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TDS deducted but not showing in Form 26AS

Your credit statement shows what somebody reported taking from you, not what they took. Almost every mismatch lives in that gap.

Editor checked against primary sourcesEditorial Policy
Quick answer

Work out which of four things happened: wrong PAN, statement not filed, challan mismatch, or tax deducted and never deposited. Only the last two are serious, and none of the four is fixed by you alone — three of them can only be corrected by whoever deducted the tax, through a revised TDS statement on TRACES.

Your deadline
4 yearsfrom the end of the financial year in which the order was passed, to rectify it

If you miss it: A credit that appears after that has nowhere to go — the order that ignored it can no longer be corrected. The deductor has longer than you do: six years to revise the statement. If a demand was raised, it carries its own 30 days as well.

s. 154 up to 2025-26 · s. 287 from 2026-27 · checked 10 September 2026

Key takeaways

  • A mismatch is almost never your error. Your credit statement shows what the deductor reported, not what was taken from you — so the fix usually sits with them.
  • If tax was deducted from you but never deposited, the law bars the department from recovering that same tax from you. CBDT has told its officers so twice, in writing.
  • A demand caused by a mismatch still carries the ordinary 30 days. Respond on the portal even while the deductor is correcting the statement.
  • A deductor can revise a TDS statement for up to six years from the end of the financial year it relates to, so an old year is usually still fixable.
  • Form 26AS becomes Form 168 from tax year 2026-27. For the return most people are dealing with now it is still Form 26AS.
Which Act governs your notice

The Income-tax Act, 2025 replaced the Income-tax Act, 1961 on 1 April 2026 and renumbered almost everything. It did not renumber your notice. Under the repeal-and-savings provision, an assessment, reassessment, appeal or penalty for a tax year before 1 April 2026 stays under the 1961 Act — even where the notice itself arrives after that date. So the number that governs the letter in your hand is decided by the year the letter is about, not by the date it was posted. Both numbers are given on every page here, with the governing one first.

“The provisions of the repealed Income-tax Act shall continue to apply to any proceeding pending on the date of commencement of this Act and to any proceedings initiated on or after the 1st April, 2026 (including notices, assessment, reassessment, recomputation, rectification, penalty, reference, revision and appeals) in respect of any tax year beginning before the 1st April, 2026.”
Income-tax Act, 2025, s. 536 — repeal and savings. The words that decide this are “or any proceedings initiated on or after the 1st April, 2026”: a new notice about an old year is still an old-Act notice.
Notice about 2025-26 or earlier
The Income-tax Act, 1961 numbering is the one that governs it — s. 143(2), s. 156, s. 220, Form 26AS, Form 16. That is most letters arriving in 2026.
Notice about 2026-27 or later
The Income-tax Act, 2025 numbering governs — s. 270(8), s. 289, s. 411, Form 168, Form 130. In practice, letters from 2027 onward.

Which of the four is yours?

Match what you can see, not what you think went wrong. The cause decides who has to act — and in three cases out of four, it is not you.

  • If you can see: Nothing at all appears from a deductor you hold a certificate from

    Wrong PAN in their statement

    They file a correction statement on TRACES against the right PAN. Give them the quarter, their TAN and the amount in writing.

    The deductor

  • If you can see: Some quarters appear and one does not

    That quarter's statement was filed late, or not at all

    They file the missing quarterly statement. This is the commonest cause and usually the quickest to fix.

    The deductor

  • If you can see: They insist it was paid, but the figures do not line up

    Challan mismatch — wrong amount, year or section

    They correct the challan mapping on TRACES. The money is with the government; it is pointed at the wrong thing.

    The deductor

  • If you can see: Your payslip shows the deduction and they cannot produce a challan

    Deducted and never deposited

    This stops being a correction and becomes a legal position. The law bars recovering that tax from you, and CBDT has told its officers so twice — see the section below.

    Nobody can correct the statement

Checked 10 September 2026. If a demand has already been raised on the mismatch, it carries its own thirty days regardless of which cause applies — respond to it while the correction is being chased, rather than after.

What your tax credit statement actually shows

Form 26AS is not a record of tax taken from you. It is a record of tax somebody has told the department they took from you. Those are different things, and the entire subject of this page lives in the gap between them.

