The section imposes a single obligation. Every person must provide a facility for accepting payment through electronic modes as may be prescribed, in addition to any other electronic modes he already provides, where two conditions are both met: under clause (a) the person is carrying on business or profession, and under clause (b) total sales, turnover or gross receipts in that business or profession exceed fifty crore rupees during the immediately preceding tax year.
Why it is there
It is a compliance obligation aimed at the payment channel rather than at the computation of income: large businesses are made to keep an electronic route open so that receipts above a certain scale of operation leave a traceable record. The words "in addition to other electronic modes, if any, being provided by him" make clear that the duty is to add the prescribed modes, not merely to have some electronic facility of the person's own choosing.
Who it applies to
A person carrying on business whose total sales, turnover or gross receipts exceeded fifty crore rupees in the immediately preceding tax year
A person carrying on a profession whose gross receipts exceeded that amount in the immediately preceding tax year
Customers and clients of such a person, who must be able to pay through the prescribed electronic modes
The figures, and what each one turns on
Read the condition in the same row. A figure quoted without it is a wrong answer with a citation attached.
What
Figure
The condition on it
Where
Turnover threshold that triggers the obligation
Fifty crore rupees
Total sales, turnover or gross receipts in the business or profession during the immediately preceding tax year must exceed this amount
Clause (b)
What this means in practice
The threshold is tested on the immediately preceding tax year, so the obligation for a given year is fixed by figures already known and does not depend on how the current year turns out. It is a single fifty crore rupees figure for business and profession alike — the section draws no distinction between the two, and it speaks of total sales, turnover or gross receipts, so all receipts of the business or profession are counted. Providing some electronic payment facility already is no answer: the duty is to provide the prescribed modes in addition to whatever the person already offers. The section itself prescribes nothing and states no consequence for breach; the modes come from what is prescribed, and any penalty lies outside this section.
An example
Illustrative only, and invented for this page. The figures are chosen to show the rule biting, not taken from any real matter.
A firm's gross receipts for the tax year ending 31 March 2027 are Rs 62 crore. For the following tax year it must provide the prescribed electronic payment modes to its customers, even if it already accepts card and bank transfer, because clause (b) is satisfied by the preceding year's figure. A firm whose receipts in that preceding year were Rs 48 crore is outside the section for the following year, however large its receipts turn out to be in the year itself.
Where you meet this section
Not in a computation or a return, but as a standing operational requirement for a large business or profession, checked against the previous year's turnover figure. It is the obligation referred to when a person is asked why the prescribed electronic payment modes were not made available.
The words themselves
Every person shall provide facility for accepting payment, through electronic modes as may be prescribed, in addition to other electronic modes, if any, being provided by him
Section 187, Income-tax Act, 2025.
total sales, turnover or gross receipts in such business or profession exceeds fifty crore rupees during the immediately preceding tax year
Section 187(b), Income-tax Act, 2025.
What people get wrong
Testing the fifty crore rupees figure on the current tax year. Clause (b) looks at the immediately preceding tax year.
Treating an existing electronic payment facility as compliance. The section requires the prescribed modes in addition to other electronic modes already being provided.
Assuming a lower or separate threshold for a profession. The single fifty crore rupees figure in clause (b) applies to a business or profession alike.
Reading the threshold as met at exactly fifty crore rupees. Clause (b) requires receipts to exceed that amount.
What this replaced
The correspondence is the Income Tax Department’s own, from its comparison utility for the 1961 and 2025 Acts. A renumbering is the easy half; whether the words changed is the half that decides cases.
269SU - Acceptance of payment through prescribed electronic modes
Rules of the Income-tax Rules, 2026 that work section 187. Where the rule’s own heading names the section we say so; the rest are marked on reading the rule, which is our derivation and not the department’s. A rule that serves the section silently and that we have missed will not appear here.
Rule 133 — Modes of payment for the purpose of section 187
A circular binds the department, not you and not a court. Every one below was written under the 1961 Act; it reaches this section because the department’s own concordance carries the provision it names to this one.
Circular No. 12/2020 — Clarifications in respect of prescribed electronic modes under section 269SU of the income tax act 1961 2020-05-20
Circular No. 32/2019 — Clarifications in respect of prescribed electronic modes under section 269SU of the income tax act 1961 2019-12-30
A notification is made under a power the Act gives and, within that power, is law. These too were made under the 1961 Act and are placed here by the department’s concordance.
Read this before you rely on it. Every decision below was decided under the Income-tax Act, 1961. It appears here because it is tagged to a 1961 provision that the department’s own mapping carries to section 187. That is an inference we have drawn, not a holding on the new section: where the words changed in the move, the reasoning may not survive. Treat this as the place to start looking, not as authority on the 2025 Act.
CBDT Circular 32/2019CBDTHelps departmenttagged s.269SU My turnover crossed Rs. 50 crore. Must I offer upi and RuPay, and what does it cost me if I don't?
What this page does not tell you. It does not reproduce the section. Everything above was written from the section’s own text as the Income Tax Department publishes it — the text is here, and nothing here is advice on your facts. Where a figure matters, read the sub-section it comes from.