India Tax Compliance Calendar 2026: GST, TDS, ITR & Advance Tax Due Dates
Complete May 2026 to March 2027 deadline calendar — GSTR-1 (11th), GSTR-3B (20th), TDS Q4 (31 May), ITR (31 Jul), advance tax (15 Jun/Sep/Dec/Mar), GSTR-9 (31 Dec).
- Complete May 2026 to March 2027 deadline calendar — GSTR-1 (11th), GSTR-3B (20th), TDS Q4 (31 May), ITR (31 Jul), advance tax (15 Jun/Sep/Dec/Mar), GSTR-9 (31 Dec).
- Use this as a gst & finance updates checklist for india tax compliance calendar 2026, not as a substitute for checking current official or platform rules.
- Confirm thresholds, filing dates, forms, documents, and portal guidance against the source links before filing, buying software, changing campaigns, or changing a workflow.
Indian SMBs juggle nine recurring statutory filings every year — three monthly GST returns, quarterly TDS/TCS, advance tax, ITR, audit reports, GSTR-9/9C, and Form 26AS reconciliation. Miss one and the penalty starts compounding at ₹200/day or more. This post is a single working calendar from May 2026 through March 2027, with the legal basis for each due date.
Print it, pin it, calendar-block it. Today is 15 May 2026 — the first hard deadline is in 16 days.
- Closest deadlines: GSTR-1 (11 Jun), GSTR-3B (20 Jun), Q4 TDS return (31 May 2026).
- ITR FY 2025-26 due 31 July 2026 (non-audit); audit cases 31 Oct 2026.
- Advance tax: 15 Jun (15%), 15 Sep (45%), 15 Dec (75%), 15 Mar (100%).
- GSTR-9/9C due 31 Dec 2026 for FY 2025-26; late fee capped at 0.25% of state turnover.
- TDS quarterly return: 31 May / 31 Jul / 31 Oct / 31 Jan + Form 16 by 15 June.
What's the closest hard deadline?
Q4 FY 2025-26 TDS/TCS statements (Forms 24Q, 26Q, 27Q, 27EQ) covering January-March 2026 are due 31 May 2026. Section 234E charges ₹200/day until filed (OnlineTDS, 2026). Form 16 (salary TDS certificate) and Form 16A (non-salary) must be issued by 15 June 2026.
Right after that: GSTR-1 for May 2026 is due 11 June 2026, advance tax Q1 instalment (15% of FY 2026-27 estimated liability) is due 15 June 2026, and GSTR-3B for May is due 20 June 2026 (Business Today, 2026).
What's the full GST monthly calendar?
Monthly GST filers have a four-date routine each cycle. QRMP filers (turnover below ₹5 cr) have a different schedule.
QRMP-filer GSTR-3B due dates split state-wise — 22nd for one group of states/UTs, 24th for the other. Check your state allocation under Rule 61(6) of the CGST Rules. PMT-06 challan for monthly tax payment is due 25th in months 1 and 2 of the quarter.
What's the income-tax calendar from May 2026 onward?
The income-tax year flows in five waves: Q4 TDS return + Form 16, ITR filing, advance tax, audit report + audit-case ITR, then the next year's TDS/advance tax cycle starts. Treat each wave as a non-negotiable two-week sprint.
- 31 May 2026 — Q4 FY 2025-26 TDS return (24Q/26Q/27Q/27EQ).
- 15 June 2026 — Form 16/16A issuance + advance tax Q1 (15%) FY 2026-27.
- 31 July 2026 — ITR for FY 2025-26 (non-audit individuals/salaried).
- 31 July 2026 — Q1 FY 2026-27 TDS return.
- 31 August 2026 — ITR for ITR-3/ITR-4 non-audit business/profession.
- 15 September 2026 — Advance tax Q2 (cumulative 45%) FY 2026-27.
- 30 September 2026 — Tax audit report (Form 3CA/3CB-3CD) FY 2025-26.
- 31 October 2026 — ITR for audit cases + Q2 TDS return FY 2026-27.
- 30 November 2026 — ITR for transfer-pricing cases (Form 3CEB).
- 15 December 2026 — Advance tax Q3 (cumulative 75%).
- 31 December 2026 — Belated/revised ITR + GSTR-9/9C FY 2025-26.
- 31 January 2027 — Q3 TDS return FY 2026-27.
- 15 March 2027 — Advance tax Q4 (full 100%) FY 2026-27.
- 31 March 2027 — FY 2026-27 ends; payroll/investment-proof cutoff.
What's the GSTR-9 / GSTR-9C deadline for FY 2025-26?
GSTR-9 (annual return) and GSTR-9C (reconciliation statement with audited financials) for FY 2025-26 are due 31 December 2026. Late fee for GSTR-9 is ₹200 per day under Section 47(2), capped at 0.25% of turnover in the state/UT (IndiaFilings, 2026).
