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If your India remittance checklist still says “file 15CA, get 15CB”, it is citing a repealed Act. The Income Tax Department’s own guidance states that the 1961 Act stands repealed on the 01.04.2026, and that forms prescribed under it “have been renumbered and restructured” under the Income-tax Act, 2025. TDS on payments to non-residents is one of the places the renumbering bites hardest, because the forms sit between a foreign parent and its money. Form 15CA is now Form 145. Form 15CB is now Form 146. This article sets out what the Department has published about the new numbering, what did not change, and how to confirm the current reference before a bank asks for it.
What Actually Changed on 1 April 2026
India did not amend its income tax law this year. It replaced it. The Income-tax Act, 2025 took effect on 1 April 2026, and the Income Tax Department’s e-filing portal states plainly that “the 1961 Act stands repealed on the 01.04.2026”. The portal also records the scale of the rewrite: the 2025 Act contains 536 sections and 16 schedules compared to the 819 sections and 14 schedules of the 1961 Act.
The procedural layer was replaced alongside it. The Central Board of Direct Taxes notified the Income-tax Rules, 2026 in March 2026, in force from 1 April 2026, to implement the new Act. So both the section you cite and the form you file may have moved.
For a foreign investor this is not cosmetic. The paperwork that releases money out of India is form-numbered, and an authorised dealer bank, an auditor and a buyer’s diligence team all check form numbers. A template that still names a form prescribed under a repealed Act is a question you will have to answer.
How TDS on Payments to Non-Residents Is Documented Now
The structure of the obligation is unchanged in shape: before money is remitted out of India to a non-resident, the person making the payment furnishes information about it, and in some cases an accountant certifies the tax position first. What changed is the names of the two documents that carry it.
The Department’s Form Mapping Guide lists the replacements directly. Form 145 under the 2025 Act corresponds to Form 15CA under the 1961 Act, described as “Information to be furnished for payments to a non-resident not being a company, or to a foreign company”. Form 146 corresponds to Form 15CB: “Certificate of an accountant for payments to a non-resident, not being a company or to a foreign company”.
The filing moment has not moved either. The Department’s user manual for Form 145 states that it “is filed for each remittance made by a person responsible for such remittance, before remitting the amount”. Per remittance, and before — not a monthly roll-up, and not after the wire.
- Form 145 — the remitter’s information filing, replacing Form 15CA.
- Form 146 — the accountant’s certificate, replacing Form 15CB.
- Form 147 — the authorised dealer’s quarterly statement of remittances, replacing Form 15CC.
- Form 148 — the quarterly statement for a unit of an International Financial Services Centre, replacing Form 15CD.
- Form 144 — the quarterly TDS statement for payments other than salary made to non-residents, replacing Form 27Q.
The Four Parts of Form 145, and Which One You Are In
Reporting TDS on payments to non-residents runs through Form 145, which is not one form so much as four mutually exclusive routes, and picking the wrong one is the most common self-inflicted delay. The Department’s user manual sets out what triggers each part. Note that the threshold is stated against the tax year, and it is an aggregate, not a per-payment test.
| Part of Form 145 | When it applies |
|---|---|
| Part A | The remittance is taxable and does not exceed ₹5,00,000 during the tax year. |
| Part B | The remittance is taxable, exceeds ₹5,00,000, and a certificate under section 395(1) or 395(2) has been obtained from the Assessing Officer. |
| Part C | The remittance is taxable, exceeds ₹5,00,000, and a certificate in Form No. 146 from an accountant has been obtained. |
| Part D | The remittance is not taxable under the Act. |
Two practical consequences follow. First, Part D is a position, not a shortcut: you are asserting the sum is not chargeable, and that assertion is what will be tested if the characterisation is ever questioned. Second, the ₹5,00,000 aggregate means the fourth small payment of a tax year can be the one that pushes you from Part A into needing either an Assessing Officer’s certificate or an accountant’s certificate.
The Department also records who may file. Form 145 can be used by “any category of taxpayer, Authorized Signatory and Representative Assessee”, and the filer must be a registered user of the e-filing portal with a valid user ID and password. The accountant files Form 146 for Part C only.
Form 146 Has to Come From a Chartered Accountant — Not From Your Adviser
This is worth being precise about, because it determines who you need in the chain. The Department’s guidance states that “in some cases, a Chartered Accountant must first give Form 146 (earlier Form 15CB) before you can file Form 145”. The certificate is an accountant’s certificate; the remitter’s own filing is Form 145.
So the sequence for a Part C remittance is: establish the characterisation and the rate, have a chartered accountant in practice issue Form 146, then file Form 145 citing it, then remit. Compressing that into the afternoon a payment is due is how remittances slip a week.
PerspireIP does not issue Form 146 and does not hold itself out as an ICAI-registered chartered accountant in practice. What we do is the work on either side of the certificate: assembling the characterisation analysis, the agreement and invoice trail and the treaty documentation the certifying accountant will want to see, and keeping the filing and the FEMA-side reporting in step.
