Indian Financial Year Deadlines 2026-27 (With a WhatsApp Reminder for Each)
The Whole Financial Year on One Page
Most personal finance deadlines in India are not hard to meet. They are just easy to forget, because they arrive once a year, from an institution that will not chase you, and the cost of missing one is quiet: a penalty, some lost interest, an account quietly marked as discontinued. Nobody sends you a red envelope. You simply find out later.
Here is the full calendar in one place. Every date below is followed by a section explaining who it applies to and what missing it actually costs.
| Date | What is due | Who it applies to |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 5 April | PPF contribution for the year, if you invest as a lump sum | PPF account holders |
| Early April | Form 15G or 15H to your bank | Anyone below the taxable limit earning FD interest |
| 15 June | Advance tax, first instalment (15%) | Tax liability over Rs 10,000 after TDS |
| 31 July | Income tax return for the previous financial year | Individuals not requiring an audit |
| 15 September | Advance tax, cumulative 45% | Same as above |
| 15 December | Advance tax, cumulative 75% | Same as above |
| 15 March | Advance tax, cumulative 100% | Same as above |
| 31 March | Tax-saving investments for the year | Anyone claiming deductions |
| 31 March | Minimum Rs 500 into PPF, Rs 250 into Sukanya Samriddhi | Account holders in those schemes |
The Indian financial year runs from 1 April to 31 March, so the current one is FY 2026-27, and the return you file by 31 July 2026 covers FY 2025-26.
Advance Tax: 15 June, 15 September, 15 December, 15 March
Advance tax is the one people discover late, usually the first year they earn something outside salary. If your total tax for the year, after subtracting TDS already deducted, is expected to cross Rs 10,000, you are supposed to pay it as you earn rather than in one lump at filing time.
Section 211 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 sets four dates, and the percentages are cumulative, not additional. This is the detail that trips people up: by 15 September you should have paid 45% in total, not 45% on top of the 15% you already paid.
| Due date | Cumulative advance tax payable |
|---|---|
| 15 June | At least 15% |
| 15 September | At least 45% |
| 15 December | At least 75% |
| 15 March | 100% |
Three exceptions worth knowing:
- Presumptive taxation. If you declare income under section 44AD or 44ADA, which covers a lot of freelancers and small consultants, you pay the whole thing in a single instalment by 15 March instead of in four.
- Senior citizens. A resident aged 60 or above with no income from business or profession is not liable to pay advance tax at all.
- Salaried people with only salary income. Your employer's TDS usually covers it. Advance tax becomes relevant when you add capital gains, rent, interest, or freelance income on top.
Miss an instalment and interest runs at 1% per month on the shortfall under section 234C, with further interest under 234B if you end the year having paid less than 90% of what you owed. It is not ruinous, but it is pure waste, and it compounds quietly across four missed dates. You can pay through the e-Pay Tax service on the income tax e-filing portal.
31 July: The Income Tax Return
For individuals whose accounts do not need auditing, which is most salaried people, freelancers and small business owners, the return for the previous financial year is due by 31 July of the assessment year under section 139(1).
Missing it is recoverable but not free. You can still file a belated return until 31 December of the assessment year, with a late filing fee under section 234F, interest on any unpaid tax, and one real consequence beyond money: certain losses cannot be carried forward if the return was late. If you have a capital loss you were planning to set off against future gains, filing late can cost you that permanently.
One honest caveat: this is the deadline most likely to move. The Central Board of Direct Taxes has extended the 31 July date in several recent years, sometimes by weeks, sometimes by a day at the last minute. Set your reminder for the statutory date anyway. An extension is a bonus you find out about, not a plan you rely on.
Rs 500: The Deposit That Keeps Your PPF Alive
This is the most expensive small number in Indian personal finance, and almost nobody has a reminder for it.
A PPF account requires a minimum deposit of Rs 500 in each financial year, per the National Savings Institute, the Ministry of Finance body that publishes the scheme terms. Miss it and the account is treated as discontinued.
