NRI ITR filing FY 2025-26: the 31 July deadline, which form, and the Form 67 trap

The deadline for filing your Indian return for FY 2025-26 is 31 July 2026, and if you’re an NRI sitting in Dubai or New Jersey wondering whether any of this applies to you, the answer is probably yes. Not because you owe money. Usually the opposite. The average NRI who files is claiming a refund, sometimes a very large one, because Indian TDS on non-residents is deducted at rates that assume the worst about your income.

A friend in Sharjah had ₹1.87 lakh deducted on NRO fixed deposit interest last year and assumed that was the end of it. His actual liability was ₹10,400. He’d have left ₹1.76 lakh with the government permanently if he hadn’t filed. That’s the shape of this problem.

The deadline is 31 July 2026, and the ones after it matter too

For FY 2025-26 (assessment year 2026-27), the due date for non-audit cases, which covers almost every individual NRI, is 31 July 2026. That’s the date for ITR-1 and ITR-2 filers.

If you have business or professional income and file ITR-3 without an audit requirement, you get until 31 August 2026. Audit cases run to 31 October 2026.

Miss 31 July and you’re not locked out, but it costs you. A belated return can be filed up to 31 December 2026, with a late fee under Section 234F and interest under 234A on any unpaid tax. More painful: you lose the right to carry forward most losses. Made a capital loss on Indian equity this year and hoped to set it off against next year’s gains? File late and that loss is gone. A revised return, if you filed on time and got something wrong, is allowed until 31 March 2027.

No, the new Income-tax Act 2025 does not apply to this return

This is the single most common confusion right now, and it’s worth being blunt about.

The Income-tax Act, 2025 came into force on 1 April 2026, replacing the 1961 Act. It brings real changes: the “Previous Year” and “Assessment Year” language is replaced by a single “Tax Year”, and for high-income NRIs the residency arithmetic tightens, with the 60-day threshold moving to 120 days for those with Indian income above ₹15 lakh, plus a deemed-residency rule for Indian citizens earning ₹15 lakh-plus from Indian sources who pay no tax anywhere.

None of that touches the return you’re filing this month.

The return due on 31 July 2026 covers income earned in FY 2025-26, which ran from 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026. That year sits entirely under the old 1961 Act. The new Act’s provisions apply from FY 2026-27 onward, which is the return you’ll file next year.

So file this one under the rules you already know. Read up on the 2025 Act, absolutely, because it changes your planning from this April. Just don’t let it change what you put in this year’s ITR-2.

Which form: ITR-2 for almost everyone

ITR-1 (Sahaj) and ITR-4 (Sugam) are not available to non-residents. Doesn’t matter how simple your income is. An NRI with a single NRO savings account still can’t use ITR-1.

Which leaves two realistic options:

ITR-2 covers salary for services rendered in India, house property income, capital gains, and income from other sources such as NRO interest and dividends. That’s the overwhelming majority of NRI returns.

ITR-3 applies if you have income from a business or profession in India. Rarer, but if you’re a non-resident with a proprietary business or professional practice here, this is your form.

The practical filing sequence is the same either way. Confirm your residential status for FY 2025-26 first, because everything downstream depends on it. If you spent an unusual amount of time in India last year, run the day-count properly with the NRI residency & RNOR calculator rather than assuming. People who moved back mid-year are frequently RNOR, not NRI, and RNOR changes what India can tax. The full residency and taxability guide walks through the three statuses in detail.

”TDS was already deducted, so I don’t need to file”

Wrong, and expensive. This is the belief that costs NRIs the most money in aggregate.

Indian TDS on non-residents is deliberately conservative. The deductor, whether it’s your bank, your tenant, or the buyer of your flat, has no visibility into your total income, your cost of acquisition, or your treaty position. So they deduct high and let you sort it out at filing.

Take NRO interest. Banks deduct at 30% plus 4% cess, so 31.2%, on the gross interest. Now suppose that interest is your only Indian income for the year, ₹6 lakh:

TDS deducted: ₹6,00,000 × 31.2% = ₹1,87,200
Actual tax under the new regime slabs for FY 2025-26: nil on the first ₹4 lakh, then 5% on the next ₹2 lakh = ₹10,000, plus 4% cess = ₹10,400
Refund due: ₹1,76,800

That refund exists only if you file. Nobody sends it to you.

