15CA / 15CB Filing (Foreign Remittance)

When you remit money abroad, the income-tax law requires you to report it — and ensure the right tax is deducted — before the bank processes it. Form 15CA is the remitter's declaration; Form 15CB is a chartered accountant's certificate on the taxability and TDS of the remittance.

The form numbers changed on 1 April 2026. For a remittance made on or after that date, Rule 220 of the Income-tax Rules, 2026 puts the remitter's information on Form No. 145 and the accountant's certificate on Form No. 146. Remittances up to 31 March 2026 stay on Forms 15CA and 15CB. The structure is unchanged, so if you know the old process you already know the new one — but quoting the wrong form number to a bank in the wrong period causes exactly the delay these filings exist to prevent.

Which part of Form No. 145 you file is decided by two things: the amount, and what supporting certificate you hold. Part A where the payment, or the aggregate of payments in the tax year, does not exceed ₹5,00,000. Part B where it exceeds ₹5,00,000 and you hold a certificate or order from the Assessing Officer under section 395(1) or (2). Part C where it exceeds ₹5,00,000 and you hold an accountant's certificate in Form No. 146 — though if Part B has been furnished, Part C is not required as well. Part D where the sum is not chargeable under the Act at all.

Some remittances need no information at all, and it is worth knowing before you commission a certificate you do not need. Under Rule 220(3), where the sum is not chargeable under the Act, nothing is required if the remittance is made by an individual and does not need prior Reserve Bank approval under section 5 of FEMA read with Schedule III to the Foreign Exchange (Current Account Transaction) Rules, 2000; or if it is made by a Unit of an International Financial Services Centre; or if it falls within a specified list of RBI purpose codes in the rule. That list is long — it covers, among others, Indian investment abroad and loans to non-residents, imports and advance payments against imports, operating expenses of Indian shipping and airline companies abroad, and travel for business, education, pilgrimage or medical treatment. Those are examples from the list, not the whole of it, and we check your actual purpose code against the rule rather than working from memory.

Behind the paperwork sits the deduction itself. A payment to a non-resident is governed by section 393(2) of the Income-tax Act, 2025, whose Table has seventeen rows. Most ordinary commercial payments land on the residual row — Table Sl. No. 17, the successor to section 195 — which reaches any interest or any other sum chargeable under the Act, not being income chargeable under the head 'Salaries', at rates in force. The Act is explicit that this obligation applies whether or not the non-resident has any residence, place of business, business connection or other presence in India, so a purely offshore counterparty does not put you outside it. We do not publish a rate figure for that row: what 'rates in force' means for a non-resident depends on the Finance Act schedule read with treaty relief, and surcharge and cess behave differently from resident TDS. That is a computation for your specific payment, not a lookup.

Treaty relief is available but conditional, and the condition is documentary. Section 159(4) applies the Act only to the extent it is more beneficial than the agreement — but section 159(8) allows a non-resident to claim that relief only where they obtain a certificate of residence from their own government and provide the further prescribed information, which Rule 75 puts on Form No. 41 (the successor to Form 10F). No residence certificate, no treaty rate. Two limits are worth stating plainly: charging a foreign company more than a domestic company is expressly not treated as less favourable (section 159(5)), and the general anti-avoidance provisions apply even where they are not beneficial to the taxpayer (section 159(6)). We never quote a treaty rate from memory — the rate lives in the specific agreement with the payee's country.

If the payee has no PAN, the higher-rate rule does not automatically bite. Rule 217 disapplies it for a non-resident or foreign company in respect of interest, royalty, fees for technical services, dividend, and payments on transfer of any capital asset, provided the payee gives you their name, e-mail and contact number, their address in the country of residence, a residence certificate from that government where its law provides for one, and their Tax Identification Number (or a unique identifying number where none exists). Note the limit carefully: that is a closed list of payment types. A payment outside it, to a payee without a PAN, falls back to the higher rate.

We determine the correct treatment, obtain the 15CB certificate where needed, and file 15CA so your remittance goes through compliantly.