Form 26QE (seller) |
| Part VI | Tax collected at source (TCS) under Section 206C |
| Part VII | Details of refunds paid |
| Part VIII | TDS on property, rent and certain payments (buyer or tenant side) |
| Part IX | Virtual digital asset transactions and demand payments (buyer) |
| Part X | TDS and TCS defaults after processing of statements |
For most salaried and self-employed taxpayers, Part I (your TDS) and Part VI (any TCS) are the parts you check first. Part VI matters for anyone who has sent money abroad, because tax collected on foreign remittances lands there.
How to download Form 26AS
You do not apply for Form 26AS; you view or download it from your own login. The current path is:
- Log in to the income-tax e-filing portal at incometax.gov.in with your PAN and password.
- Go to e-File, then Income Tax Returns, then View Form 26AS.
- Confirm the disclaimer, which redirects you to the TRACES website.
- On TRACES, open View Tax Credit (Form 26AS).
- Select the assessment year and the format you want, HTML, text or PDF.
- View it on screen or download and export it as a PDF.
A few practical notes:
- There is a net-banking route too. Many banks let you reach your 26AS from your net-banking dashboard, which skips a separate portal login.
- Pick the right assessment year. The assessment year is the year after the financial year you earned in, so income of FY 2025-26 is checked under AY 2026-27.
- Download before you file, and again just before submitting, because late deductor filings can add entries close to the deadline.
Can you view Form 26AS without logging in to the tax portal?
Not directly, but you have a shortcut. There is no public "view by PAN" that skips authentication, because the statement carries your tax data and needs you to be verified.
What you can do instead is reach it through your bank's net banking, if your bank is registered for the facility.
You log in to net banking, find the tax or TRACES section, and it opens your 26AS without a separate e-filing password.
Either way you are authenticated, once by the tax portal and once by your bank, so there is no genuinely login-free route, and you should be wary of any third-party site that claims to show your 26AS from your PAN alone.
What is the password for Form 26AS?
The password depends on which version you open, which is a common point of confusion.
- The TRACES text file is protected with your date of birth or incorporation in DDMMYYYY format, so 10 August 1985 becomes 10081985.
- The PDF or HTML opened through the e-filing portal frequently opens without any password at all.
- The AIS PDF, which is a different document, uses your PAN in lowercase followed by your date of birth, for example aaaaa1234a10081985.
If a file will not open, check which of the three you actually downloaded before assuming the password is wrong.
Form 26AS vs AIS vs TIS
The department now gives you three related statements, and knowing which is authoritative for what saves a lot of confusion.
| Statement | What it is | Rely on it for |
|---|---|---|
| Form 26AS | Your tax-credit statement: TDS, TCS, tax paid, refunds, demand | Claiming your TDS and TCS credit in the ITR |
| Annual Information Statement (AIS) | A comprehensive record of reported financial transactions, with a feedback option to correct entries | Checking all the income the department already sees |
| Taxpayer Information Summary (TIS) | A category-wise summary of the AIS whose derived values pre-fill your ITR | A quick, pre-filled snapshot before filing |
The rule to remember: for your TDS credit, Form 26AS is authoritative; for income completeness, use the AIS and TIS. The detailed financial transactions that older articles say live in 26AS now largely sit in the AIS, so if you are hunting for a large deposit or a mutual-fund redemption, look in the AIS, not 26AS.
Why Form 26AS matters for your ITR
Form 26AS is the bridge between what others reported about your tax and what you claim.
Before you file, you match the TDS in your 26AS against the income and credits you are declaring, so the department's records and your return agree. A gap between the two is the most common trigger for a tax-credit-mismatch notice.
- Claim only the credit that appears. If a deductor has not yet filed, the credit is not in your 26AS, and claiming it anyway invites a mismatch.
- Reconcile against Form 16 and your own records. Salary TDS in your Form 16 should match Part I of your 26AS.
- Check it late as well as early. Deductors file quarterly, so a credit missing in April can appear by July.
Is Form 26AS the same as Form 16 or your ITR?
No, and the three are easy to confuse because they all deal with your tax. Each plays a different role.
- Form 16 is the TDS certificate your employer issues for your salary. It is a document you are handed, whereas 26AS is the government's own record that the salary TDS was actually deposited against your PAN.
- Form 26AS is the consolidated tax-credit statement across every deductor, not just your employer, so it also captures bank TDS, the TDS for freelancers that clients deduct, and any TCS.
- Your ITR is the return you file, in which you declare income and claim the credits that appear in your 26AS.
In a clean year, the salary TDS on your Form 16 matches Part I of your 26AS, and both feed the credits you claim in your return.
The broader position for solo earners sits in the freelancer income tax guide, and the return itself, including presumptive options under Section 44ADA, in the ITR for freelancers guide.
Form 26AS and Form 16 do not match: what to do
This is the single most common 26AS problem, and no government or insurer page explains the fix clearly. Say your Form 16 shows ₹50,000 of TDS but your 26AS shows only ₹40,000.
- The usual cause is that your deductor deducted the tax but did not deposit it, or filed the TDS return with a wrong PAN or amount, so the ₹10,000 never reached your 26AS.
