TDS Not Showing in Form 26AS? What Freelancers Should Do

A freelancer's client deducted 10% TDS on an invoice five months ago, but Form 26AS on the income tax portal still shows nothing against that entry. At filing time, this is the difference between claiming a credit you are owed and quietly losing that money to a mismatch nobody chased down. The fix is not complicated, but it does require knowing exactly which document proves what, and following up with the right party before your return is due.

Here is what to do when a client's TDS is not reflecting in your Form 26AS, the difference between Form 16A and 26AS, and how to stop it from happening on future payments with a Section 197 certificate.

Form 16A and Form 26AS are two different documents, not one

Form 16A is the TDS certificate your client (the deductor) issues to you directly, usually every quarter, showing exactly how much tax they deducted from your professional fees under Section 194J. Form 26AS is a separate, consolidated statement generated by the Income Tax Department itself, pulling together TDS credits reported and actually deposited by every deductor who has paid you during the year, viewable directly on the income tax e-filing portal.

A client can hand you a Form 16A showing a deduction that never actually shows up in your Form 26AS, because Form 16A only confirms the client deducted the tax, not that they deposited it with the government and filed the corresponding TDS return correctly. Your actual tax credit, the amount you can claim against your final liability when filing, comes from Form 26AS, not from the certificate the client gave you. Note that under the Income-tax Act, 2025, effective April 1, 2026, Form 16A is being renamed Form 131 and Form 26AS is being renamed Form 168 for periods from FY 2026-27 onward, though the return you are filing for FY 2025-26 right now still uses the current Form 16A and Form 26AS names and formats.

Why the mismatch happens: deducted but not deposited or filed

The most common cause is a timing gap, the client deducted and will eventually deposit the tax, but their TDS return for that quarter has not been filed yet, so it has not flowed through to your 26AS. A less common but more serious cause is the client deducting the tax and simply delaying or failing to deposit it with the government at all, which is the client's compliance failure, not yours, but still leaves you without the credit until it is resolved.

A third, easily fixed cause is a data entry error on the client's TDS return, an incorrect PAN entered for you specifically, which routes the credit to a mismatched or blank record instead of your own. This is worth checking first since it is usually the fastest to fix: ask the client to confirm the exact PAN they filed against your deduction.

What to actually do before filing your return

Check Form 26AS and the Annual Information Statement (AIS) on the income tax portal at least once a quarter, not just once a year before filing, so a mismatch surfaces while there is still time to fix it rather than at the last minute. This matters most right before you file your ITR-4, since an unresolved TDS gap at that point either delays your refund or means claiming a credit you cannot yet prove. When you find a gap, contact the client's accounts team directly, share the specific invoice number, deduction date, and amount from your Form 16A, and ask them to confirm whether the TDS return has been filed and, if not, when it will be.

If the client confirms a filing delay, request a specific date and follow up on it, since most gaps genuinely are timing issues that resolve once the client's quarterly TDS return is filed. If a client is unresponsive or the gap persists across multiple quarters despite you raising it, escalate in writing (email, not just WhatsApp) so you have a documented record showing you flagged the issue before your filing deadline, which matters if the income tax department later questions the mismatch.

Section 197: stop the problem before it starts on future payments

If your actual tax liability is consistently lower than what standard TDS rates deduct, whether because your genuine expenses are high or your total income falls in a lower slab, you can apply for a lower or nil deduction certificate under Section 197 through Form 13 on the TRACES portal. Once approved, typically within 30 days, clients deduct TDS at the reduced rate the certificate specifies instead of the standard rate, which means less of your own money sits locked up as a refund claim for the rest of the year.

A Section 197 certificate is valid only for the financial year it is issued in, expiring March 31, so it needs to be renewed annually if it still makes sense for your situation. This is worth doing if you consistently get large refunds at filing time due to over-deducted TDS, since that refund is effectively an interest-free loan you gave the government for months, money that could otherwise sit in your own account.

Keep your own record so a client's error is never your problem to prove

Track every invoice raised, the TDS amount each client deducted, and whether it has actually shown up in your 26AS, rather than relying on memory or scattered Form 16A PDFs sitting in your inbox across the year. A clean running record is what lets you catch a mismatch within weeks instead of discovering three unresolved quarters at filing time, when a client's accounts team is far less responsive during their own year-end crunch. See the guide on a simple expense tracking system for freelancers for the same logging discipline applied to income and TDS, not just expenses.

Rinto shows exactly which invoices are outstanding and which clients have paid, so you always have a clean, dated record of every invoice raised and its status, which is the exact evidence you need on hand when following up with a client about a TDS mismatch instead of reconstructing it from memory months later.

Frequently Asked Questions