Foreign Assets Disclosure Scheme 2026: Passed, Not Open

If you are searching for the form to declare a foreign bank account or some overseas shares under the new 2026 amnesty, there is no form yet. The scheme is real and it is on the statute book, but it has not started. Section 130 of the Finance Act 2026 says the scheme comes into force on such date as the Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, appoint. Until that notification is published, nobody can file, and a declaration made before the commencement date does not count.

That single line is the thing most write-ups get wrong. Several tax blogs describe the window as if it were open and even invent an acronym for it. The Act does not use any acronym. Its own name, in the heading of Chapter IV, is the Foreign Assets of Small Taxpayers Disclosure Scheme, 2026.

The Budget speech described it as a one-time six-month window. That six-month figure comes from the Budget announcement and the Finance Minister's proposal, not from the text of Chapter IV. Section 131 simply defines the last date as such date as may be notified by the Central Government in the Official Gazette. Treat six months as the stated intention, not as a deadline you can count on a calendar.

Section 131 defines an assessee for this scheme as either of two people.

• A person who is resident in India within the meaning of section 6 of the Income-tax Act 1961 in the previous year.
• A person who is a non-resident or not ordinarily resident in that previous year, but who was resident in India either in the previous year to which the foreign income relates under section 4 of the Black Money Act 2015, or in the previous year in which the undisclosed foreign asset was acquired.

That second limb is the one that matters for returning professionals. It reaches back to the year the asset was bought or the income arose, so leaving India afterwards does not by itself put you outside the scheme.

Section 132 then sets out when you may declare. A declaration can be made for any previous year where one of three things is true:

1. You failed to furnish a return under section 139 of the Income-tax Act 1961.
2. You failed to disclose the asset or income in a return you did file before the commencement of the scheme.
3. The asset or income has escaped assessment within the meaning of section 147 of the Income-tax Act 1961.

This is section 133, and it has two separate rows that get collapsed into one in most summaries. They are not the same, and the cheaper one is widely missed.

Read row 1's arithmetic carefully. The Act does not say thirty per cent plus a separate thirty per cent. It says tax at thirty per cent, and then an amount equal to one hundred per cent of that tax. The two steps together come to sixty per cent of the value, but the wording matters because the second charge is defined as a multiple of the first.

Row 2 is the quiet one. If your money was clean and taxed, or was earned entirely while you were a non-resident, and the only failure was not filling in the foreign asset Schedule of your return, the Act asks for a flat fee of 1 lakh rupees and allows an asset worth up to 5 crore rupees. That is a very different proposition from row 1, and it covers a large number of people who moved back to India holding an ordinary overseas brokerage account or employer stock.

If you are unsure which row describes you, the distinction turns on whether the underlying money was ever undisclosed income. Our guide to Schedule FA disclosure in the ITR explains the reporting duty that row 2 is about, and NRI income tax and residency covers how residential status is fixed in the first place.

Sections 134 and 135 lay out the sequence. None of it can start before the commencement notification.

1. File the declaration with the prescribed income-tax authority, in the prescribed form, complete in all respects. Section 134 requires verification to be done electronically, confirming both that you are an eligible assessee and that the declaration matches the scheme.
2. Wait for the order. Section 135(1) gives the department one month from the end of the month in which you declare to communicate the amount payable, electronically, by an order.
3. Pay within two months from the end of the month in which you received that order. That is section 135(2).
4. If you miss it, there is one extension. Section 135(3) allows a further period not exceeding two months, with simple interest at one per cent for every month or part of a month.
5. Tell them you paid. Section 135(4) requires you to intimate the payment details in the prescribed form within that extended period.
6. Collect the certifying order. Section 135(5) gives the department one month from the end of the month it receives your intimation to send an order certifying payment. Section 135(6) makes that order conclusive as to the matters stated in it.

Two traps sit inside this. Section 134(3) makes the declaration invalid if any material particular is found to be false at any stage, or if you break any condition of the scheme. And section 138 says no amount paid under the scheme is refundable. A declaration that collapses later does not get your money back.

Section 139 is the reward. A declarant who makes a valid declaration and pays gets immunity from the levy of any further tax or penalty, and from prosecution, under the Black Money Act 2015, in respect of the income or asset declared, for the previous year ending on 31 March 2026 or any earlier previous year.

Note the boundaries. The immunity in section 139 is expressed against the Black Money Act. Section 136 separately keeps the declared income or investment out of your total income under both the Income-tax Act 1961 and the Black Money Act, but only if you pay within the extended period in section 135(3). Miss the payment and you can lose the benefit while having already put the information in the department's hands.

Section 137 closes another door: you cannot use the declaration to claim rectification or revision of any completed assessment, or claim any set off or relief in an appeal or other proceeding. Section 141 works the other way and helps you, by requiring an Assessing Officer with a pending assessment on the same asset to take your declaration into account while finalising the order.

Section 140 puts two categories outside the scheme completely.

• Any income or asset which represents, directly or indirectly, proceeds of crime where proceedings have been initiated or are pending under the Prevention of Money-laundering Act 2002.
• Any income or asset relating to an assessment year for which assessment proceedings have already been completed under the Black Money Act 2015.

