TDS Return Due Date 31 October 2026: Form 138, 140 and 144 Filing Steps for Q2

The TDS return due date for the July to September 2026 quarter is 31 October 2026, and this is the first Q2 filing season run entirely on the new statements under the Income-tax Act, 2025. Employers file Form 138 (the old Form 24Q), deductors on non-salary payments to residents file Form 140 (the old Form 26Q), and deductors on payments to non-residents file Form 144 (the old Form 27Q). The Income Tax Department's user manual for Form 140 lists the Q2 deadline as 31 October, and the manuals for Form 138 and Form 144 carry the same date.

The quarter covers Tax Year 2026-27, so the statements report deductions made from 1 July to 30 September 2026. The deadline falls on a Saturday this year. No extension has been announced, and a statement delivered late attracts a fee from 1 November onwards.

Which TDS statement applies: Form 138, Form 140 or Form 144

The form follows the payee and the nature of the payment, not the deductor's own status. A company that pays salaries, professional fees to a resident consultant and interest to a foreign lender files three separate statements for the same quarter, all against the same TAN.

Salary TDS sits under section 392 of the 2025 Act and resident non-salary TDS under section 393, which is why the section code chosen for each deductee row matters more than it did under the old 192 to 194 series. Where a firm is still unsure whether a vendor payment is a contract or a professional fee, the classification question is worked through in our section 393 contractor versus professional services guide. Property purchases from non-resident sellers by individuals and HUFs go through a different route altogether, explained in our report on Form 141 Schedule E from 1 October 2026.

How to file Form 140 and Form 138 through the e-Filing portal

The route described in the official manuals is the utility route. The deductor downloads the latest Return Preparation Utility (RPU) from the Protean (NSDL) website under Downloads, e-TDS/e-TCS, Quarterly return, prepares the statement, validates it to generate an FVU file and zips that file. The upload then happens on the e-Filing portal, not on the Protean site:

1. Log in to the e-Filing portal with the TAN.
2. Go to e-File, then Income Tax Forms, then File Income Tax Forms.
3. Under Forms as per Income Tax Act 2025, pick Deduction and Collection at source (Form TDS/TCS) and click File Now.
4. Select Form 138, 140 or 144, the tax year, the quarter and the upload type (Regular or Correction).
5. Upload the zipped FVU, click Proceed to E-Verify and complete e-verification. Confirmation reaches the registered email and mobile number.
6. Track the statement under e-File, Income Tax Forms, View Filed Forms. An accepted statement moves to TRACES for processing; a rejected one shows the reason under View Details and the reason is also emailed.

A registered DSC is needed only if the deductor chooses to upload with DSC. The FVU version inside the zip must match the version shown on the form screen, a point that catches deductors who prepared the file on an older utility build.

Filing Form 140 online on TRACES without the utility

For Forms 138 and 140, a second route is now in use from Q2: the statement can be prepared and filed directly on TRACES after logging in with the TAN. The path runs through e-File and View, File TDS/TCS Forms and Statements, then the Form 140 or Form 138 card, Tax Year 2026-27, Q2, Regular and Prepare and File Online. The older Compliance under Income-tax Act, 1961 menu leads to the legacy site meant for 2025-26 and earlier quarters, so it should not be used for these statements.

The online flow works in four blocks. Paid challans and BINs are imported through View and Import More Unconsumed Challans/BINs (imported challans must carry minor head 200 or 400). Deductee rows are added one at a time or through the bulk CSV template, which accepts files up to 5 MB. Each deductee is then mapped to a challan, and the difference amount for every challan should read zero. Validate Statement runs the checks; the summary must show zero inoperative and zero invalid PANs before the statement can be e-verified with Aadhaar OTP or DSC. A draft can be saved and resumed, and a firm can let a sub-user prepare the statement while the admin user files it.

Two cautions apply to this route. An imported challan is not automatically a reconciled challan; the BSR code, serial number, date and amount still need to be matched against the bank record. And a filed statement cannot be edited, so any error found later needs a correction statement. Large-volume deductors can continue with the RPU route. Form 144 statements for non-resident payments continue on the utility route, as set out in our earlier report on the Form 144 filing manual.

Why Form 138 and Form 140 statements get rejected

The manuals list the same rejection triggers for each form, and almost all of them are avoidable at the preparation stage:

• the wrong tax year selected on the form screen;
• more than one regular statement filed for the same quarter;
• a mismatch between the FVU version generated and the version the portal expects;
• a regular file uploaded as a correction, or a correction uploaded as regular;
• a TAN in the FVU file that differs from the TAN used to log in;
• in a correction, an RRR number in the FVU that does not match the RRR entered on the landing screen.

The sample error messages shown are "Invalid FVU file", "Invalid Assessment year" and "Invalid Deductee / Party Detail Record No." A rejected statement is not treated as filed, so a rejection on 31 October that is cured on 2 November leaves the deductor two days late. Upload by the middle of the last week leaves room to fix a rejection inside the deadline.

Late fee under section 427 for missing 31 October 2026

Section 427 of the Income-tax Act, 2025 replaces the old section 234E. A person who fails to deliver a TDS statement within the time prescribed under section 397(3)(b) pays a fee of ₹200 for every day the failure continues. The fee cannot exceed the tax deductible or collectible, and it must be paid before the statement is delivered, so the fee has to be paid first and the late statement filed after it.

Illustration: a firm deducted ₹48,000 under section 393 in the July to September 2026 quarter and files Form 140 on 10 November 2026. The default runs from 1 November to 10 November, which is 10 days, so the fee is 10 × ₹200 = ₹2,000. A small trust that deducted only ₹1,500 in the quarter and files on the same day pays ₹1,500, because the fee is capped at the TDS amount for the statement.

The fee is separate from interest on late deposit of the tax itself. September deductions were due for deposit by 7 October, and a challan paid after that date will show up as a short-payment or late-payment default once TRACES processes the statement. Those defaults appear in the justification report, and our guide on reading a TRACES justification report covers how to pick the right correction.

Checks to run before filing the Q2 statement

Most defaults that later turn into demand notices trace back to a handful of fields. Each deductee row needs a valid and operative PAN, the correct section code, the date of payment or credit, and the correct flag for whether the tax has been deposited. Rows with lower or nil deduction need the certificate number issued under section 395, and the challan for every September deduction must already be paid, because the statement cannot map deductees to a challan that does not exist yet.

The next statement, for October to December 2026, is due on 31 January 2027 for Forms 138, 140 and 144.

Official source: View the official source document