GSTR-9C is mandatory if your aggregate turnover crosses ₹5 crore in the financial year. For turnover ₹2-5 crore, only GSTR-9 applies. Below ₹2 crore, GSTR-9 is optional but recommended for clean books.
Most SMBs treat GSTR-9 as a December scramble. The cleaner approach is to start the GSTR-9 working sheet in October, immediately after the half-year close, and reconcile each month's GSTR-3B vs books in batches of three. By December you only have Q3 + Q4 to align.
What about advance tax — who owes it?
Any taxpayer with estimated tax liability above ₹10,000 (after TDS) for FY 2026-27 must pay advance tax in four instalments: 15% by 15 June, cumulative 45% by 15 September, cumulative 75% by 15 December, full 100% by 15 March 2027 (ClearTax, 2026).
Salaried taxpayers usually have advance tax covered through payroll TDS. Freelancers, business owners, and capital-gains-heavy filers must self-deposit. Section 234B (interest at 1% per month on shortfall) kicks in if you under-pay.
For freelancer-specific cash flow planning, see our do freelancers need GST guide and the advance-tax planning notes inside.
What are the penalties for missing each deadline?
Each filing has its own late-fee section. Stacking penalties is common — late TDS return attracts Section 234E (₹200/day), late ITR triggers Section 234F (up to ₹5,000), late GST return triggers Section 47 (₹50/day for nil return, ₹100/day for others), and missed advance tax triggers Sections 234B/234C interest.
How can you automate these reminders?
Three options. First, your accounting tool — Tally, Zoho Books, Marg, Busy — all have built-in compliance calendars. Second, Google Calendar with recurring events tagged to PAN and GSTIN. Third, a workflow tool (Zapier/Make/n8n) that pulls the filing dates from the GST portal and pushes to Slack or WhatsApp.
In our compliance work, the calendar plus a 7-day-before WhatsApp reminder to the founder and 2-day-before reminder to the bookkeeper removes 90% of late-filing penalties. The reminder must be on a phone, not email. Founders don't read email on weekends.
For a full automation walkthrough, see our automate GST reminders in India guide.
Frequently asked questions
When is the Q4 TDS return for FY 2025-26 due?
31 May 2026. Forms 24Q, 26Q, 27Q, and 27EQ covering January-March 2026 transactions. Late filing attracts ₹200 per day under Section 234E until the return is filed, regardless of the tax already paid (OnlineTDS, 2026).
When is the ITR filing deadline for FY 2025-26?
31 July 2026 for non-audit individuals and salaried taxpayers. 31 August 2026 for ITR-3/ITR-4 non-audit business cases. 31 October 2026 for tax-audit cases. 30 November 2026 for transfer- pricing cases. Late filing attracts up to ₹5,000 under Section 234F.
When is GSTR-9 for FY 2025-26 due?
31 December 2026 for both GSTR-9 and GSTR-9C. Late fee is ₹200/day under Section 47(2), capped at 0.25% of the taxpayer's turnover in the state/UT. GSTR-9C requires turnover above ₹5 crore in the financial year.
What is the advance tax schedule for FY 2026-27?
Four instalments: 15% by 15 June 2026, cumulative 45% by 15 September 2026, cumulative 75% by 15 December 2026, full 100% by 15 March 2027. Section 234B/234C interest at 1% per month applies on shortfall (ClearTax, 2026).
What is the QRMP scheme and how does it affect due dates?
QRMP (Quarterly Return Monthly Payment) is for taxpayers with turnover up to ₹5 crore in the previous year. They file GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B quarterly but pay tax via PMT-06 monthly (25th of next month). GSTR-3B due 22nd or 24th of the month after quarter end, by state.
What should you do this week?
Three actions. Block 31 May, 15 June, and 11 June on your calendar. Pull your Q4 TDS working sheets and Form 16 list — generate Form 16 by 15 June. Set a 30-minute weekly review slot every Monday for the rest of 2026.
Want a team that handles the whole calendar — GST returns, TDS, ITR, audit? See our monthly GST filing, ITR filing, and GSTR-9 service. Or get in touch via the contact page.
What should you verify before using this GST & Finance Updates guide?
Before acting on india tax compliance calendar 2026, verify the current rules or platform behavior with the GST Portal. The practical answer depends on your business model, state, turnover, documents, software stack, and whether the decision affects tax, customer data, paid media spend, or a production workflow.