A discontinued account is not closed and your money is not gone, but the consequences are real. To revive it you pay a fee of Rs 50 for each year of default, plus the Rs 500 arrears for each of those years. Three missed years therefore costs Rs 150 in penalties plus Rs 1,500 in arrears, Rs 1,650 in total, to restore an account you already owned. A discontinued account also cannot take fresh deposits until it is revived, and a loan or partial withdrawal against it is off the table while it sits in that state.
The bitter part is the asymmetry. Rs 500 is a rounding error for anyone who opened a PPF account in the first place. It gets missed not because the money is hard to find but because a once-a-year obligation with no invoice attached is exactly the shape of thing a human forgets. That is a reminder problem, not a money problem.
Rs 250: The Same Trap, for Your Daughter's Account
Sukanya Samriddhi works the same way with a smaller number. The scheme requires a minimum deposit of Rs 250 in each financial year, again per the National Savings Institute. Miss it and the account is marked a default account.
There is one meaningful difference from PPF, and it works in your favour: a defaulted Sukanya Samriddhi account continues to earn interest at the scheme rate. You have not lost the compounding. But you cannot deposit into it until it is regularised, and reviving it costs Rs 50 for each defaulted year plus the missed minimum deposits, within fifteen years of opening the account.
Because these accounts run for years and are usually opened with a lump sum and good intentions, they are unusually easy to forget in year four or five, long after the emotional moment of opening one has passed. The full scheme rules for both accounts are published under National Savings Scheme Rules.
The 5th of the Month Rule, Explained Honestly
You will see advice everywhere saying you must invest in PPF before 5 April to maximise returns. The underlying mechanic is real, and the advice is slightly oversold. Here is both halves.
The mechanic. PPF interest for a month is calculated on the lowest balance in the account between the close of the 5th day and the end of that month. So money that arrives on the 6th does not count towards that month's interest at all. It starts earning from the following month.
Why the 5 April version gets emphasised. If you invest your full annual contribution as a single lump sum, doing it by 5 April earns you interest for all twelve months of the financial year. Doing it on 6 April earns eleven. On a large contribution held for fifteen years, that repeated one-month gap does compound into a number worth caring about.
The honest qualification. If you contribute monthly rather than annually, the 5 April date carries much less weight, because what actually matters to you is landing each monthly deposit before the 5th of its own month. Some analysts argue the April deadline is over-emphasised for exactly this reason, and they have a point. Take the rule as "deposit before the 5th of whichever month you are depositing in", and the annual version follows naturally for lump-sum investors.
Form 15G and 15H: Stop the Bank Deducting Tax You Do Not Owe
If your total income falls below the taxable limit, your bank should not be deducting TDS on your fixed deposit interest. But it will, unless you tell it not to, by submitting Form 15G (if you are under 60) or Form 15H (60 and above).
Two things make this the most quietly costly item on this list. First, the declaration is valid for one financial year only, so it has to be submitted again every April. Second, recovering wrongly deducted TDS is not automatic: you get it back by filing a return and claiming a refund, which means your own money sits with the government for months while you do paperwork you did not need to do.
Submit it at the start of the financial year, before the bank's first interest credit, and to every bank where you hold deposits. Each bank assesses your TDS liability on the deposits it holds, so a form lodged with one bank does nothing for the others.
No app, no account. Save the number, send a message, done.
31 March: Investments, Not Intentions
Deductions under the old tax regime for things like ELSS, life insurance premiums, PPF contributions, and the additional NPS deduction all depend on the money actually leaving your account within the financial year. Not committed to, not decided on, not scheduled. Credited by 31 March.
The classic failure here is not forgetting entirely, it is arriving on 30 March, discovering that an ELSS purchase needs KYC you have not completed or a mandate that takes days to register, and missing a deduction by 48 hours. That is why the reminder for this one should fire in early March, not on the last week.
Worth checking before you invest: under the new tax regime most of these deductions are not available, so if you have moved to it, the 31 March scramble may not apply to you at all. That is a genuinely good reason to check your regime before setting this reminder.
