Form 26AS is a consolidated tax credit statement maintained by India’s Income Tax Department that records every tax payment and financial transaction linked to your Permanent Account Number (PAN). It shows the tax your employers, banks, and clients withheld from your income, the advance and self-assessment tax you paid directly, any refunds you received, and high-value financial transactions reported about you. When you file your return, the department checks your claims against this statement, so any mismatch is likely to hold up your refund or trigger a notice.
What Form 26AS Shows You
The statement is split into several parts, each covering a different category of tax activity.
TDS and TCS Credits
Most of Form 26AS covers Tax Deducted at Source (TDS): the tax your employer, bank, or client withholds before paying you. If your employer deducted ₹50,000 from your salary during the year, that amount appears here with the employer’s TAN, the quarter it was deposited, and the amount. Separate parts cover salary and business TDS, entries where no tax was deducted because you submitted Form 15G or 15H, TDS on property transactions, and TDS on payments in kind.
Tax Collected at Source (TCS) has its own section. TCS applies when you buy certain goods above specified thresholds and the seller collects tax from you at the point of sale. Each entry lists the collector’s details and the amount deposited on your behalf.1Income Tax Department. Form 26AS – Annual Tax Statement
Advance Tax and Self-Assessment Tax
When you pay taxes directly rather than having them withheld, those payments appear in a dedicated section. This covers advance tax installments paid during the financial year and self-assessment tax paid before or when filing your return. Each entry records the challan serial number, the BSR code of the bank branch where you deposited the payment, and the date of deposit. Even a small mismatch between the challan details in your return and what appears in Form 26AS can block your credit.2Income Tax Department. View Tax Credit Mismatch FAQs
Refunds and Outstanding Demands
Any income tax refund issued to you during the financial year is recorded with the amount and date of payment. Outstanding tax demands also show up, giving you a single view of what the department believes you owe versus what it has paid back.1Income Tax Department. Form 26AS – Annual Tax Statement
Specified Financial Transactions
Form 26AS captures high-value financial activity reported by banks, mutual fund houses, registrars, and other entities under the Specified Financial Transaction (SFT) framework. Reporting is triggered at these levels:
- Cash deposits or withdrawals in a current account of ₹50 lakh or more in aggregate during the year
- Mutual fund purchases of ₹10 lakh or more in aggregate
- Immovable property transactions of ₹30 lakh or more per transaction
These entries let the department compare your spending and investments against the income you’ve declared.1Income Tax Department. Form 26AS – Annual Tax Statement
How to View and Download Form 26AS
You need a PAN registered on the Income Tax Department’s e-filing portal at incometax.gov.in.
- Log in to the e-filing portal and go to e-File, then Income Tax Returns, then click “View Form 26AS.”
- Accept the disclaimer and confirm the redirect to the TDS-CPC portal (TRACES).
- Agree to the usage terms on TRACES and click “Proceed.”
- Select “View Tax Credit (Form 26AS)” and choose the Assessment Year you want.
- Pick a format: HTML for on-screen review or Text for a downloadable file. For a PDF, open the HTML view and click “Export as PDF.”
The Financial Year is when you earned the income. The Assessment Year is the following year, when that income is evaluated and your return is due. If you’re looking for TDS deducted from income earned between April 2025 and March 2026, select Assessment Year 2026-27.3Income Tax Department. Online View Through E-Filing Website
TDS entries don’t appear in real time. Your deductor first has to file their quarterly TDS return, and only after that return is processed does the credit show up in your statement. If a credit hasn’t appeared close to your filing deadline, the delay almost always traces back to the deductor’s quarterly filing.
Reconciling Form 26AS Before You File
Compare every TDS and TCS entry against the certificates you received. For salary, match Form 26AS against Part A of your Form 16. For bank interest, compare against Form 16A. For advance tax and self-assessment tax, verify the challan number, amount, and BSR code in Form 26AS against your payment receipts. The credit you can claim in your return is limited to what Form 26AS shows, regardless of what your physical certificates say.2Income Tax Department. View Tax Credit Mismatch FAQs
When you quote self-paid tax in your return, use the challan details exactly as they appear on the deposit receipt. A wrong challan number or a PAN typo at the bank will keep the payment from reflecting in your Form 26AS.
