Form 16A: TDS Certificate for Non-Salary Payments
Table of Contents
If you are on a company’s payroll, you get Form 16 once a year. Invoice that same company as a consultant, rent them your property, or earn interest from a bank, and you get a different certificate four times a year.
Form 16A is the TDS certificate for income other than salary. The person who paid you and deducted the tax is called the deductor. They issue this certificate every quarter, confirming the tax was deposited with the government against your PAN.
Key points
- Form 16A covers non-salary payments: rent, interest, commission, contractor and professional fees
- It is issued quarterly, within 15 days of the TDS return due date for that quarter
- Only a certificate downloaded from TRACES is valid. An Excel or software-generated copy is not
- The deductor issues it to you. You cannot download your own
- From Tax Year 2026-27, it becomes Form 131 under the Income Tax Rules, 2026
Form 16 or Form 16A: Which One Applies to You
One rule settles it. If the income is salary, you get Form 16. For everything else with TDS deducted, you get Form 16A.
| Form 16 | Form 16A | |
|---|---|---|
| Income covered | Salary | Rent, interest, commission, contractor and professional fees |
| Issued by | Your employer | Whoever paid you and deducted TDS |
| How often | Once a year | Every quarter |
| Due date | 15 June, following the financial year | Within 15 days of the quarterly TDS return due date |
| Filed from | Form 24Q | Form 26Q, or Form 27Q for non-residents |
A single person can receive both. Someone drawing a salary and also earning interest on a fixed deposit receives Form 16 from the employer and Form 16A from the bank.
Which Payments Get a Form 16A
Form 16A is issued for TDS deducted on payments such as:
- Interest, other than on securities, under Section 194A, typically from banks on fixed deposits
- Contractor payments under Section 194C
- Commission or brokerage under Section 194H
- Rent under Section 194I
- Professional or technical fees under Section 194J
- Purchase of goods under Section 194Q
For a company, this list is essentially the vendor and consultant ledger. Anyone you pay who is not on payroll and from whom you deduct TDS is owed a Form 16A. How those payments are handled is covered in our guide to contractor payroll.
Form 16A Due Dates
The deadline is tied to the TDS return due date for the quarter, not to when the tax was actually paid. For salary TDS, the equivalent return is Form 24Q; non-salary payments use Form 26Q.
| Quarter | TDS return due | Form 16A due |
|---|---|---|
| April to June | 31 July | 15 August |
| July to September | 31 October | 15 November |
| October to December | 31 January | 15 February |
| January to March | 31 May | 15 June |
One detail deductors miss. If you file the TDS return late, the 15-day clock still runs from the original due date, not from your filing date. Filing late does not buy you extra time to issue the certificate.
Only a TRACES Certificate is Valid
This is the most common compliance mistake, and it is worth stating plainly.
A Form 16A is legally valid only when downloaded from the TRACES portal. Certificates generated in Excel, in accounting software, or typed on letterhead are not valid, however accurate the numbers are. CBDT made this mandatory through a series of circulars. The reason is verification, since a TRACES certificate carries a unique number that the recipient can check against department records.
If your finance team is still issuing manually prepared certificates to vendors, that is a live compliance gap.
How to Download Form 16A from TRACES
Only the deductor can do this. The recipient receives the certificate; they do not generate it.
- Log in to the TRACES portal as a deductor with your user ID, password, and TAN
- Go to Downloads, then select Form 16A
- Choose the financial year and quarter, and select the deductee, either all PANs or a specific one
- Submit the request and note the request number
- Wait for the status to change to Available under Requested Downloads
- Download the file and open it using the TRACES PDF Converter utility
- Sign the certificate digitally or manually, then issue it to the deductee
Before You Start, Two Things Must Already be Done.
The quarterly TDS return must be filed and processed, and the challans must be matched. TRACES cannot generate a certificate for a return it has not processed.
What Form 16A Contains
Each certificate shows the deductor’s TAN, your PAN, and the quarter it covers. It also lists the section under which tax was deducted, the amount paid, the tax deposited, the challan details, and a unique certificate number from TRACES.
Check the PAN and the amounts before issuing it. Any error in the TDS return flows straight into the certificate, and fixing it means filing a correction statement and downloading the certificate again.
Penalty for Not Issuing Form 16A
Failure to issue the certificate on time attracts a penalty under Section 272A(2)(g), charged per day per certificate until it is issued. The daily rate was revised upward in recent years, so confirm the current amount before calculating your exposure.