When a bank, an employer or a tenant deducts tax, two separate acts follow. They deposit the money with the government, quoting a challan. Then they file a quarterly statement saying whose money it was, listing your PAN against an amount. Your credit appears only when both have happened and the two agree. If the money went in but the statement did not, you have no credit. If the statement was filed against a wrong PAN, someone else has your credit. If neither happened, the money never left them at all.

This is why arguing with the department about a mismatch is usually pointless. The department is reading the statement correctly. The statement is wrong, and the only person who can change it is the person who filed it.

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Form 26AS, Form 168, and which one is yours

From tax year 2026-27 the tax credit statement is Form 168, notified under the Income-tax Rules, 2026, and the TDS certificate is Form 130 rather than Form 16. For the return covering FY 2025-26 — the one most people are dealing with in 2026 — the old forms still apply and it is still Form 26AS and Form 16 you should be looking for. Pages announcing that everything has been renamed are describing next year.

The four causes, and who has to act on each

Nearly every mismatch is one of these. Identifying which decides whether this is a fortnight of chasing or a genuine problem.

What went wrong, how to tell, and who can fix it
CauseHow you can tellWho fixes itRealistic time
Wrong PAN in the TDS statementNothing at all appears from that deductor, though you hold a certificate from themThe deductor, by filing a correction statement on TRACESDays to weeks once they act
Statement filed late, or not yet filedThe certificate exists, the credit appears for other quarters but not this oneThe deductor, by filing the missing quarterly statementWeeks — quarterly statements have their own due dates
Challan mismatchThe deductor insists it was paid; the amount, the assessment year or the section on the challan does not agree with the statementThe deductor, by correcting the challan mapping on TRACESWeeks
Deducted but never depositedYour payslip or invoice shows the deduction, the deductor cannot produce a challan, and nothing appears anywhereNobody can fix the statement. This becomes a legal position rather than a correctionMonths, and it needs the section below

The first three are administrative and end with the credit appearing. The fourth does not, and is handled differently.

When tax was deducted from you and never deposited: the bar on recovering it from you

This is the case that makes people despair, and it is the case with the clearest answer in their favour — which is precisely why almost no page mentions it.

The position under the Income-tax Act, 1961, which governs every tax year up to 2025-26, is that where tax is deductible at source, the assessee shall not be called upon to pay the tax himself to the extent to which tax has been deducted from that income. The bar operates on the fact of deduction. It does not depend on whether the deductor deposited the money, and it does not depend on whether you were ever issued a certificate. Once the deduction is established, the department's remedy is against the deductor, not against you.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes has said this to its own officers in writing, twice, because the field was not following it. A letter dated 1 June 2015 stated that an assessee whose tax was deducted but not deposited shall not be called upon to pay the demand to that extent. An Office Memorandum bearing F.No. 275/29/2014-IT(B), dated 11 March 2016, re-emphasised it, recording that the Board had noticed the directions were not being followed, and instructing that demands created on account of a credit mismatch arising from the deductor's non-payment are not to be enforced coercively.

So the practical position is that you are not without an argument — you have the statute and two departmental instructions. What you have to do is put them in front of the right person, in writing, with proof of the deduction.

  1. 1Assemble the proof of deduction: payslips, the TDS certificate if you have one, the invoice and the bank credit showing you were paid net of tax, and any contract stating tax would be withheld.
  2. 2Respond to the demand on the portal within its own thirty days, disagreeing and stating the amount not payable, attaching that proof. Do not let the demand be confirmed by default while you sort out the principle.
  3. 3Write separately to the Assessing Officer, citing the statutory bar and the Office Memorandum of 11 March 2016, asking that the demand not be enforced and that credit be allowed.
  4. 4Write to the deductor, in a form you can prove you sent, asking them to deposit and file. This creates the record, and it sometimes works: a deductor facing their own default has reason to regularise.
  5. 5If nothing moves, escalate — a grievance on the portal, then the Assessing Officer's superior. The bar is on recovery from you; it is not a discretion the officer is exercising as a favour.
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What is not settled, and is not claimed here

The bar above is stated for the 1961 Act, which governs tax years up to 2025-26 — that is nearly everyone reading this. The corresponding provision under the Income-tax Act, 2025 has not been verified against the enacted text at the time of writing, so no section number is given for it and none is guessed. If your dispute concerns tax year 2026-27 or later, take the principle to a practising Chartered Accountant rather than relying on a number this page has not confirmed.