One caveat worth knowing, because a lot of NRIs get caught by it: the Section 87A rebate is not available to non-residents. Residents with income up to ₹12 lakh pay nothing under the new regime because of that rebate. You don’t get it. Your tax starts once you cross the ₹4 lakh basic exemption. Don’t budget for a rebate that isn’t yours.

Property sales are where the numbers get genuinely large. On a ₹2 crore sale with an ₹80 lakh gain, the buyer typically deducts around ₹29.9 lakh under Section 195 while your actual tax is closer to ₹11.4 lakh. The property sale TDS calculator shows the gap for your own figures, and the Section 195 guide explains why it happens. That ₹18.5 lakh difference comes back through your return, or it doesn’t come back at all.

Same story on mutual fund redemptions, where TDS is deducted at source on the gain before you’ve had any chance to apply the ₹1.25 lakh annual LTCG exemption. Run yours through the NRI capital gains calculator.

Form 67: the deadline that quietly kills your foreign tax credit

If you’re claiming credit for tax paid abroad under a DTAA, this section is the most important one on the page.

Form 67 must be filed on or before the ITR due date. File it late and the foreign tax credit is disallowed. There’s no easy remedy, no condonation you can rely on, no “we’ll sort it in assessment”. The credit simply goes.

I’ve seen this described as a technicality. It isn’t. It’s the difference between paying tax once and paying it twice on the same income, and the trigger is a form most people have never heard of, filed by a date they didn’t know applied to it.

If you’re claiming treaty relief, you generally also need a Tax Residency Certificate (TRC) from your country of residence and Form 10F filed online. Get the TRC early. Some jurisdictions take weeks to issue one, and the UAE and Singapore processes in particular are not same-day. Work out what relief you’re actually entitled to with the DTAA relief calculator, and the DTAA guide covers the credit-versus-exemption methods and the paperwork chain.

E-verifying from abroad without an Aadhaar OTP

Filing isn’t done when you hit submit. An unverified return is treated as never filed, and you have 30 days from submission to verify it.

Most NRIs don’t have an Aadhaar linked to an active Indian mobile number, which rules out the default OTP route. Four alternatives work:

Net banking is the smoothest. Log into your Indian bank’s net banking, find the income tax e-filing link, and you’re passed through pre-authenticated. No OTP needed.

Pre-validated bank account EVC works with NRE and NRO accounts at the major banks. You validate the account on the portal first, then generate an EVC against it.

Digital Signature Certificate (DSC) is worth it if you file every year and have a class-3 certificate already. Overkill for a one-off.

Physical ITR-V to CPC Bengaluru is the last resort. Print, sign in blue ink, post it by ordinary or speed post. From abroad, that’s a gamble against the 30-day window. Use it only if everything else has failed.

Whichever route you pick, pre-validate the bank account you want the refund credited to. A refund can only go to a pre-validated account, and an NRO account that hasn’t been validated on the portal is a common reason refunds stall for months.

What to gather this week

Your Form 26AS and Annual Information Statement (AIS) from the income tax portal are the starting point, because they show what’s already been reported against your PAN. Reconcile every TDS entry there against your own records before you file. Mismatches are the top reason returns get flagged.

Then: Form 16A from each deductor, bank interest certificates for NRO accounts, capital gains statements from your mutual fund registrar or broker, the sale deed and cost documents if you sold property, your passport with entry and exit stamps to defend the day-count, and the TRC plus Form 10F if you’re claiming treaty relief.

Your travel log matters more than people expect. The department cross-references immigration records, and a residency claim that doesn’t match your stamps is an easy query to raise.

One last thing about the money

The refund isn’t a windfall. It was your money the whole time, sitting in the government’s account earning you nothing while it waited for a form. Interest under Section 244A does accrue on refunds, at 0.5% a month, which is better than zero but well below what the same capital would have done almost anywhere else.

Which is the real argument for filing on 25 July rather than 31 July. Not the penalty. The queue.

References

Income Tax Department, Non-Resident Individual for AY 2026-27
Income Tax Department, e-filing portal
Income-tax Act, 1961, Sections 6 (residence), 195 (TDS on non-residents), 234A/234F (interest and fee), 244A (interest on refunds)
Income-tax Act, 2025, in force from 1 April 2026, applicable from FY 2026-27
Rule 128 and Form 67, foreign tax credit; Form 10F and Tax Residency Certificate requirements