The Old Numbers Your Templates Still Carry
If you hold an India compliance manual, a share purchase agreement schedule or an intra-group services policy drafted before April 2026, it is carrying 1961 Act references. The Department has published a Form Mapping Guide precisely because of this. These are the cross-border rows most likely to appear in your documents:
| Form (ITA 2025) | Was (ITA 1961) | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| 145 | 15CA | Information furnished for payments to a non-resident or foreign company |
| 146 | 15CB | Certificate of an accountant for such payments |
| 147 | 15CC | Authorised dealer’s quarterly statement of remittances |
| 148 | 15CD | Quarterly statement by a unit of an IFSC |
| 144 | 27Q | Quarterly TDS statement, non-salary payments to non-residents |
| 41 | 10F | Information to be provided under section 159(8) |
| 42 | 10FA | Application for a certificate of residence under section 159(1) and 159(2) |
| 51 | 3CED / 3CEDA | Application for an Advance Pricing Agreement |
| 52 | 3CEF | Annual compliance report on an Advance Pricing Agreement |
| 55 | 34F | Application to invoke the mutual agreement procedure |
| 163 | 49D | Information and documents furnished by an Indian concern under section 506 |
Two of those rows catch people out. Form 10F — the information a non-resident provides to support a treaty claim — is now Form 41, tied to section 159(8). And the residence certificate application that was Form 10FA is now Form 42, under sections 159(1) and 159(2). Treaty files assembled last year point at form numbers that no longer describe the filing.
Why the Portal Still Shows 15CA and 15CB
Here is the trap that makes this hard to self-check. Search the e-filing portal’s downloads for income tax forms and you can still land on Form 15CA and Form 15CB, with working utilities. That does not mean the old forms are current for your remittance.
The Department organises forms on the portal under separate tabs — “Forms as per Income Tax Act 2025”, “Forms as per Income Tax Act 1961” and “Forms as per Other Acts”. The 1961 tab persists because proceedings and filings relating to earlier periods still run under the old Act. Under the 2025 Act tab, the forms listed are 145 and 146, served by a common offline utility.
So “I found it on the government website” is not, by itself, verification. For TDS on payments to non-residents the question is which tab you were looking at, and which Act governs the remittance in front of you. For money leaving India now, in tax year 2026-27, that is the 2025 Act.
“Tax Year” Replaced “Assessment Year”, and the Forms Say So
The 2025 Act also changed the vocabulary your filings are denominated in, which matters because the ₹5,00,000 aggregate for Form 145 is measured over it. The Department’s guidance states that “in place of the term ‘previous year’, the term ‘tax year’ has been used” and that “the use of term ‘assessment year’ has been discontinued”. A tax year is “a period of twelve months contained in a financial year”.
You can see the change flow through into the forms themselves: the renumbered quarterly statements are captioned by quarter ended and tax year, where their predecessors said financial year. If your internal calendar is keyed to “AY” labels, it is now describing a concept the Act no longer uses.
Where the Income-Tax Forms Stop and FEMA Begins
A recurring misunderstanding is that filing Form 145 discharges your India obligations on a cross-border payment. It does not. Two separate regimes run in parallel over the same money, administered by different authorities, and the income-tax rewrite did not touch the other one.
The income-tax layer is about whether a sum is chargeable to tax in India and whether tax was deducted before it left. The exchange-control layer, under FEMA, is about whether the capital movement itself was permissible and reported to the Reserve Bank of India. Those reporting forms — and their deadlines — are unaffected by the Income-tax Act, 2025, and are covered separately in our guide to FEMA reporting after you invest in India.
The practical point is sequencing. The authorised dealer bank sits at the junction and will want both sides satisfied. Its own quarterly statement of remittances is itself a renumbered form — 147, formerly 15CC.
What This Means for a Foreign Parent Charging Its Indian Subsidiary
Take the ordinary case. A foreign parent provides management services, licenses software or lends to its Indian subsidiary, and the subsidiary pays. Every one of those payments is a remittance to a non-resident, and each one needs its own Form 145 before the money moves.
Three things follow for TDS on payments to non-residents from the thresholds and the sequence described above:
- Aggregate, then plan. Because the ₹5,00,000 test runs across the tax year, a recurring monthly charge crosses it early. Assume Part C and a Form 146 from the start of the year rather than discovering it in month four.
- The characterisation is the work. Whether a payment is chargeable in India, and at what rate, turns on what it actually is and on the treaty position. The form is the output; the analysis is the input.
- Permanent establishment sits underneath all of it. How the parent operates in India can change whether its income is taxable there at all — see permanent establishment in India for the ways a foreign company creates one without meaning to.
For an acquirer, the same facts run backwards. Historic remittance files are a standard diligence request, and gaps in them are a priced item — one of the recurring themes in financial due diligence on an Indian target.
How to Verify a Form Number Before You File
Given that the whole form set moved this year, the durable skill is not memorising numbers — it is checking them. This is the sequence we use, and it is deliberately boring:
- Fix the date of the remittance first. That decides which Act governs it, and the 1961 Act stands repealed from 1 April 2026.
- Go to the e-filing portal and make sure you are on the Forms as per Income Tax Act 2025 tab, not the 1961 tab.
