This is the opposite of the certificate most people mean
Two documents share the name tax residency certificate and they run in opposite directions. Almost every guide you will find is about the other one.
| Foreign TRC used in India | Indian TRC used abroad | |
|---|---|---|
| Who is asking | An Indian bank, fund house or payer | A foreign payer, bank or tax office |
| Who issues it | Your foreign tax office, the FTA, HMRC, the IRS, IRAS | The Indian Assessing Officer |
| What it unlocks | The treaty rate on Indian income | Treaty relief or a residence claim abroad |
| The paired form | Form 41, formerly Form 10F, filed in India | Form 42 in, Form 43 out |
If what you actually need is the first one, because an Indian bank is withholding 30 percent on your NRO interest, the country-by-country walkthrough is at getting your TRC and Form 41 and nothing on this page applies to you.
This page is the second column. You are tax resident in India, and somebody outside India wants that in writing from the Indian tax department.
Who asks for it, and what they are testing
The request usually arrives in one of three shapes, and it helps to know which one you are answering, because the certificate only settles one thing.
A foreign payer withholding tax at its domestic rate wants to apply a lower treaty rate instead. A pension provider, a company paying royalties or fees, a broker paying dividends. The treaty article gives relief to a resident of India, and the certificate is how you prove you are one.
A foreign bank running its CRS or account-opening checks has you self-certifying India as your tax residence and wants documentary backing, particularly where your address history or your passport says something else.
A foreign tax return claims you are resident in India and not in that country, or claims relief on income taxed in both.
What the certificate says is narrow, and worth being clear about with whoever asked. It certifies that you were a resident of India for a stated tax year. It does not say that a particular receipt was taxed in India, and it does not say how much tax you paid. If the question you are being asked is really the second one, the document you need is a different one, covered at proving the tax you paid in India.
The application: Form 42 in, Form 43 out
From 1 April 2026 the forms carry new numbers, because the Income-tax Rules 2026 renumbered them along with everything else. The substance did not change.
| What it does | New number | Old number |
|---|---|---|
| Your application | Form 42 | Form 10FA |
| The certificate you receive | Form 43 | Form 10FB |
| The rule | Rule 75(3) and 75(4) | Rule 21AB |
| The section | Section 159, Income-tax Act 2025 | Sections 90 and 90A, 1961 Act |
Form 42 is filed online on the income-tax portal, under e-File, then Income Tax Forms, then File Income Tax Forms. Any registered user with an active PAN can file it. You pick the tax year, set out the period the certificate is to cover, attach your evidence, and verify with OTP, EVC or a digital signature.
It then goes to your Assessing Officer. On being satisfied with the application, the officer issues the certificate of residence in Form 43. Note what the rule does not do: it sets no time limit for that step, so how long it takes is a matter of your officer and how complete your file is, not of anything you can point to in writing.
What you attach, and what the officer is checking
The rule itself lists no attachments, but the online Form 42 collects identity details and supporting documents up front, and the officer decides whether they are enough; an under-documented application simply stalls. Build the file around the one thing being tested: that the day count makes you resident for the tax year you have asked about.
An individual would normally attach passport pages showing entries and exits, or other proof of stay, and a day-count working for the year. Where your residence turns on the earlier-years test as well, the working needs to reach back across those years rather than just the one. A company or other entity attaches its certificate of incorporation or registration.
The residence test itself has not moved. It is still Section 6, still a physical-presence count read together with your presence in the preceding years, and it decides the answer regardless of where your visa, your salary or your family is. The status is computed, not chosen, and it is computed for the whole tax year.
One vocabulary change to expect on the form. The Income-tax Act 2025 replaced previous year and assessment year with a single tax year, the same April-to-March twelve months. When the form asks for a tax year, that is what it means.
The year trap: RNOR, and no split year
This is where most applications for this certificate come unstuck, and it is worth checking before you file rather than after.
India fixes your status for the whole tax year. There is no split-year treatment, no separate answer for the part of the year before you landed and the part after. So in the year you move back, the day count can easily leave you non-resident in India for that entire tax year even though you have been living in Pune since October. No officer can certify you as resident for a year in which you were not, whatever your address is. The first certificate you can get is usually for the following tax year. Working out which year that is comes first, and is set out at working out your residential status in the year you move.
The second trap is subtler. Resident but Not Ordinarily Resident is a resident status, so a certificate can be issued. But while you are RNOR most of your foreign income stays outside the Indian net. A foreign payer who reads the certificate as proof that this income is taxed in India is reading in something the certificate does not say, and if it later asks the question directly, the honest answer is different. Say which status you hold when you hand it over.
A worked example: Arjun and a UK pension provider
Arjun came back to Pune in May 2026 after eleven years in Manchester. His former employer's pension provider will start paying him and has asked for proof of Indian tax residence before it considers the treaty position.
His first instinct is to apply straight away for a certificate covering the period since he landed. That is not a thing the form can do. He counts instead: he has been in India from 20 May 2026 to 31 March 2027, 316 days, which is comfortably over the threshold, so he is resident for tax year 2026-27; he waits for the year to close before applying, because the count has to be complete, not projected, the year running 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027. Because he had been non-resident for the preceding years, he is RNOR rather than ordinarily resident.
He files Form 42 on the portal, selects tax year 2026-27, states the period the certificate must cover, and attaches his passport pages with the day-count working. The Assessing Officer issues Form 43 certifying that he was a resident of India for that tax year.
Two things he tells the provider when he sends it. The Indian tax year is 1 April to 31 March, not 6 April to 5 April, so the certificate will never line up exactly with the UK year and a second one will be needed for 2027-28. And he is RNOR, which is a resident status for the certificate and a materially different one for what India actually taxes.