- The wrong move is to claim the full ₹50,000 anyway, because the return will flag a mismatch against the ₹40,000 on record.
- The fix is to ask the deductor to file a revised TDS return with the correct details, after which the missing credit appears in your 26AS and you can claim it cleanly.
Keep your Form 16, salary slips and the deductor's correspondence until the credit is corrected, because they are your evidence if the timing runs close to the filing deadline.
Foreign income, TCS and Form 26AS
Here is the layer that matters if you earn from or send money abroad, and that no competing 26AS guide covers.
Form 26AS records Indian tax against your PAN, so foreign taxes and foreign income behave differently from what many exporters and freelancers expect.
- Foreign TDS does not appear in your 26AS. If a client's country withheld tax on your fees, that tax is not in 26AS, because 26AS only records Indian TDS and TCS. You claim relief for it by filing Form 67 and offering the income to tax in India under the relevant treaty. The wider treatment of that income sits in the guide to tax on foreign income.
- Money you remit abroad can show up as TCS. If you send funds overseas under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme, TCS on foreign remittance is collected and lands in Part VI of your 26AS, and you reclaim or adjust it when you file.
- Foreign receipts still need clean documentation. Payments you receive from abroad are reported in your ITR, and the guide to foreign remittance in the ITR shows where they belong. Your proof of receipt is the FIRC and the eFIRA, not your 26AS.
A worked example makes the LRS point concrete. If you remit ₹15 lakh abroad in a year for a child's tuition, TCS applies only on the ₹5 lakh above the ₹10 lakh threshold.
At the 5% education rate for FY 2025-26 that is ₹25,000, which appears in Part VI of your 26AS and which you reclaim or adjust against your tax when you file.
(The education and medical rate falls to 2% from 1 April 2026, so use 5% only for FY 2025-26.)
A second example shows the foreign-tax side. If a US client withholds tax on your fees, that tax never appears in your 26AS, because 26AS records only Indian TDS and TCS.
You claim relief for it through Form 67, offering the same income to tax in India.
The receipt itself reaches you as an inward remittance with a foreign inward remittance certificate as proof, which you keep alongside your 26AS and AIS when you file.
This is where Xflow fits, on the receiving side and honestly. Xflow does not issue your Form 26AS; that is the government portal.
What it does is help a professional or exporter receive foreign income cleanly, through receiving accounts in the currencies clients pay in, converting at the mid-market rate rather than a hidden interbank rate, and auto-issuing the eFIRA while the FIRC is issued by the AD bank, so the income you then reconcile against your 26AS and AIS is properly documented.
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What changes under the Income-tax Act 2025 (Form 168)?
One update is worth flagging so you are not caught out, and so you can ignore some of the confusion already circulating.
- Form 26AS is being replaced by Form 168 under the new Income-tax Act 2025, with entries carrying four-digit income-type codes.
- The change applies from Tax Year 2026-27, that is income earned on or after 1 April 2026, which you file in AY 2027-28.
- For the current season, FY 2025-26 filed as AY 2026-27, Form 26AS still applies. Reports that suggest Form 168 is already in force this year are premature.
In short, nothing about downloading or using your 26AS changes for the return you are filing now; plan for Form 168 from next year.
Bottom line
Form 26AS is your PAN-linked annual record of the tax deducted, collected and paid in your name, and it is the statement you match your ITR against before filing.
- Download it from the income-tax portal, which redirects to TRACES, and read it in the current Part I to X structure, not the old A/B/C/D one.
- Use 26AS for your TDS credit and the AIS or TIS for income completeness, and fix any Form 16 gap by asking the deductor to revise their TDS return.
- If you earn abroad, remember foreign tax is claimed through Form 67, not 26AS, while LRS TCS shows in Part VI and is reclaimable.
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Frequently asked questions
It is your PAN-linked annual tax statement under Section 285BB, showing the TDS, TCS, advance and self-assessment tax paid in your name, along with refunds, tax demand and proceedings. It is the record you match your ITR against.
Log in at incometax.gov.in, go to e-File, then Income Tax Returns, then View Form 26AS. Accept the disclaimer to reach TRACES, choose the assessment year and format, and download it as HTML, text or PDF.
The TRACES text file uses your date of birth in DDMMYYYY format. The PDF or HTML opened from the portal often needs no password, while the separate AIS PDF uses your PAN in lowercase followed by your date of birth.
Form 26AS is your tax-credit statement and is authoritative for claiming TDS and TCS credit. The AIS is a wider record of reported financial transactions, with a feedback option, used to check income completeness.
The deductor likely did not deposit the tax or filed the TDS return incorrectly. Ask them to file a revised TDS return so the credit appears in your 26AS, rather than claiming it before it shows.
No. Form 26AS records only Indian TDS and TCS. Foreign tax withheld abroad is claimed through Form 67 as a foreign tax credit, and TCS on money you remit abroad appears in Part VI.
Yes, under the Income-tax Act 2025, but only from Tax Year 2026-27, filed in AY 2027-28. For FY 2025-26 filed as AY 2026-27, Form 26AS still applies.
The Income Tax Department, through the e-filing portal and TRACES. No one issues it to you on request; it is generated from the TDS, TCS and tax-payment data reported against your PAN.
