My foreign payee has no PAN and cannot file Form 10F online. Is his treaty claim lost?
No. E-filing of Form 10F was made compulsory by DGIT(Systems) Notification No. 3 of 2022 dated 16 July 2022, but non-residents who had no PAN and were not required to have one were exempted from e-filing — first until 31 March 2023 and, by this notification, until 30 September 2023 — and could file Form 10F manually as before. From October 2023 the portal added a registration category for non-residents not holding and not required to hold a PAN, which allowed such payees to e-file.
Decided by the CBDT Circulars & Instructions (Directorate of Income Tax (Systems), New Delhi, Central Board of Direct Taxes, Ministry of Finance) on 2023-03-28, reported as F. No. DGIT(S)-ADG(S)-3/e-Filing Notification/Forms/2023/13420 dated 28 March 2023. It bears on section 90, section 90(4), section 90(5), section Rule 21AB, section Rule 131, section Form 10F of the Income Tax Act 1961, in Residence & Treaty Benefit and TDS Defaults matters.
This is a withholding problem before it is an assessment problem. A payer who cannot get a Form 10F from a foreign payee is exposed to short deduction under s.201 and a disallowance under s.40(a)(i), and for the eighteen months between July 2022 and October 2023 the online system simply had no route for a payee without a PAN. This notification is what you produce when an officer says the Form 10F for a payment in that window is invalid because it was on paper.
Binding on the department, not on the assessee or the courts. An assessee may rely on a circular that is beneficial to them.
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Notification No. 03/2022 dated 16 July 2022, issued by the Directorate of Income Tax (Systems) under Rule 131(1) and (2) of the Income-tax Rules, mandated among other things that Form 10F be furnished electronically. Form 10F is the self-declaration by which a non-resident supplies the particulars prescribed under Rule 21AB that his tax residency certificate does not itself carry, and without it payers were unwilling to apply treaty rates. Electronic filing required registration on the income-tax portal, which in turn required a PAN. A large class of non-residents had no PAN and no obligation to obtain one, so for them the mandate was impossible to comply with. The competent authority first exempted that class from mandatory electronic filing until 31 March 2023, and this notification extended the exemption.
Non-resident taxpayers who did not have a PAN and were not required to have one under the Income-tax Act read with the Income-tax Rules were permitted to file Form 10F manually until 30 September 2023, as had been done before the DGIT(Systems) Notification No. 3 of 2022.
The notification does not reason at any length; it records the ground on which the relaxation rests. Paragraph 2 says the earlier exemption was given 'on consideration of the practical challenge being faced in making compliance as per the above notification', and paragraph 3 extends it 'in view of the continued practical challenges and to mitigate the genuine hardship being faced by such category of taxpayers'. The operative point for a practitioner is in the last sentence, which does not merely postpone the electronic requirement but states positively that the class may make statutory compliance in manual form as it was doing before the 2022 notification — that is, a paper Form 10F filed in that window is compliance, not a defective filing awaiting regularisation. The relaxation is confined by its own terms to non-residents who both do not have a PAN and are not required to have one, so a non-resident who was required to obtain a PAN got no relief from it.
For the sake of clarity, it is reiterated that such category of taxpayers may make statutory compliance of filing Form 10F till 30th September 2023 in manual form as was being done prior to issuance of the DGIT(Systems) Notification No. 3 of 2022.
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Handle my notice → Ask a CA on WhatsAppNo. E-filing of Form 10F was made compulsory by DGIT(Systems) Notification No. 3 of 2022 dated 16 July 2022, but non-residents who had no PAN and were not required to have one were exempted from e-filing — first until 31 March 2023 and, by this notification, until 30 September 2023 — and could file Form 10F manually as before. From October 2023 the portal added a registration category for non-residents not holding and not required to hold a PAN, which allowed such payees to e-file. This was decided by the CBDT Circulars & Instructions (Directorate of Income Tax (Systems), New Delhi, Central Board of Direct Taxes, Ministry of Finance) and bears on section 90, section 90(4), section 90(5), section Rule 21AB, section Rule 131, section Form 10F of the Income Tax Act 1961. It is reported as F. No. DGIT(S)-ADG(S)-3/e-Filing Notification/Forms/2023/13420 dated 28 March 2023. This is a withholding problem before it is an assessment problem. A payer who cannot get a Form 10F from a foreign payee is exposed to short deduction under s.201 and a disallowance under s.40(a)(i), and for the eighteen months between July 2022 and October 2023 the online system simply had no route for a payee without a PAN. This notification is what you produce when an officer says the Form 10F for a payment in that window is invalid because it was on paper. If it applies to you, the first step is this: Date the Form 10F against the window: for compliance up to 30 September 2023 by a non-resident with no PAN and no obligation to have one, a manual Form 10F is what the notification itself contemplates.
Notification No. 03/2022 dated 16 July 2022, issued by the Directorate of Income Tax (Systems) under Rule 131(1) and (2) of the Income-tax Rules, mandated among other things that Form 10F be furnished electronically. Form 10F is the self-declaration by which a non-resident supplies the particulars prescribed under Rule 21AB that his tax residency certificate does not itself carry, and without it payers were unwilling to apply treaty rates. Electronic filing required registration on the income-tax portal, which in turn required a PAN. A large class of non-residents had no PAN and no obligation to obtain one, so for them the mandate was impossible to comply with. The competent authority first exempted that class from mandatory electronic filing until 31 March 2023, and this notification extended the exemption. The matter was decided on 2023-03-28 by the CBDT Circulars & Instructions (Directorate of Income Tax (Systems), New Delhi, Central Board of Direct Taxes, Ministry of Finance). On those facts the CBDT Circulars & Instructions held as follows. Non-resident taxpayers who did not have a PAN and were not required to have one under the Income-tax Act read with the Income-tax Rules were permitted to file Form 10F manually until 30 September 2023, as had been done before the DGIT(Systems) Notification No. 3 of 2022.