- Check the form against the Department’s own Form Mapping Guide, which gives the ITA 2025 number alongside its ITA 1961 predecessor.
- Read the current user manual for the form rather than a cached internal SOP, because the part triggers are stated there.
- Only then put a form number into an engagement letter, a closing checklist or a payment instruction.
Everything in this article was taken from the Income Tax Department’s published guidance and mapping guide. Where we could not confirm a current rule number or threshold from a primary source, we have left it out rather than repeat a figure from a pre-2026 commentary — which is the same standard we would ask you to hold any adviser to on this subject this year.
The Mistakes We Expect to See for the Rest of This Tax Year
- Citing 15CA/15CB in 2026-27 documents. The forms exist in the 1961 tab for old periods; they are not the current filing for a remittance now.
- Treating the ₹5,00,000 test as per payment. It is an aggregate across the tax year.
- Filing Form 145 after the wire. The Department’s manual says before remitting the amount.
- Assuming Part D needs no support. Declaring a remittance not taxable is a position that has to be defensible.
- Carrying a stale Form 10F reference in a treaty file. That information is now provided in Form 41, under section 159(8).
- Assuming FEMA moved too. It did not. The exchange-control reporting runs on its own forms and its own clocks.
None of these errors in handling TDS on payments to non-residents are exotic. They are all the predictable consequence of a statutory renumbering landing mid-stream in a process that most groups run from a checklist written once and reused.
How PerspireIP Can Help
PerspireIP supports foreign-owned Indian entities on the documentation around cross-border payments as part of India entry, due diligence and compliance work — handling TDS on payments to non-residents, characterising intra-group charges, assembling the treaty and agreement documentation a certifying accountant will ask for, keeping the income-tax filings and the FEMA-side reporting in sequence, and reconstructing historic remittance files before a buyer or an auditor works through them. We do not issue Form 146; we make sure the file the certifying chartered accountant receives is complete. Tell us what you are paying, to whom and under what agreement, and we will scope the work and quote before anything starts.
Related reading: choosing between a subsidiary, LLP, branch and liaison office determines who is remitting to whom in the first place; FEMA reporting after you invest in India covers the exchange-control forms that run alongside these; and permanent establishment in India explains when a foreign company’s income becomes taxable there at all.
This article describes professional services and is general information, not legal, tax or investment advice. Indian entry routes, sectoral caps, filing deadlines and thresholds change with each Finance Act and RBI circular, and the right answer depends on your sector and facts. We confirm the current position for your situation before any filing is made or any transaction is completed.
Frequently Asked Questions
Has Form 15CA been replaced?
Yes. Under the Income-tax Act, 2025, which took effect on 1 April 2026, Form 15CA is now Form 145. The Income Tax Department’s Form Mapping Guide lists Form 145 (ITA 2025) against Form 15CA (ITA 1961), described as information to be furnished for payments to a non-resident not being a company, or to a foreign company. Form 15CB is now Form 146.
What is Form 146 and who can issue it?
Form 146 is the accountant’s certificate for payments to a non-resident, replacing Form 15CB. The Income Tax Department’s guidance states that in some cases a Chartered Accountant must first give Form 146 before you can file Form 145. It is filed by the accountant, and only where Part C of Form 145 applies.
When do I need Form 146 rather than just Form 145?
Per the Department’s Form 145 user manual, Part C applies — and so a certificate in Form No. 146 from an accountant is needed — where the remittance is taxable and exceeds Rs 5,00,000 during the tax year, and no certificate has been obtained from the Assessing Officer under section 395(1) or 395(2). Below that aggregate, a taxable remittance falls in Part A.
Is the Rs 5,00,000 threshold per payment or for the year?
It is measured across the tax year, not per payment. The Form 145 user manual frames Part A as a remittance that is taxable and does not exceed Rs 5,00,000 during the tax year. A recurring intra-group charge can therefore cross the threshold partway through the year and move later payments into Part B or Part C.
When must Form 145 be filed?
Before the money leaves. The Income Tax Department’s user manual states that Form 145 is filed for each remittance made by a person responsible for such remittance, before remitting the amount. It is a per-remittance filing rather than a periodic return, and the filer must be a registered user of the e-filing portal.
Why does the income tax portal still show Form 15CA?
Because the portal separates forms into tabs for the Income Tax Act 2025, the Income Tax Act 1961 and other Acts. The 1961 forms remain available for filings and proceedings relating to earlier periods. For a remittance made now, the governing Act is the Income-tax Act, 2025 and the forms are 145 and 146.
Did FEMA and RBI reporting change on 1 April 2026 as well?
No. The Income-tax Act, 2025 and the Income-tax Rules, 2026 replaced India’s income tax law and its procedural rules. Exchange-control reporting to the Reserve Bank of India under FEMA is a separate regime with its own forms and deadlines and is not renumbered by the income tax rewrite. Both sets of obligations can apply to the same payment.
What happened to Form 10F for treaty claims?
Under the Form Mapping Guide, the information previously provided in Form 10F is now provided in Form 41, tied to section 159(8). The application for a certificate of residence that was Form 10FA is now Form 42, under sections 159(1) and 159(2). Treaty files that cite the old form numbers should be updated.