Form 128 vs Form 13: what actually changed?

Last updated 19 September 2026

A concrete example first

A CA in Pune got a call from an NRI client in April 2026 whose property buyer had asked for a "Form 128 certificate" instead of the familiar Form 13. The client assumed a new compliance requirement had appeared overnight — possibly one that would delay closing the sale. It took the CA a few minutes to explain that nothing new applied to the transaction. The form had simply been renumbered as part of a nationwide recodification of the Income Tax Act. This article exists to clear up exactly that confusion: what changed between Form 13 and Form 128, and just as importantly, what didn't.

Why the renumbering happened

The Income Tax Act, 2025 replaced the Income Tax Act, 1961 in its entirety, and as part of that exercise, provisions and forms across the whole statute were renumbered and reorganised — not rewritten with new rules. Form 13 was one of many forms affected. Under the old law, it sat under Section 197 of the Act, with the procedural mechanics laid out in Rule 28AA of the Income Tax Rules. Under the new law, both the form and its governing provisions moved: the certificate is now anchored in Section 395 of the Income Tax Act, 2025, and the corresponding procedural rule is Rule 213 of the Income-tax Rules, 2026. None of this changed why the certificate exists or what it's meant to certify.

What's genuinely identical

The certificate's purpose is unchanged: it directs a specific payer — a property buyer, a tenant, or a bank — to deduct tax at the applicant's actual computed liability instead of the flat, higher default rate that Section 195 requires for payments to non-residents. The application still runs through the income tax e-filing portal, the Assessing Officer still reviews the same underlying computation — cost of acquisition, exemptions, or the applicant's real tax slab — and the certificate is still issued for a specific financial year and named payer(s), just as it always was. Shunya's own workflow hasn't changed either: the CA reviews the same documents, applies the same computation, and gets the same certificate issued, now labelled Form 128 instead of Form 13.

What actually changed

Only the legal citation and the form number on the acknowledgement. There is no new eligibility test, no new document requirement, and no change to how long the Assessing Officer typically takes to process an application. Also worth clearing up while we're on the subject of things that sound official but aren't quite right: some sources online claim Form 13 (now Form 128) must be filed by 15 March each year. That isn't correct — neither the old Rule 28AA nor the new Rule 213 sets a filing deadline. What they do set is a processing window: the Assessing Officer is expected to dispose of an application within one month from the end of the month it's received in. You can apply for a certificate at any point in the financial year; applying early simply gives more runway before your transaction closes.

What happens to certificates issued before the changeover

Certificates issued as Form 13 before 1 April 2026 remain valid exactly as granted, for the financial year they cover — there's no need to reissue or relabel them. Applications made on or after 1 April 2026 are filed as Form 128 from the outset. Buyers, tenants, and banks reconciling older certificates against newer ones should expect to see both form numbers in circulation for a while; that's expected, not an error on either side.

This article is for general information only. For your specific situation, consult a practicing CA.