The second one rewards moving early, in the sense that once an assessment under the Black Money Act is finished for a year, that year is beyond the scheme.

This is an invented example to show how the two rows differ. It is not a real case and not advice on your facts.

Suppose someone worked in Singapore for six years as a non-resident, bought shares there worth 80 lakh rupees out of salary earned in Singapore, and moved back to India in 2023. The salary was never taxable in India. The only failure was that the shares were never entered in the foreign asset Schedule of the Indian returns filed after return.

That fits row 2 of section 133: an asset abroad acquired from income accruing outside India while a non-resident, not declared in the relevant Schedule on becoming resident. The value is under the 5 crore rupee ceiling. The amount payable is a fee of 1 lakh rupees.

Change one fact. Suppose part of the money was actually undisclosed Indian income routed abroad, and the asset plus that income comes to 90 lakh rupees. Now row 1 applies: 30 per cent of the value as on 31 March 2026, plus 30 per cent of the undisclosed income, plus an amount equal to 100 per cent of that tax, and the aggregate must stay under 1 crore rupees. The same asset, a very different bill, decided entirely by where the money came from.

If you read the Gazette copy yourself, you will notice that several sections in Chapter IV point at section numbers that do not match their own chapter. Section 132 refers to income or assets referred to in section 117. Section 133 and section 134 refer to a declaration under section 116. Section 135(1) refers to sub-section (2) of section 118, and section 138 refers to an amount paid under section 119.

Those were the clause numbers the provisions carried in the Finance Bill 2026, where the same chapter ran from clause 114 to clause 128. On enactment the chapter was renumbered to sections 130 to 144, and the internal cross-references were not renumbered with it. Read against the Bill, the intended targets are plain enough: section 116 of the Bill is section 132 of the Act, 117 is 133, 118 is 134 and 119 is 135. Do not be thrown by it, and watch for a corrigendum or a CBDT clarification when the rules are notified.

No. Section 132 allows a declaration only on or after the date of commencement of the scheme and on or before the last date. Neither date exists yet. There is also no prescribed form, because section 143 rules have not been made. Anything filed now is not a declaration under this scheme.

The sixty per cent half of that headline is a fair reading of row 1 of section 133: tax at thirty per cent of the value, plus an amount equal to one hundred per cent of that tax. The hundred and twenty figure on the other side of the comparison is drawn by tax commentators against what the Black Money Act 2015 would charge instead. It is not a number stated anywhere in Chapter IV. What that Act would actually cost depends on which of its charging and penalty provisions applies to your facts, so treat the contrast as commentary and check it with an adviser rather than as something the scheme promises.

It can. Section 131 brings in a non-resident or not ordinarily resident person who was resident in India either in the previous year to which the foreign income relates, or in the previous year in which the foreign asset was acquired. Your status today is not the only test.

It depends on which proceeding. Section 141 says that where assessment proceedings under the Income-tax Act 1961 or the Black Money Act 2015 are pending on that income or asset, the Assessing Officer must take your declaration into account while finalising the assessment. But section 140(b) shuts the scheme out entirely for an assessment year where proceedings under the Black Money Act have already been completed.

Section 131 defines value of the asset as fair market value determined in such manner as may be prescribed, and section 143(2)(f) lists the manner of calculating that value as a matter for the rules. So the valuation method is not in the Act. It will come with the rules, and it is one of the main reasons to wait rather than to guess a number now.

The commencement will come as a notification in the Official Gazette under section 130(2), and the last date as a separate Gazette notification under the definition in section 131. The rules and forms will follow under section 143. If a department or ministry is slow to publish something you are entitled to see, a request under the transparency law is a practical route, and our RTI drafting tool will build the application for you.

Nothing about waiting is passive. The work that decides your bill is the work of assembling proof, and it is the same work in either row of section 133.

• Pull together when each foreign asset was acquired and what money bought it. Row 2 lives or dies on showing the source was non-resident income or already-taxed income.
• Trace your residential status year by year, because section 131 keys off the year of acquisition and the year the income arose.
• Collect account statements and valuation evidence as close to 31 March 2026 as you can get, since row 1 values the asset on that date.
• Check whether any year has already gone to a completed Black Money Act assessment, which would put it outside the scheme under section 140(b).

For more guides on getting records out of a government office, see our practical guides, and if a reply never comes, the first appeal builder handles the next stage. For the full method, read The RTI Playbook, and the transparency law itself sits at the RTI Act.

This page explains Chapter IV of the Finance Act 2026 in general terms and is not tax or legal advice. Undisclosed foreign assets carry criminal exposure under the Black Money Act 2015, and anyone weighing a declaration should take professional advice on their own facts before the window opens.

• The Finance Act 2026, Chapter IV, sections 130 to 144, as published in the Gazette of India Extraordinary, Part II Section 1, assent dated 30 March 2026.
• Press Information Bureau, Ease of Living by Direct Tax Reforms, Union Budget 2026-2027, 1 February 2026, which announced the one-time six-month scheme and both taxpayer categories.
• The Finance Bill 2026, where the same chapter appears as clauses 114 to 128.