You file your income tax return online, free of cost, on the Income Tax Department’s e-filing portal at incometax.gov.in. You log in with your PAN, pick the ITR form that matches your income, check the prefilled figures against your own documents, pay any balance tax, submit and then e-verify. For Assessment Year 2026-27, covering income earned in the financial year 2025-26, the portal shows 31 August 2026 as the filing date for non-audit taxpayers.
What you need before you start
Keep your PAN and Aadhaar handy, with the mobile number linked to Aadhaar working, because that is how OTP verification happens. Get Form 16 from your employer. Download Form 26AS and the Annual Information Statement from the portal itself, so you can see the income and TDS already reported against your PAN. Keep a pre-validated bank account for the refund, and the proofs for every deduction you plan to claim.
Step by step
- Register or log in at incometax.gov.in with your PAN as the user ID.
- Download your AIS and Form 26AS from the Services menu and read them properly.
- Go to e-File, then Income Tax Returns, then File Income Tax Return, and select AY 2026-27.
- Select the right form. ITR-1 Sahaj for simple salaried cases, ITR-2 where there are capital gains or foreign assets, ITR-3 for business or professional income, ITR-4 Sugam for presumptive income.
- Choose your tax regime and check every prefilled figure against Form 16 and the AIS.
- Enter deductions, let the portal compute the tax, and clear any balance through e-Pay Tax.
- Preview, submit, and e-verify immediately by Aadhaar OTP, net banking or digital signature.
- Save the ITR-V acknowledgement and track processing under View Filed Returns.
Fees and timelines
The portal charges nothing for filing. What costs money is filing late. The fee under section 234F is Rs 1,000 where total income does not exceed Rs 5,00,000, and Rs 5,000 in every other case, with interest on unpaid tax charged on top. Filing usually takes half an hour to an hour if your papers are ready. Refunds are credited to the pre-validated bank account after the return is verified and processed.
What to do if it goes wrong
If the prefilled data does not match your Form 16 or your bank records, do not simply overwrite it and move on. Raise feedback on the specific entry in the Annual Information Statement, then file with the correct figure and keep your proof. If you notice a mistake after filing, file a revised return rather than leaving it. If your refund does not arrive, check that the bank account is pre-validated and that the name on the account matches your PAN, since a name mismatch is the usual cause of a failed refund. For portal problems, use the Grievances option after logging in, and note the ticket number. The department also runs helpline numbers during the filing season, and in August 2026 it extended helpline support to run until late on the filing date.