Where the AIS actually is
Log in at incometax.gov.in with your PAN and password. From the dashboard, the item is Annual Information Statement (AIS). The same place is reachable under e-File, then Income Tax Return, then View AIS.
Either route hands you to the Compliance Portal, a separate site the Department runs. There you get an AIS tile and a TIS tile.
If a guide tells you to look under a Services tab, it is describing an older version of the portal. That includes the Department's own 2022 FAQ, which is still circulating.
Downloading it, and the password
The statement downloads in PDF, JSON or CSV. PDF is for reading. JSON is what the Department's own offline utility takes, and it is the format worth pulling if anyone is going to analyse the file rather than skim it. Our AIS analyser reads that JSON in your browser and summarises what was reported against you, without the file leaving your machine.
The downloaded file is password-protected. The widely documented format is your PAN in lower case, immediately followed by your date of birth as DDMMYYYY, with nothing in between. A PAN of AAAAA1234A with a date of birth of 21 January 1991 gives aaaaa1234a21011991. For a company or a firm, the date of incorporation or formation takes the place of the date of birth.
We should be straight about the status of that: it is consistent across every reference we checked, but we could not reach a page on the Department's own site stating it, so treat it as the format that works in practice rather than one we can cite to you.
AIS, TIS and Form 26AS are three different things
| Statement | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Form 26AS | From AY 2023-24 it shows only your TDS and TCS. It lives on TRACES, not the main portal |
| AIS | The wide view: TDS and TCS, specified financial transactions, tax payments, refunds, and other information. The only one of the three you can correct |
| TIS | A category-wise summary derived from the AIS. This is the one that pre-fills your return |
The order matters when something is wrong. You correct the AIS; the TIS value moves as a result; your pre-filled return follows the TIS.
None of the three is the last word on your income. The portal says so itself: the AIS holds the information presently available to the Department, there may be other transactions not displayed, and you are expected to report completely and accurately whatever the statement shows.
Foreign assets are now in there, and that is new
This is the part worth knowing this year.
India receives financial information about its tax residents from more than a hundred jurisdictions under the automatic exchange framework, the arrangement usually referred to as CRS and FATCA. Foreign bank accounts, custodial accounts, certain investments, interest and dividends.
Since a CBDT note of 17 July 2026 that information is displayed inside the AIS, at Reports, then Foreign Assets Information, with a calendar-year selector. Calendar years 2022, 2023 and 2024 were loaded first, and the note says calendar year 2025 information appears once it is received in September or October 2026.
Two cautions the Department attaches, and both matter. It is only what has been received, and is not a complete record of what you hold. And you must report foreign assets and foreign income in Schedule FA and Schedule FSI whether or not they appear there.
If you are reading this having not disclosed a foreign account or a retirement balance in earlier years, the timing is worth your attention. A one-time disclosure scheme, FAST-DS 2026, is open until 31 December 2026, and an asset built up while you were non-resident falls in its cheaper category. Our foreign asset disclosure guide sets out the routes.
Fixing a wrong entry
Open the entry, use the Optional button in the Feedback column, choose an option and submit. Six options exist: information is correct, is not fully correct, relates to another PAN or year, is a duplicate or already included elsewhere, is denied, or a customised response.
What happens next used to be invisible and is not any more. Your feedback goes to the reporting entity, the bank or registrar or deductor, for confirmation, and since May 2024 the AIS shows you four things: whether it was shared for confirmation, when it was shared, when the source responded, and what they said. The source can accept it fully, accept it in part, or reject it. Where they accept, they have to file a correction statement of their own.
There is no cap on how many times you can revise your feedback, and no deadline we could find in any official material. The practical deadline is your own filing: the corrected value only reaches your return through the TIS, so feedback given after you file does not help that year's return.
No corrected AIS is issued. The statement updates in place, showing the reported value and your modified value side by side.
Logging in without an Indian mobile number
This is the question that stops more NRIs than the menu does.
You can register with a foreign mobile number. The Department's own FAQ is unambiguous about what follows: all communication goes to the email address you provide, and all OTPs are sent to the email only, not to the foreign number.
So plan around the email route. Aadhaar OTP needs an Aadhaar-linked Indian mobile, net banking verification needs an Indian bank account linked to the portal, and the electronic verification code needs a mobile registered with an Indian bank or depository. For most non-residents the e-filing OTP to email is the one that works, which makes the email on your portal profile worth checking before you need it rather than during a deadline.
There is also an official app, AIS for Taxpayer, free on both stores. It authenticates with an OTP to the mobile and email on your portal profile, then a four-digit PIN, and it takes feedback as well as showing the statement.