Getting the statement corrected, in practice

For the first three causes the work is a correction statement, and it is filed by the deductor on TRACES rather than by you anywhere. What you can do is make it easy and make it traceable.

  1. 1Get the exact figures from your own records first: the amount deducted, the date, the quarter, the section under which it was deducted, and the deductor's TAN. A request that names the quarter and the TAN gets acted on; "my TDS is missing" does not.
  2. 2Send the request in writing, to their finance or payroll contact, and keep the copy. Ask specifically for a correction statement for the named quarter, and ask them to confirm the challan identification number once filed.
  3. 3Give it time and then check again. Corrections generally surface in the statement within about a week or two of being processed, though a first-time filing for a missed quarter can take longer.
  4. 4Check the Annual Information Statement as well as the credit statement — they are separate views and a discrepancy between them is itself informative.
  5. 5Once the credit appears, file a rectification of the processing order so the credit is allowed and any demand is cancelled. The credit appearing does not by itself remove a demand that has already been raised.
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Six years, not one

A deductor can revise a TDS statement for a long time — up to six years from the end of the financial year the statement relates to. So an old year is usually still correctable, and "it's too late now" is rarely true. What does expire is your own ability to rectify the order: four years from the end of the financial year in which that order was passed.

What a mismatch does to your return, and what to claim

The tempting move is to claim only what the statement shows, so that nothing is queried. That is usually the wrong move, because it converts somebody else's error into your permanent loss.

The credit you are entitled to is the tax that was deducted from you. Where you hold proof of a deduction that the statement does not show, the ordinary course is to claim it and to be ready to prove it — while accepting that processing will very likely raise a demand for the difference, which you then answer with the proof. That is an argument you are well placed to win, particularly where the deduction is documented.

Claiming less has the opposite effect: it is treated as your own assessment of what you were owed, the excess is never recovered, and correcting it later means a revised or updated return with its own limits. The exception is where you genuinely cannot evidence the deduction at all, in which case claiming it invites a dispute you cannot support.

  • Check the statement before filing, not after. Almost every version of this problem is cheaper to solve in June than in the following March.
  • Reconcile all three: your own records, the tax credit statement, and the Annual Information Statement. They disagree more often than people expect.
  • Watch for tax deducted on interest by a bank you had forgotten, and for tax deducted by a buyer on a property sale — these are the two that most often appear in the statement without appearing in the return, which is the mismatch running the other way and it triggers scrutiny rather than a demand.
  • Where the credit is large and the deductor is unresponsive, get advice before filing rather than after. The decision on what to claim is easier to make once, correctly.

Worked examples

Example 1: A quarter that was simply never filed

Deductor
Employer
Tax deducted over the year
₹2,40,000
Credit shown
₹1,80,000
Missing
₹60,000 — exactly one quarter
Demand raised on processing
₹60,000 plus interest
  1. 1.The gap is exactly one quarter's deduction, and the payslips for those three months show the deduction. So this is a statement not filed, not a dispute about tax.
  2. 2.Respond to the demand on the portal within its thirty days, disagreeing, stating ₹60,000 as not payable and attaching the payslips and the certificate.
  3. 3.Write to payroll naming the quarter, the TAN and the amount, asking for the missing statement to be filed.
  4. 4.Once filed and processed, the credit appears. Then file a rectification of the processing order so the credit is allowed.
Result

Demand cancelled, nothing paid. The whole cost was two letters and about six weeks. The cost of ignoring it would have been ₹600 a month in interest and the loss of any refund for another year.

