Fill Form 15G Online — Stop TDS on PF Withdrawal & FD Interest

Form 15G is a self-declaration under section 197A(1)/(1A) of the Income-tax Act read with rule 29C. By submitting it, a resident individual below 60 (or a Hindu Undivided Family) declares that the tax on their estimated total income for the financial year is nil, so the payer — a bank, post office, company or the EPFO — must not deduct TDS on interest or on an EPF withdrawal. It is a declaration, not an application: if the conditions are met, the deductor is bound to pay without deduction. The two most common uses are stopping 10% TDS on an EPF withdrawal above Rs 50,000 made before 5 years of service, and stopping TDS on bank fixed-deposit interest above the Rs 40,000-a-year threshold.

Three conditions must all hold: you are a resident individual below 60 years of age, or a Hindu Undivided Family (HUF) or trust — companies and firms cannot use 15G; the tax calculated on your estimated total income for the financial year is nil; and for interest declarations, your aggregate interest income for the year does not exceed the basic exemption limit. Non-residents cannot file Form 15G at all. If you are 60 or older, the equivalent declaration is Form 15H. Filing 15G when you are not eligible is a false declaration prosecutable under section 277, so run the numbers before you sign.

Age is the dividing line. Form 15G is for resident individuals below 60 years and for HUFs; Form 15H is exclusively for resident senior citizens aged 60 or above. The eligibility test also differs: for 15G, your final tax must be nil AND your total interest income must stay within the basic exemption limit; for 15H, only the final-tax-is-nil condition applies. Both forms serve the same purpose, are valid for one financial year only, and are replaced by the unified Form 121 from FY 2026-27. Banks often label the combined declaration pair as Form 15G/H on their forms pages.

Yes, if you withdraw more than Rs 50,000 from your EPF account before completing 5 years of continuous service and your total income for the year is below the taxable limit. Without Form 15G, the EPFO deducts TDS at 10% under section 192A when your PAN is seeded, and at a much higher rate when it is not. EPFO does not offer an online 15G form: you download the blank PDF, fill Part I, sign it, scan it and upload the scan with your online claim on the UAN Member e-Sewa portal. EPFO settled 8.31 crore claims in FY 2025-26, and a large share of pre-5-year withdrawals need this form.

Log in to the UAN Member e-Sewa portal, go to Online Services and choose Claim (Form-31, 19, 10C and 10D). After verifying your bank account, the claim screen shows an option to upload Form 15G. Upload a single PDF containing your filled and signed declaration — EPFO expects a clear scan within the portal size limit, so if your scan is heavy, compress it first. If you need to combine the signed page with an annexure into one file, merge the PDFs first. Fill the form itself in your browser: nothing is uploaded to us, and the saved PDF prints cleanly for signature.

No. Section 192A TDS applies only when the taxable EPF withdrawal exceeds Rs 50,000. Below that amount no TDS is deducted, so Form 15G serves no purpose. It is also unnecessary when you withdraw after 5 years of continuous service (the withdrawal is tax-exempt regardless of amount), when the balance is transferred to a new employer instead of withdrawn, or when the service was terminated due to ill health or the employer closing down. In every other pre-5-year case above Rs 50,000, submitting 15G with the claim is the only way to receive the full amount without the 10% deduction.

At the start of every financial year, ideally in the first week of April, and always before the first interest credit of the year. Banks deduct TDS at the moment interest is credited or paid, whichever is earlier, once your projected interest for the year crosses Rs 40,000 (Rs 50,000 for senior citizens, who file 15H instead). A declaration submitted in July does not undo TDS already deducted in June; the bank cannot reverse it, and your only remedy is a refund through your income-tax return. That is why 15G season is April: fill it, submit it, and collect the acknowledgment number.

Yes. Form 15G is submitted to the deductor, not to the Income Tax Department, so every bank, post office, company or other payer that pays you interest needs its own copy, and where deposits sit in different branches that deduct independently, each branch needs one. The form itself anticipates this: field 18 asks for the total number of Form 15G declarations you have filed during the year and the aggregate income they cover, so each new declaration must count the earlier ones. Fill the form once, save it, and print as many signed copies as you have deductors.

The deductor cannot refund it — once TDS is deposited against your PAN, only the Income Tax Department can return it. File your income-tax return (ITR-1 Sahaj for most salaried and interest-income cases) for that assessment year, report the interest or EPF withdrawal, and claim the TDS as a credit; the excess is refunded to your bank account with interest under section 244A. Before filing, check Form 26AS and the AIS on the e-filing portal to confirm the deducted amount appears against your PAN. Submitting Form 15G promptly the following April prevents a repeat.

One financial year only. A Form 15G submitted in April 2026 covers interest credited between 1 April 2026 and 31 March 2027 and lapses automatically after that; it does not renew, and banks are required to resume TDS if no fresh declaration arrives for the new year. That makes it an annual April ritual for anyone holding fixed deposits above the TDS threshold with nil tax liability. The declaration is also prospective — it cannot cure TDS deducted before it was submitted. For EPF withdrawals, the form is filed per claim rather than per year.

Yes, going forward. The Income Tax Act 2025 takes effect on 1 April 2026 (FY 2026-27) and merges Form 15G and Form 15H into a single unified declaration, Form 121, filed under section 397 of the new Act. For declarations relating to FY 2026-27 onwards, banks and the EPFO are moving to Form 121, but Form 15G remains the correct form for legacy periods, and many institutions continue to accept 15G during the transition while their systems and printed stock catch up. If your bank or the EPFO portal asks for the new form, use the Form 121 page; if they still ask for 15G, which is common, this form has you covered.

A false declaration in Form 15G is punishable under section 277 of the Income-tax Act. Where the tax sought to be evaded exceeds Rs 25 lakh, the punishment is rigorous imprisonment from 6 months up to 7 years plus fine; in other cases, imprisonment from 3 months up to 2 years plus fine. The department cross-checks declarations easily because deductors report every 15G they receive, with your PAN, in their quarterly TDS statements, and the interest still appears in your AIS. If your estimated income turns out taxable mid-year, the safe course is to inform the deductor so TDS resumes.

No. Form 15G is available only to resident individuals (and HUFs) under section 197A — NRIs are not eligible, even for Indian FD interest or an EPF withdrawal initiated from abroad. An NRI who wants lower or nil TDS must instead apply to the Assessing Officer for a certificate under section 197 (Form 13 route) or rely on DTAA relief when filing the return. If a bank asks an NRI for Form 15G, decline and share your residency status — filing it as a non-resident counts as a false declaration and carries prosecution risk under section 277.