TDS Deducted From Your Freelance Income: How to Check Form 26AS and Claim Credit
A client pays you less than the invoice amount and says "TDS deducted." Now what? This is the freelancer's side of that transaction: not how much a client should withhold, but how you actually confirm it was deposited, claim it back as credit, and what to do when the numbers don't add up.
This is the opposite perspective from TDS on Salary, which covers the employer's side of deducting and remitting. Here, someone else deducted from a payment to you, and the burden is on you to verify and claim it, not to calculate and remit it.
Which statement applies to you
For TDS on income earned in FY 2025-26 (AY 2026-27), the record you check is Form 26AS. That's the current, correct statement for the return most readers are filing now.
Multiple sources report that a new Form 168 replaces Form 26AS as the tax credit statement for income from FY 2026-27 onward, under the Income-tax Act, 2025. We were not able to independently verify this against primary text directly: treat it as reported rather than confirmed, and expect the underlying purpose (a PAN-linked record of tax already deducted/deposited on your behalf) to carry forward regardless of what the statement is called by then.
Why a client deducts TDS at all
A business client paying you for professional or technical services is generally required to deduct tax at source before paying you, commonly under Section 194J, and deposit it with the government on your behalf. You receive the net amount; the deducted portion becomes a credit against your own tax liability once you file.
Checking Form 26AS and AIS
Log into the income tax e-filing portal with your PAN, and you can view Form 26AS (which redirects to the TRACES system) and the separate Annual Information Statement (AIS). Form 26AS is specifically your tax credit record: TDS, TCS, advance tax and other payments linked to your PAN. AIS is broader, also showing other reported financial transactions, and is worth checking alongside 26AS rather than instead of it, since the two can occasionally differ.
Claiming the credit in your ITR
When you file, TDS/TCS credit is claimed against your computed tax liability, and most filing tools or the portal's own utility pre-fill this from your Form 26AS/AIS data. The credit reduces what you owe rupee for rupee. It isn't a separate refund process unless the credit exceeds your final liability, in which case the excess comes back as a refund.
TDS credit and advance tax work together to cover your annual liability. See Advance Tax for Freelancers for how the two combine, since TDS already deducted reduces what you need to pay in advance-tax instalments.
When the TDS doesn't show up
A credit you were told about can fail to appear in Form 26AS for a few reasons:
| Cause | What happened |
|---|---|
| Timing lag | The client hasn't filed that quarter's TDS return yet, deposits and returns lag actual payment by weeks |
| Wrong PAN on the deductor's return | The credit attaches to a different PAN, or none at all, and never reaches your record |
| Challan/BSR code mismatch | The TDS return doesn't reconcile against the actual bank deposit details, so the credit fails validation |
| Client genuinely didn't deposit it | Rare, but possible: the deduction was made from your payment but never actually remitted |
Fixing a mismatch
The fix almost always has to happen on the deductor's side, not yours: Form 26AS updates only when the client files a correct TDS return. Contact the client directly with your PAN, the exact amount and the quarter it relates to, and ask them to file a correction. Once they do, the update commonly takes roughly a week to a month to actually appear in your record. This isn't instant, so don't assume a correction filed yesterday should already show today.
Worked example
A freelance developer invoices a client ₹1,00,000 for a project. The client deducts 10% under Section 194J and pays ₹90,000. Two months later, checking Form 26AS shows the ₹10,000 credit against that PAN for the relevant quarter. That ₹10,000 now reduces the developer's computed tax liability when they file, regardless of what regime or other deductions apply to the rest of their income.
Illustrative example: the actual rate and timing depend on the nature of your work and your client's own filing schedule.
Common mistakes
- Claiming credit for TDS that hasn't appeared in Form 26AS yet. This is one of the more common causes of a return getting flagged for mismatch. Wait for it to actually show up.
- Not checking AIS alongside Form 26AS. The two occasionally diverge, and AIS can surface a transaction 26AS hasn't caught up to yet.
- Assuming a missing credit means the client didn't pay you correctly. Far more often it's a filing-side error or lag on the deductor's end, not an actual shortfall in what they deposited.
- Waiting until filing time to discover a mismatch. Checking a quarter or two after a large payment gives you time to chase a correction before the filing deadline is close.