Form 145, not 15CA: the three questions that decide which Part you file

Summary

For money leaving India on or after 1 April 2026, Form 15CA and Form 15CB no longer exist: the information goes on Form 145 and the accountant's certificate is Form 146, under Rule 220 of the Income-tax Rules, 2026. Which Part of Form 145 you file, and whether you need a certificate at all, turns on three questions the bank's checklist does not ask, and the penalty for getting it wrong is a fixed ₹1,00,000 per instance.

The situation

Six months after the changeover, many bank SOPs and many explainers still say "15CA/15CB". A remitter who searches the old name finds the old rule; a CA who inherits a client's bank checklist is asked for a form the portal no longer serves. Meanwhile the department has made the certificate side of this the subject of a nationwide verification exercise: press reports since late August describe CBDT examining Form 15CB certificates issued to around 394 entities by 36 chartered accountants, selected on remittance size out of line with turnover, non-filers, undeclared addresses and stated purposes that do not fit the entity. No circular has been published for that exercise, so treat the numbers as reported. What is not in doubt is the direction: the certificate is being read, and the form behind it has to be the right one.

The rule

The Income-tax Act, 2025 took effect on 1 April 2026 and the Income-tax Rules, 2026 were notified with it (Notification 22/2026, G.S.R. 198(E), 20 March 2026). The remittance provisions map onto the 1961 Act as follows:

The switch keys on the date the money leaves India, not the invoice or contract date. A payment made on 31 March 2026 is on Form 15CA under Rule 37BB; the same invoice paid on 1 April 2026 is on Form 145 under Rule 220.

Rule 220(1) applies where the sum is chargeable to tax in India, and splits Form 145 on the amount and on what certificate you hold:

Rule 220(2) applies where the sum is not chargeable: the remitter files Part D, unless Rule 220(3) switches the filing off altogether. It does so only for a non-chargeable sum where the remitter is an individual whose remittance does not need prior RBI approval (the Schedule III current-account test under FEMA), or the remitter is a Unit in an International Financial Services Centre, or the payment's nature is on the specified list. That list is the same 33 purposes carried over from Rule 37BB, keyed to RBI purpose codes S0001 to S1503: overseas investment, loans to non-residents, advance and settlement of imports, imports below ₹5,00,000, business and personal travel, pilgrimage, medical and education travel, family maintenance, gifts and donations, maintenance of offices abroad, tax payments and refunds, and payments for international bidding, among others.

So the three questions, in order:

1. When does the money leave India? Before 1 April 2026 is the old regime.
2. Is the sum chargeable to tax in India? Yes leads to Parts A, B or C. No leads to Part D or to no filing at all.
3. If chargeable, does the aggregate for the tax year exceed ₹5,00,000, and what certificate do you hold? Under the threshold is Part A. Over it, an AO certificate gives Part B; otherwise you need a Form 146 and file Part C.

On the portal, Part C cannot be submitted until the CA you have added under My CA has filed Form 146, because Part C quotes the Form 146 acknowledgement number. A filed Form 145 can be withdrawn within seven days, and withdrawing Part C marks the linked Form 146 as withdrawn. An offline utility for both forms has been available since 15 April 2026.

Where people go wrong

Reading the specified list as an exemption. Rule 220(3) starts from a sum that is not chargeable. A payment described as an import is not outside the net because "import" is on the list; it is outside the net because nothing in it is chargeable. An import invoice with an embedded licence fee or service element is chargeable to that extent, and the list does not rescue it. Decide chargeability first, then look at the list.

Assuming the ₹5,00,000 aggregates per recipient. Rule 220(1) says "the aggregate of such payments … made during the tax year". It does not say "to the same recipient", and neither does the department's Form 145 FAQ. Per-recipient aggregation is the common professional reading, and it is the reading that produces the smaller total, which is the direction that turns a Part C remittance into a Part A one. If your total to all non-residents this year is over ₹5,00,000 and you are relying on a per-recipient count to stay in Part A, that is a position, not a rule, and it belongs in the file with a reason.

Believing every remittance needs a CA. It does not. Part A needs no certificate. Part D needs no certificate. A specified-list payment by an individual may need nothing at all. The certificate is only the Part C route, where the sum is chargeable, the year's aggregate is over ₹5,00,000 and there is no AO certificate.