Fixing Errors in Form 26AS
Missing or Incorrect TDS and TCS Entries
If a TDS or TCS entry is missing or shows the wrong amount, the fix has to come from the deductor. The department pulls data directly from returns filed by employers, banks, and other deductors and cannot manually alter what’s displayed. Contact the deductor and ask them to file a revised TDS return correcting the error.2Income Tax Department. View Tax Credit Mismatch FAQs
The most common cause is a wrong PAN. If your deductor entered even a single digit incorrectly, the credit was allocated to someone else and your statement shows nothing. Confirm your PAN with every deductor, particularly when you start a new job or open a new bank account.
Incorrect SFT Entries
For SFT errors, the correction path is different. Reporting entities that discover inaccuracies in the SFT data they submitted are required to inform the Income Tax authority and furnish corrected information within 10 days. If the department flags a defective SFT filing, the reporting entity gets 30 days to fix it.4Income Tax Department. Statement of Financial Transaction (SFT)
Your quickest route as a taxpayer is the AIS feedback mechanism on the e-filing portal. Select the transaction, choose a feedback option explaining why it’s wrong, and submit. The modified value appears alongside the originally reported one, creating a record that you’ve disputed the entry. You can modify feedback as many times as needed, and each submission generates an acknowledgment receipt.5Income Tax Department. FAQs on AIS (Annual Information Statement)
Finalize corrections before you file. A mismatch between your return and Form 26AS, even a small one, can trigger an automated notice or hold up a refund.
Form 26AS and the Annual Information Statement
Form 26AS is not the only document the department maintains about your finances. The Annual Information Statement (AIS) captures a broader range of data. Form 26AS remains the authoritative record for verifying your TDS and TCS credits, but AIS also shows income sources where no tax was deducted at all, such as savings interest below the TDS threshold or dividends below the withholding limit. AIS additionally covers share and mutual fund transactions, foreign remittances under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme, and credit card payments that Form 26AS doesn’t include.
A related document, the Taxpayer Information Summary (TIS), groups AIS data by income category and is used by the e-filing portal to pre-fill your return. Check both statements before filing. Form 26AS tells you whether the government received the credits you plan to claim. AIS tells you whether the government already knows about income you may have forgotten to include.
Link Your PAN to Aadhaar First
Before Form 26AS will work for you the way it should, your PAN must be linked to your Aadhaar number. Section 139AA of the Income Tax Act requires this for every individual who held a PAN as of July 1, 2017 and is eligible for an Aadhaar. If your PAN is unlinked, it becomes “inoperative,” and the consequences hit your tax credits directly:
- Tax gets deducted at 20% under Section 206AA instead of the normal rate, inflating the TDS shown in your Form 26AS well beyond what you’d otherwise owe.
- The department will not process any refund due to you while your PAN is inoperative.
- Even after your PAN becomes operative again, you lose interest on the refund for the period it was inactive.
You can restore an inoperative PAN by linking it with Aadhaar through the e-filing portal and paying a fee of ₹1,000. Certain individuals are exempt from the requirement, including non-residents, individuals aged 80 or older, non-citizens of India, and residents of Assam, Jammu and Kashmir, and Meghalaya.6Income Tax Department. Link Aadhaar FAQ
Form 26AS Is Being Renamed to Form 168
The Income Tax Act, 2025 takes effect on April 1, 2026. From Tax Year 2026-27, Form 26AS will be renamed Form 168, and the underlying legal provision shifts from Section 285BB of the old Act to the corresponding section of the new one. The content and function of the statement stay the same. If you’re filing for Tax Year 2025-26 (the last year under the old Act), you’ll still work with Form 26AS as described above. Returns and proceedings for Tax Year 2026-27 onward will reference Form 168.1Income Tax Department. Form 26AS – Annual Tax Statement