Example 2: A deductor who deducted and did not deposit

Deductor
A former employer, now in difficulty
Tax deducted
₹1,15,000, shown on every payslip
Credit shown
Nil
Form 16 issued
No
Demand
₹1,15,000 plus interest
  1. 1.There is no correction to chase: nothing was deposited, so there is no challan for a statement to map to. This is the fourth cause.
  2. 2.The statutory bar applies on the fact of deduction. It does not require that the tax was deposited, and it does not require that a certificate was issued.
  3. 3.Respond on the portal disagreeing, attaching every payslip and the bank statements showing salary credited net of tax.
  4. 4.Write to the Assessing Officer citing the bar and the Office Memorandum of 11 March 2016, which instructs officers not to enforce demands arising from a credit mismatch caused by the deductor's non-payment.
  5. 5.Write to the former employer as well. It rarely produces the money, but it produces the record, and the record is what makes the rest of it straightforward.
Result

The demand should not be enforced against the deductee. This takes persistence rather than cleverness — the argument is strong, the statute is on your side and the Board has instructed its officers twice. Getting the credit actually allowed, as distinct from getting recovery stopped, is the harder half and is where professional help earns its cost.

Example 3: The mismatch running the other way

Assessment year
2025-26
Property sold
₹80,00,000
Tax deducted by the buyer
₹80,000
Shown in the credit statement
Yes
Shown in the return
No — the sale was not reported
  1. 1.Here the statement holds something the return does not. That is not a demand problem; it is a scrutiny trigger, and a strong one, because a property transaction is reported to the department independently by the registrar as well as through the deduction.
  2. 2.The credit sitting in the statement is itself the evidence that the transaction happened. Claiming that credit while not reporting the underlying capital gain is the specific pattern the selection system looks for.
  3. 3.The remedy while it is still available is a revised or updated return reporting the gain, rather than waiting to be asked.
Result

Worth stating because most pages treat a mismatch as a single thing. A shortfall in the statement costs you money; a surplus in the statement costs you a scrutiny notice, and it is the more expensive of the two.

More questions about this page

Why is my TDS not showing in Form 26AS?▼
In almost every case because of what the deductor did rather than anything you did. Either they quoted the wrong PAN in their TDS statement, or they have not yet filed the statement for that quarter, or the challan they paid under does not map to the statement, or they deducted the tax and never deposited it. Your credit statement shows what was reported, not what was taken from you, and only the person who filed can change it.
What if my employer deducted TDS but never deposited it with the government?▼
The law bars the department from recovering that same tax from you. Where tax is deductible at source, the assessee is not to be called upon to pay it again to the extent it was deducted from their income — the bar operates on the fact of deduction, whether or not it was deposited and whether or not a certificate was issued. CBDT has instructed its officers to this effect twice: in a letter of 1 June 2015, and in an Office Memorandum F.No. 275/29/2014-IT(B) dated 11 March 2016 recording that the earlier direction was not being followed. Keep your payslips: they are the proof of deduction.
How do I correct a mismatch in Form 26AS?▼
You generally cannot — the deductor does, by filing a correction statement on TRACES. What you can do is make the request precise and traceable: give them the quarter, their own TAN, the amount, the date and the section, in writing, and keep the copy. Corrections usually surface in the statement within a week or two of processing. Once the credit appears, file a rectification of the processing order, because the credit appearing does not by itself cancel a demand already raised.
How long does a deductor have to revise a TDS return?▼
Up to six years from the end of the financial year to which the statement relates, so an old year is usually still correctable and "it is too late now" is rarely true. What does run out is your own window to rectify the order that used the wrong figures: four years from the end of the financial year in which that order was passed. Those two periods are different lengths and they start from different events.
Should I claim TDS that is not showing in my credit statement?▼
Where you can prove the deduction, the ordinary course is to claim what was actually deducted and be ready to evidence it — accepting that processing will probably raise a demand for the difference, which you then answer with the proof. Claiming only what the statement shows converts the deductor's error into your permanent loss, and recovering it afterwards is harder. Where you cannot evidence the deduction at all, claiming it invites a dispute you cannot support.
Is Form 26AS the same as Form 168?▼
They are the same statement under two names, applying to different years. From tax year 2026-27 the tax credit statement is Form 168 under the Income-tax Rules, 2026, alongside Form 130 replacing Form 16. For the return covering FY 2025-26, which is what most people are dealing with in 2026, the old forms still apply. Announcements that everything has been renamed are correct about the rule and wrong about the year.
Can the department raise a demand on me because my deductor did not file?▼
It can and routinely does, because processing allows only the credit that appears. What it cannot lawfully do is enforce that demand coercively where the mismatch arises from the deductor's failure to pay over tax actually deducted — CBDT's Office Memorandum of 11 March 2016 says so in terms. The practical answer is to respond to the demand within its own thirty days, disagreeing with proof, rather than treating the legal position as self-executing.
What if my Form 26AS shows income I did not report?▼
That is the mismatch running the other way and it is the more expensive one. A shortfall in the statement produces a demand you can answer; a surplus produces a scrutiny selection, because the department has a report of income that your return does not explain. The commonest causes are bank interest and a property sale on which the buyer deducted tax. Where the year is still open, a revised or updated return reporting it is cheaper than waiting to be asked about it.
Does a mismatch delay my refund?▼
Yes, and often it does more than delay it. Processing allows credit only for what appears, so a mismatch commonly turns an expected refund into a demand. And once a demand exists for any year, refunds for other years can be set off against it — after written intimation, which is the point at which many people first discover the old demand exists at all.
Do I need a Chartered Accountant for a 26AS mismatch?▼
Not for the ordinary cases. A missing quarter or a wrong PAN is two letters and some patience, and the steps are on this page. Where it is worth paying for advice is the deducted-but-not-deposited case, particularly if the amount is large or the deductor has gone — getting recovery stopped is the easier half, and getting the credit actually allowed is where experience with the department tells.