Treating the portal's UDIN field as the rule. The Form 146 user manual describes its UDIN field as currently optional, to be validated after submission. ICAI's requirement that a member generate a UDIN for a certificate is not optional. The portal accepting the form without a UDIN does not make the certificate one that was issued in order.

Reading s.462 as "up to". The department's FAQ language reads as a ceiling; the section is a fixed ₹1,00,000 for each failure or inaccuracy. The statute governs.

Filing on the invoice date. The regime, the tax year for the aggregate and the forms all follow the date of remittance. An invoice raised in March and paid in April sits in the new regime and in the new tax year.

What to do

1. Fix the date of remittance and write down which regime and which tax year it falls in.
2. Decide chargeability under s.393(2) (old s.195) and the treaty before you look at the specified list, and record the basis; this is the judgment the rest of the form rests on.
3. Total the year's remittances, on both the per-recipient and the all-recipients basis, and note which one you are relying on where the two give different Parts.
4. If the answer is Part C, add the CA under My CA on the portal and assign Form 146 before you start Part C; keep the acknowledgement number and the seven-day withdrawal window in the file.
5. Print the determination and file it with the bank's request, so that the next remittance to the same party starts from a recorded position rather than from the checklist.

The tool

I built a small wizard for this because the same three questions came up on every remittance, and the bank's form asked none of them. You enter the date, the amount and who is remitting, pick the purpose from the 33-item list, answer whether the sum is chargeable and whether you hold an AO certificate, and it returns one of five answers: nothing to file, Part A, Part B, Part C with a Form 146, or Part D, each with the rule it rests on and a one-page working paper you can print for the file. It applies the ₹5,00,000 test on a per-recipient basis, which the version live today states as the rule rather than as the assumption it is, so read the paragraph above before you rely on a Part A answer near the line. It does not decide whether the sum is chargeable, it does not compute the tax, the treaty relief or any FEMA limit, it does not issue Form 146, and it does not file anything. Nothing you type leaves your browser.

See which Part of Form 145 applies

See also Buying from an NRI after 1 October 2026: no TAN, but no form yet.

Sources

1. Rule 220 of the Income-tax Rules, 2026 (text with the notification reference, N. 22/2026 dated 20-03-2026, w.e.f. 01-04-2026) — https://www.lawspedia.in/rule-220-of-income-tax-rules-2026
2. Income Tax Department — Form 145 user manual — https://www.incometax.gov.in/iec/foportal/newformpage/forms/form145-UM
3. Income Tax Department — Form 145 FAQs — https://www.incometaxindia.gov.in/documents/d/guest/form-145-faqs
4. Taxmann — CBDT notifies the Income-tax Rules, 2026 (Notification 22/2026, G.S.R. 198(E)) — https://www.taxmann.com/post/blog/cbdt-notifies-income-tax-rules
5. TaxTMI — s.462 of the Income-tax Act, 2025 against s.271-I of the 1961 Act — https://www.taxtmi.com/tmi_notes?id=1892
6. EZTax — s.397 of the Income-tax Act, 2025 — https://eztax.in/income-tax-act-2025/section-397
7. Taxcode — s.395 of the Income-tax Act, 2025 (certificates) — https://taxcode.in/section-395-of-income-tax-act-2025-certificates/
8. ClearTax — Form 145: Parts A to D — https://cleartax.in/s/form-145-income-tax
9. ClearTax — the 33-item specified list under Rule 37BB (predecessor list, for the cross-check) — https://cleartax.in/s/form-15ca-15cb-under-rule-37bb
10. Income Tax Department — offline utility for statutory forms — https://www.incometax.gov.in/iec/foportal/help/offline-utility-statutory-forms
11. CAclubindia — CBDT targets 394 entities and 36 CAs: the Form 15CB wake-up call (20 August 2026) — https://www.caclubindia.com/articles/cbdt-targets-394-entities-and-36-cas-the-form-15cb-wake-up-call-56114.asp
12. Harun Raaj — Form 15CA / 145: who must file (the "you always need a CA" belief, debunked) — https://www.harunraaj.com/blog/form-15ca-145-who-must-file-foreign-remittance