Advance tax instalment schedule.
Net advance tax payable
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By 15 Jun (15%)
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By 15 Sep (cumulative 45%)
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By 15 Dec (cumulative 75%)
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By 15 Mar (cumulative 100%)
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Your breakdown
Updates live as you type| Due date | Cumulative % | Pay by this date (₹) | Instalment this quarter (₹) |
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Why the government wants your tax in four parts
Income tax in India is meant to be paid as you earn it, not in one lump sum when you file your return in July. If your total tax for the year, after subtracting whatever TDS your employer or bank has already cut, is going to cross ₹10,000, the Income Tax Act expects you to pay it in advance across the financial year. This is what Section 208 calls the "pay-as-you-earn" principle. Salaried people often ignore it because TDS usually covers their salary tax, but the moment you have rental income, capital gains, freelance receipts, interest, or dividends on the side, advance tax quietly becomes your responsibility.
The 15-45-75-100 schedule, and why it is cumulative
For FY 2025-26 (AY 2026-27) the statutory milestones under Section 211 are: 15% by 15 June, 45% by 15 September, 75% by 15 December, and 100% by 15 March. The single most common mistake I see is reading these as four equal-ish chunks. They are not. They are cumulative targets. By 15 September you must have paid 45% of the whole year’s tax in total, which means the September payment is really 30% of the annual figure (45% minus the 15% you already paid in June). The calculator above shows the cumulative number against each date precisely so you do not under-fund a later instalment by accident.
A worked example: ₹2,00,000 tax with ₹40,000 TDS
Say your computed liability for the year is ₹2,00,000 and your bank has already deducted ₹40,000 of TDS on interest. Your net advance tax is ₹1,60,000. Here is how the four due dates break down, matching exactly what the tool computes.
The chart below shows the same four cumulative checkpoints climbing to the full ₹1,60,000.
The one relief that catches people out: presumptive income
If you file under Section 44AD or 44ADA (presumptive taxation for small businesses and professionals), you get a concession. You can pay your entire advance tax in a single shot by 15 March instead of spreading it across four dates. Freelancers earning under the 44ADA route should not over-engineer their cash flow trying to hit June and September deadlines that do not apply to them. Everyone else, including salaried people with large capital gains, should follow the full four-instalment schedule.
Get the regime right before you compute the liability
The single number this whole schedule rests on is your full-year tax liability, and for FY 2025-26 that depends heavily on whether you are in the new regime or the old one. The new regime is now the default, and after the Budget 2025 changes it leaves income up to ₹12 lakh effectively tax-free for most salaried people once the rebate under Section 87A is applied, with a wider set of slabs above that. The old regime keeps the familiar deductions, 80C, 80D, HRA, home-loan interest, and so on. If you have not locked your regime choice, your advance-tax figure could be materially wrong, because the two regimes can produce very different liabilities on the same income. Decide the regime first, compute the tax under it, and only then split that figure across the four dates.
How to actually pay it
Advance tax is paid online through the e-Pay Tax facility on the income tax portal, using Challan ITNS 280 under the head "Advance Tax (100)". Keep the challan reference; it flows into your Form 26AS and AIS, and you will need those numbers when you file your ITR. My practical tip: do a rough recompute of your full-year income before each instalment, because a bonus, a property sale, or a bumper dividend season can push your liability up sharply, and the later instalments are where most people fall short.
Do I pay advance tax on capital gains I have not earned yet?
No, and you cannot be expected to. Capital gains, lottery winnings, and dividends are hard to forecast, so the law allows you to pay the tax on such income in the remaining instalments that fall after the income arises, or by 15 March if it arises in the last quarter, without attracting Section 234C interest for the earlier dates.
Are senior citizens exempt from advance tax?
A resident individual aged 60 or above who has no income from business or profession is exempt from paying advance tax. They can settle their full liability as self-assessment tax when filing. Senior citizens who run a business or practise a profession do not get this exemption.