TDS returns in India: Forms 24Q, 26Q and 27Q, deadlines and certificates

How TDS works in practice

Tax deducted at source (TDS) is India's way of collecting income tax at the point of payment. When you pay a contractor ₹1,00,000 for services, you withhold a percentage, deposit it with the government, and report the deduction in a quarterly return. The person you paid then claims credit for that tax against their own liability. The deduction is not extra tax you pay; it is tax you collect on the government's behalf and pass along.

Three obligations attach to every deduction: you must deposit the amount by the 7th of the following month through a challan, you must file a quarterly TDS return, and you must issue a TDS certificate to the payee so they can claim credit. Most legal teams only hear about the filing, but a missed challan or a late certificate causes the same penalties as a missed return. See the TDS return filing page and the monthly challan page for the deadlines on your calendar.

The four quarterly return forms

The return you file depends on the type of payment and the recipient:

• Form 24Q for salaries paid to employees. This is the return where salary, perquisite, and the employee's PAN are reconciled.
• Form 26Q for TDS on all payments to resident payees other than salaries: rent, contractor payments, professional fees, interest, commission, and the rest.
• Form 27Q for TDS deducted on payments to non-residents (other than salary), which is tracked separately because non-resident withholding has its own rates and rules under section 195.
• Form 27EQ for the collection of tax at source (TCS), the parallel mechanism that applies to certain goods sales and foreign remittances, now tracked on the Form 27EQ page.

A company that pays salaries, rents, and professional fees all in the same quarter may file three separate returns in that quarter. Each one is a separate obligation with its own due date and its own late fee.

The quarterly deadlines

All TDS returns are due quarterly, on the last day of the month following the quarter. For the quarter ending June 30, the return is due July 31. For September 30, October 31. For December 31, January 31. And for March 31, May 31, because the annual return window accounts for year-end processing.

The late fee for a delayed return is ₹200 per day, and it is not a rounding matter. A return filed 60 days late costs ₹12,000 in fees before interest. After a longer delay, the deductor can be treated as a defaulter, and the entire TDS amount can become disallowed as a business expense. That last consequence is severe: the company ends up paying tax on money it already deducted and deposited, because it failed to file the paperwork.

The monthly challan in between

The quarterly return is the summary, but the actual money moves monthly. Every TDS deduction must be deposited by the 7th of the following month through challan ITNS 281. A salary deduction in May is deposited by June 7. If the deposit is late, interest at 1.5% per month accrues from the date the tax was deductible to the date it was deposited. Because the challan and the return are two separate obligations with two separate penalty regimes, a company that deposits on time but files the return late still faces the ₹200 per day fee.

Certificates: Form 16 and Form 16A

After the return is filed, the deductor must issue a certificate of deduction. Employees receive Form 16, which combines the salary details and the TDS certificate. Everyone else receives Form 16A, issued quarterly. The certificate must be issued within 15 days of the due date of the return. A payee who does not get a certificate cannot claim credit, which means the amount you deducted and deposited still shows up as payable on their return.

The certificates and the returns must match, and they both link back to the challan deposits. That chain, challan to return to certificate, is the reconciliation a tax audit checks first. If any link is missing, the credit the payee claims in Form 26AS will not appear, and the payee will chase you for a document you are required to provide.

Keeping the quarterly cycle straight

TDS obligations repeat every quarter and every month, which is exactly why they belong on a rolling calendar rather than a reminder you set once. LawDep tracks the monthly challan and the four quarterly returns as separate recurring filings, rolls the deadlines forward automatically when each one is completed, and flags the certificate issuances so the year-end reconciliation does not turn into a scramble. Generate a free compliance calendar and map out the full Indian filing cycle in under a minute.

PAN validation and the online portal

Every TDS return is filed through the TRACES or the income tax e-filing portal, and the single most common rejection reason is a PAN mismatch. The system validates the payee's PAN against the income tax database, and a name or number that does not match is rejected before the return is accepted. A deductor with dozens of vendors should validate PANs before the quarter, not after a rejection. The portal also enforces the challan linkage: the amount in the return must reconcile with the deposits made during the quarter. A challan that was misallocated, or deposited under the wrong assessment year, blocks the return even when the money moved.

The online filing is not just a submission. The portal generates the Form 26AS statement that payees rely on, and it is the mechanism for correcting a wrong return through a revised filing. A company that files a revised return within the correction window avoids treating the error as a fresh default. The reconciliation of challans, returns, and certificates, all visible in the portal, is the single source of truth the tax department checks during an assessment, so keeping the three in sync month to month is the cheapest insurance against a notice.

General information, not tax advice. Confirm rates and deadlines with your CA before filing.