Use this article as a working checklist, then confirm thresholds, registration status, return forms, document rules, and portal notices. In our audits, most expensive mistakes do not come from ignoring the whole process. They come from one stale assumption, one mismatched address, one missing event, or one automation path that nobody tested after launch.
| Checkpoint | Why it matters | Where to confirm |
|---|---|---|
| Current rule or platform status | Limits, forms, policies, and APIs can change after a blog update. | GST Portal |
| Your exact business case | A local shop, freelancer, D2C store, agency, and SaaS team rarely need the same next step. | Documents, invoices, campaign data, analytics setup, or workflow logs |
| Implementation evidence | The safest GST decision is backed by proof, not memory or screenshots from an old setup. | Portal acknowledgement, dashboard export, invoice sample, test lead, or error log |
How do we apply this in real business work?
We start with the smallest decision that can be verified. For compliance work, that means matching PAN, address, bank, invoices, and portal status before filing. For websites, marketing, analytics, and automation, it means testing the real user path from first click to final record. The boring checks catch the costly failures.
A useful rule: if a claim changes money, tax, reporting, or customer communication, keep evidence for it. Save the acknowledgement, export the report, test the form, and note the date you verified the source. That gives you a clean trail when a client, officer, platform, or internal team asks why the setup was done that way.
When should you get expert review?
Get expert review when the next action can create tax exposure, lost reporting data, ad waste, broken customer communication, or production downtime. A simple self-check is enough for low-risk learning. A filed return, new registration, tracking migration, paid campaign restructure, or live automation deserves a second set of eyes before it affects customers or records.
How often should this be rechecked?
Recheck the decision whenever your turnover, state, product mix, campaign budget, website stack, analytics property, or workflow ownership changes. Also recheck it after major portal updates, platform policy changes, annual filing deadlines, and vendor migrations. The guide is useful today only if the facts behind it still match your business.
What is the fastest safe way to decide?
Write the decision in one sentence, list the proof needed for that sentence, and verify only those items first. This keeps the work focused. If the proof confirms the decision, proceed. If one item is unclear, pause and resolve that point before changing filings, campaigns, tracking, website code, or automation logic.
What can go wrong if you skip verification?
The usual failure is not dramatic at first. It looks like a rejected application, a wrong tax invoice, a missing conversion, a duplicate lead, a broken report, or a workflow that silently stops. Those small failures become expensive when nobody notices them until month-end reporting, filing day, or a customer escalation.
What evidence should you keep after making the change?
Keep enough evidence to reconstruct the decision later. For a compliance topic, that usually means the application reference number, registration certificate, invoice sample, return acknowledgement, payment challan, notice reply, or source link checked on the day of filing. For a website, campaign, analytics setup, or automation, keep the before-and-after screenshot, test submission, dashboard export, webhook log, and the exact setting that changed.
This matters because most business fixes are revisited months later, when nobody remembers the original reason. A short evidence trail makes audits faster, handovers cleaner, and vendor conversations more precise. It also keeps the advice in this guide tied to your real operating context instead of becoming a generic checklist that gets copied without review.
- Date checked: record when the official source, dashboard, or portal screen was reviewed.
- Business context: note the entity, state, product, campaign, property, or workflow affected.
- Proof of action: save the acknowledgement, report export, test result, or live URL.
- Owner: assign one person to re-check the item when rules, tools, or business volume change.
Which next step should you take after reading this?
Turn the article into one action list. Mark what is already true, what needs proof, and what needs expert review. If you want to go deeper, compare this guide with GST & Finance India: Latest Changes, Timelines and Due Dates (May 2026), How to Automate GST Filing Reminders for Your Business: A Practical Guide (2026), and GST Registration in India: Complete 2026 Guide. Then update the decision only after the official source and your own records agree.
Frequently asked questions
When is the Q4 TDS return for FY 2025-26 due?
31 May 2026. Forms 24Q, 26Q, 27Q, and 27EQ covering January-March 2026 transactions. Late filing attracts ₹200 per day under Section 234E until filed, regardless of tax already paid.
When is the ITR filing deadline for FY 2025-26?
31 July 2026 for non-audit individuals and salaried taxpayers. 31 August 2026 for ITR-3/ITR-4 non-audit business cases. 31 October 2026 for tax-audit cases. 30 November 2026 for transfer-pricing cases. Late filing attracts up to ₹5,000 under Section 234F.
When is GSTR-9 for FY 2025-26 due?
31 December 2026 for both GSTR-9 and GSTR-9C. Late fee is ₹200/day under Section 47(2), capped at 0.25% of state turnover. GSTR-9C requires turnover above ₹5 crore in the financial year.
What is the advance tax schedule for FY 2026-27?
Four instalments: 15% by 15 June 2026, cumulative 45% by 15 September 2026, cumulative 75% by 15 December 2026, full 100% by 15 March 2027. Section 234B/234C interest at 1% per month applies on shortfall.
What is the QRMP scheme and how does it affect due dates?
QRMP (Quarterly Return Monthly Payment) is for taxpayers with turnover up to ₹5 crore. They file GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B quarterly but pay tax via PMT-06 monthly (25th). GSTR-3B due 22nd or 24th of the month after quarter end, by state allocation.
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