Exposure grows with vendor count, not with the tax amount. Fifty vendors without certificates mean fifty separate defaults at once, which is why this becomes expensive for businesses with a long vendor list.
Form 16A and Form 26AS Should Match
The certificate and your tax credit statement come from the same source, so they should agree.
When the deductor files the quarterly TDS return, that filing does two things: it feeds your Form 26AS, and it lets TRACES generate your Form 16A. If the two disagree, the return itself is usually wrong, most often due to an incorrect PAN.
What to do if they do not match: check the quarter and amount on the certificate against Part I of your Form 26AS, then raise it with the deductor. Only they can file a correction statement. Claiming credit that does not appear in Form 26AS invites a mismatch notice, and the burden of explaining it falls on you.
Form 16A Becomes Form 131
The Income Tax Act, 2025, replaced the 1961 Act from 1 April 2026, and the certificates were renumbered under the Income-tax Rules, 2026.
| Old form | New form |
|---|---|
| Form 16 | Form 130 |
| Form 16A | Form 131 |
| Form 26AS | Form 168 |
Which applies now. Income earned in FY 2025-26 continues under the old Act, so those certificates are still Form 16 and Form 16A. Form 131 applies to non-salary payments made or credited from 1 April 2026 onwards. The quarterly issue rule, the 15-day window and the TRACES requirement all carry forward unchanged.
What Finance and Payroll Teams Should do
Form 16A sits with the team that pays vendors, but it follows the same discipline as salary TDS.
- Validate vendor PANs before the first payment. A wrong PAN means the vendor gets no credit, and the certificate has to be reissued after a correction statement
- Diarise the four dates: 15 August, 15 November, 15 February, and 15 June, alongside your payroll compliance checklist
- Download from TRACES every quarter, not once a year. CPC-TDS sends alert emails to deductors who file returns but never download the certificates
- Reconcile challans before filing, because an unmatched challan blocks certificate generation entirely
- Keep issued certificates on record, since the penalty is per certificate and proof of issue is your defense
Running vendor payments and TDS from the same system as payroll keeps PANs, challans and certificates aligned, which is what factoHR’s payroll software is built to do. For the wider set of duties, see the statutory compliance guide.
Conclusion
Form 16A is proof that tax deducted from a non-salary payment actually reached the government under your PAN. If you receive it, match it against Form 26AS before filing your return. Those issuing it should remember two rules. Only a TRACES download is valid, and the 15-day clock runs from the return due date, whether or not you filed on time.
From Tax Year 2026-27, the same certificate arrives with a new name, Form 131.
FAQs on Form 16A
What is Form 16A?
Form 16A is a TDS certificate for income other than salary. It confirms that the payer deducted tax from a payment such as rent, interest, commission, or professional fees and deposited it with the government against your PAN. The deductor issues it quarterly.
What is the Difference between Form 16 and Form 16A?
Form 16 covers salary income and is issued once a year by your employer. Non-salary income such as rent, interest and professional fees is covered by Form 16A, issued every quarter by whoever made the payment. One person can receive both.
Can I Download Form 16A Myself?
No. Only the deductor can download it from the TRACES portal after filing and processing the quarterly TDS return. As the recipient, you receive it from them. You can independently verify the same TDS entries in your Form 26AS on the income tax portal.
When Should Form 16A be Issued?
Within 15 days of the due date for filing that quarter’s TDS return, which works out to 15 August, 15 November, 15 February and 15 June. Filing the return late does not extend this, because the clock runs from the original due date.
Is a Form 16A Prepared in Excel Valid?
No. Only a certificate downloaded from TRACES is valid, because it carries a unique certificate number that can be verified against department records. Certificates prepared manually or through accounting software do not meet the requirement.
What if My Form 16A does Not Match Form 26AS?
The TDS return filed by the deductor is usually the problem, most often a wrong PAN. Raise it with the deductor with the quarter and amount, since only they can file a correction statement. Do not claim credit that is missing from Form 26AS.
Is Form 16A Being Replaced?
Yes, in name. From Tax Year 2026-27, Form 16A becomes Form 131 under the Income-tax Rules, 2026. Certificates for FY 2025-26 income remain Form 16A, and the quarterly issue rule and TRACES requirement continue unchanged.
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