Official sources checked

The statutes, rules and regulator pages the statements on this page were checked against.

  • Income-tax Act, 1961 — s. 205 (bar against direct demand where tax has been deducted)
    Governs every tax year up to 2025-26. The corresponding provision under the Income-tax Act, 2025 was not verified against the enacted text at the time of writing and is deliberately not cited.
  • CBDT letter dated 1 June 2015 and Office Memorandum F.No. 275/29/2014-IT(B) dated 11 March 2016
    Instructs officers that demands created on account of a tax credit mismatch arising from the deductor's non-payment are not to be enforced coercively, recording that the earlier direction was not being followed in the field.
  • Income-tax Act, 2025 — s. 287 (rectification of mistake), s. 398 (consequences of TDS default), s. 438 (set-off of refunds)
    Read against the enacted text. s. 287 carries the same test and the same four-year limit as s. 154 of the 1961 Act.
  • Income-tax Rules, 2026 — Form 168 (tax credit statement) and Form 130 (TDS certificate)
    Notified by CBDT Notification No. 22/2026, G.S.R. 198(E), 20 March 2026, applying from tax year 2026-27.
If it was deducted from you, this is the part in your favour

Where tax has been deducted at source, you are not to be called upon to pay that same tax again — whether or not the deductor ever deposited it, and whether or not you were ever issued a certificate.

The bar operates on the fact of the deduction. The department’s remedy is against the deductor. CBDT has instructed its own officers to this effect twice — a letter dated 1 June 2015, and Office Memorandum F.No. 275/29/2014-IT(B) dated 11 March 2016, which records that the earlier direction was not being followed in the field and re-emphasises that demands arising from a credit mismatch caused by the deductor’s non-payment are not to be enforced coercively.

Stated for the Income-tax Act, 1961, which governs every tax year up to 2025-26. The corresponding provision of the Income-tax Act, 2025 has not been verified against the enacted text, so no section number is given for it here. Checked 10 September 2026.

You are here

Tax was deducted from you and your credit statement does not show it

What to do next

  1. 1

    If the mismatch has already produced a demand

    It carries its own thirty days regardless of whose error caused it — and day 31 starts interest, a possible penalty, and set-off against other years.

    Income tax demand notice →
  2. 2

    If the statement shows income your return does not

    That is the mismatch running the other way, and it is a scrutiny trigger rather than a demand — the more expensive of the two.

    Scrutiny notice →
  3. 3

    If the credit went to the wrong PAN

    Two of the ten characters say something real, and one of them explains why a name correction never changes the number.

    Reading your own PAN →
  4. 4

    If you are not sure which notice you are holding

    Eight notice types, matched by what the letter says rather than by the section number on it.

    Which income tax notice is this? →

This page is general information about procedure and deadlines, checked against the provisions in force on the date shown. It is not advice on your own assessment, and a notice that looks routine can turn on facts a page cannot see. Where money or a limitation period is at stake, put the notice in front of a practising Chartered Accountant.

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