Setting the Whole Calendar in About Two Minutes
Each of these is one message. Send them to NagMeLater on WhatsApp and they repeat every year without you touching them again:
- "Remind me every year on 10 June to pay the first advance tax instalment"
- "Remind me every year on 20 July to file my income tax return"
- "Remind me every year on 1 April to deposit Rs 500 in PPF and Rs 250 in Sukanya Samriddhi"
- "Remind me every year on 3 April to submit Form 15G to the bank"
- "Remind me every year on 5 March to finish my tax-saving investments"
Two things are worth knowing about how these behave. First, notice the reminders are set a few days before each deadline, which is deliberate: a reminder that fires on the due date is a reminder to panic. Second, if you phrase one as a deadline, using words like "before", "by" or "due", NagMeLater automatically adds nudges two days and one day ahead of the date as well, so a single message like "remind me to file my ITR before 31 July" produces a small run-up rather than one late warning.
You can check what is scheduled any time by texting "reminders", change one with "edit 2 to 12 June", and cancel with "cancel 2". If you would rather see everything for a given day, "today" and "this week" both work.
Before You Rely on Any of This
Two caveats, stated plainly, because this is money and a confidently wrong date is worse than no date.
Statutory deadlines move. The 31 July return deadline in particular has been extended in several recent years, and instalment dates can be adjusted by notification. The figures on this page were checked in August 2026 against the income tax e-filing portal and the National Savings Institute, but confirm against those sources before you file or pay.
This is a reminder guide, not tax advice. Which deadlines apply to you depends on your income sources, your age, and which tax regime you are in. A chartered accountant answers that question. What this page does is make sure that once you know which dates are yours, you never find out about one of them late.
To start, text "connect" or just send your first reminder. The first 7 days are free and unlimited, with no app and no signup. If you file GST returns as well, the GST due date calendar covers that whole cycle the same way.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the advance tax due dates in India?
There are four: 15 June, 15 September, 15 December and 15 March. The percentages are cumulative, so you should have paid at least 15% of your estimated tax by 15 June, 45% by 15 September, 75% by 15 December, and 100% by 15 March. Taxpayers declaring income under the presumptive schemes in section 44AD or 44ADA pay the whole amount in one instalment by 15 March instead.
Who has to pay advance tax?
Anyone whose total tax liability for the year, after subtracting TDS already deducted, is expected to exceed Rs 10,000. Resident senior citizens aged 60 and above with no business or professional income are exempt. Salaried people with only salary income usually have it covered by their employer's TDS.
What happens if I miss the minimum PPF deposit of Rs 500?
The account is treated as discontinued. It is not closed and your balance is safe, but you cannot make fresh deposits, and loans or partial withdrawals are unavailable until it is revived. Reviving it costs Rs 50 for each year of default plus the Rs 500 arrears for each of those years, so three missed years costs Rs 1,650 in total.
What happens if I miss the Rs 250 Sukanya Samriddhi deposit?
The account becomes a default account. Unlike a discontinued PPF account it keeps earning interest at the scheme rate, but you cannot deposit into it until it is regularised. Reviving it costs Rs 50 for each defaulted year plus the missed minimum deposits, and must be done within fifteen years of opening the account.
Do I really have to invest in PPF before 5 April?
Only if you invest as an annual lump sum. PPF interest for a month is calculated on the lowest balance between the close of the 5th and the end of that month, so a lump sum deposited by 5 April earns interest for all twelve months of the year while one deposited on 6 April earns eleven. If you contribute monthly, what matters is landing each deposit before the 5th of its own month, and the April date carries much less weight.
When should I submit Form 15G or 15H?
At the start of the financial year, in early April, before your bank credits its first interest of the year. The declaration is valid for one financial year only, so it must be resubmitted every April, and it must go to every bank where you hold deposits, since each bank assesses TDS only on the deposits it holds.
Is the 31 July income tax return deadline fixed?
It is the statutory date under section 139(1) for individuals who do not require an audit, but it has been extended by the CBDT in several recent years. Set a reminder for the statutory date and treat any extension as a bonus. Filing late is still possible as a belated return until 31 December of the assessment year, with a late fee under section 234F, but certain losses can no longer be carried forward.