The notification does not reason at any length; it records the ground on which the relaxation rests. Paragraph 2 says the earlier exemption was given 'on consideration of the practical challenge being faced in making compliance as per the above notification', and paragraph 3 extends it 'in view of the continued practical challenges and to mitigate the genuine hardship being faced by such category of taxpayers'. The operative point for a practitioner is in the last sentence, which does not merely postpone the electronic requirement but states positively that the class may make statutory compliance in manual form as it was doing before the 2022 notification — that is, a paper Form 10F filed in that window is compliance, not a defective filing awaiting regularisation. The relaxation is confined by its own terms to non-residents who both do not have a PAN and are not required to have one, so a non-resident who was required to obtain a PAN got no relief from it. In the words reproduced by the source cited on this page: "For the sake of clarity, it is reiterated that such category of taxpayers may make statutory compliance of filing Form 10F till 30th September 2023 in manual form as was being done prior to issuance of the DGIT(Systems) Notification No. 3 of 2022."
It was decided by the CBDT Circulars & Instructions on 2023-03-28 and is reported as F. No. DGIT(S)-ADG(S)-3/e-Filing Notification/Forms/2023/13420 dated 28 March 2023. Binding on the department, not on the assessee or the courts. An assessee may rely on a circular that is beneficial to them. A CBDT circular or instruction binds officers of the department but not the assessee and not the courts. Where a circular helps you, you may hold the department to it. Where it hurts you, it cannot override the Act or a judgment. On section 90, section 90(4), section 90(5), section Rule 21AB, section Rule 131, section Form 10F, the practical question is whether the facts of your own notice match the facts of this case closely enough for the same rule to apply.
It helps the taxpayer. Non-resident taxpayers who did not have a PAN and were not required to have one under the Income-tax Act read with the Income-tax Rules were permitted to file Form 10F manually until 30 September 2023, as had been done before the DGIT(Systems) Notification No. 3 of 2022. It arises in Residence & Treaty Benefit and TDS Defaults matters, on section 90, section 90(4), section 90(5), section Rule 21AB, section Rule 131, section Form 10F of the Income Tax Act 1961, and was decided by Directorate of Income Tax (Systems), New Delhi, Central Board of Direct Taxes, Ministry of Finance. Before relying on it, read the source linked on this page and check whether it has since been distinguished, overruled or overtaken by an amendment to the Income Tax Act. In practice the steps that follow from it are these. Keep the payee's confirmation that he is not required to obtain a PAN under the Act and the Rules, because the relaxation is worded for that class and not for every non-resident. For anything from October 2023 onwards, register the payee on the portal under the category for non-residents not holding and not required to hold a PAN and file electronically — the relaxation was not extended again on any page I could find. Hold the tax residency certificate on file regardless: Form 10F supplies only the particulars under Rule 21AB that the certificate itself does not carry, and s.90(4) requires the certificate.
Superseded by amendment. The relaxation was time-limited and expired on 30 September 2023. No further extension was found on any page fetched. From 1 October 2023 the income-tax portal added a registration option described as 'Non-Residents not holding and not required to have PAN', which allows this class to register with details of a key person in India and OTP verification and then to e-file Form 10F. Business Today, which reports the change, states there is no official notification for it. The notification therefore remains the authority for the period it covers and is spent for periods after it. That finding was checked against a published source, which is linked on this page, on 2026-08-20. Checking whether an authority still stands matters as much as knowing what it held: a decision may be overruled on one point and survive on another, or the provision it interprets may have been amended since. Read the source and the editor's note on this page before relying on it in a reply to an Assessing Officer or in an appeal.
This is an administrative notification of the Directorate of Income Tax (Systems), not a CBDT circular and not a decision — it relaxes a filing mode, and it does not enlarge or reduce anybody's treaty entitlement. Two limits on the entry. The intermediate relaxation of 12 December 2022 that ran to 31 March 2023 is referred to in paragraph 2 of this notification and reported elsewhere, but I did not fetch that notification itself and so have not given its F.No. The October 2023 portal change is reported by Business Today, which says in terms that there was no official notification for it, so treat the date as journalism rather than as a notified change. The signatory is reported as Y.K. Singh, DGIT(Systems)-1; the second fetch of the PDF did not return the signature block, so check it before citing. The notification says nothing about the consequence of a Form 10F filed late or not at all, nor about whether the payer or the payee bears the risk of that. It does not address whether a Form 10F is needed at all where the tax residency certificate already carries every particular prescribed by Rule 21AB. The F.No. and date of the 12 December 2022 relaxation are not given here, and no page I fetched reproduces the text of Notification No. 3 of 2022 itself. This library shows the verification state of every entry openly. This entry has not yet been read in full by a chartered accountant. The summary reflects the sources listed on this page. Read the source before you rely on it in a reply to an Assessing Officer or in an appeal before the Commissioner (Appeals) or the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal.
Non-resident taxpayers who did not have a PAN and were not required to have one under the Income-tax Act read with the Income-tax Rules were permitted to file Form 10F manually until 30 September 2023, as had been done before the DGIT(Systems) Notification No. 3 of 2022.
TaxSphere, “DGIT(Systems) notification of 28.03.2023 on Form 10F”, https://taxnotice.vittsphere.com/caselaw/case/dgit-systems-notification-2023-form-10f-without-pan/ (validity last checked 2026-08-20)
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