Advance tax for freelancers in India: the deadline that isn’t in March

Most people who earn a salary never think about advance tax, because they never have to. TDS quietly does it for them, month after month, and by the time they file a return the tax is already paid. The system works so invisibly that when you start freelancing, nobody tells you the rules just changed.

Here is the change: if the tax you’ll owe for the year, after all TDS, will cross ₹10,000, the Income Tax Department expects you to pay it through the year, in instalments. Not in one lump when you file. Waiting until March or July isn’t illegal, but it’s billed: interest accrues at 1% a month on what you should have paid earlier.

This applies to freelancers, consultants, and, importantly, to salaried people with freelance income on the side, because the freelance slice usually has little or no TDS covering it.

Six terms, translated once

Tax articles assume you know the vocabulary. Here it is, one line each, and then we won’t slow down again.

• TDS (tax deducted at source): the slice of tax your employer or client cuts from your payment before it reaches you. It’s tax you’ve already paid without doing anything.
• Advance tax: tax you pay yourself, during the year, on income nobody is cutting TDS from.
• AIS / 26AS: think of it as your tax passbook. A statement on the income tax portal showing all the tax already collected against your PAN.
• Challan: simply the receipt you get when you pay tax. You keep it; its number goes in your return.
• Tax year: the year you earned in, 1 April to 31 March. This is new. Until 31 March 2026 you had to juggle two years, the one you earned in and the “assessment year” after it. The Income-tax Act, 2025 collapsed them into one, so income earned now is simply Tax Year 2026-27.
• Regime (old vs new): India has two rate systems and you pick one each year. The calculator shows both, so you don’t need to remember which is which.

The dates for FY 2026-27

Advance tax is cumulative. By each date, your total payments for the year should have reached the percentage shown.

If you missed June, September is where you catch up: paying 45% by 15 September squares you for both instalments (the interest on the June shortfall is small and stops there).

The exception that changes everything: presumptive taxation

If you’ve opted for presumptive taxation (presumptive taxation: A scheme that lets you declare a fixed share of your receipts as income without proving any expenses. From FY 2026-27 it lives in one place, section 58; the old 44ADA covered professionals and 44AD small businesses.) (until this year section 44ADA for professionals or 44AD for small businesses, now both folded into section 58 (section 58: The Income-tax Act, 2025 provision that from 1 April 2026 replaces sections 44AD, 44ADA and 44AE with a single table. Professionals are serial 3 of that table, still at 50% of gross receipts.)), the four dates above collapse into one instalment: 100% by 15 March. No June, September or December deadlines at all.

This is one of the scheme’s genuinely underrated perks, and it means the first thing to do before panicking about September is to know which scheme you’re in. If you’re not sure what 44ADA is or whether you qualify, we’ve written a plain-words guide to it, coming later in this series.

Who typically owes something on 15 September

• Full-time freelancers and consultants not under presumptive. Your clients may deduct 10% TDS (TDS: Tax deducted at source: the slice of tax your employer or client cuts from a payment before it reaches you. It is tax you have already paid without doing anything.) on professional fees, but if your effective tax rate is above that, the gap is yours to pay quarterly.
• Salaried with freelance on the side. Your employer’s TDS covers your salary, not your side income. The tax on the freelance slice is what the instalments apply to.
• Anyone with meaningful interest, dividend or capital-gains income the TDS net doesn’t fully cover.

Who usually doesn’t: salaried-only people (TDS covers it), anyone whose after-TDS liability stays under ₹10,000, presumptive taxpayers (until March), and resident senior citizens with no business income, who are exempt from advance tax entirely.

The 20-minute estimate

You don’t need precision in September; you need a defensible estimate. Four steps.

1. Estimate the year’s income. Salary is known. For freelance income, take what you’ve earned April to August and project sensibly for the rest of the year. Count income, not bank credits: family transfers, loans and refunds don’t belong in this number.
2. Work out the tax on that total in whichever regime (regime: India runs two income tax rate systems, old and new, and you pick one each year. Our calculator shows both, so you do not need to remember which is which.) you use. Our free calculator does both regimes and takes about two minutes: cleantab.in/tax-calculator.
3. Subtract TDS already deducted or expected. Your employer’s TDS plus the 10% your clients deduct on fees. Check your AIS/26AS (AIS / 26AS: Your tax passbook: a statement on the income tax portal showing all the tax already collected against your PAN.) on the income tax portal rather than guessing; people routinely owe less than they fear.
4. Multiply what’s left by 45%. That’s what should be paid in total by 15 September, minus anything you paid in June.

If the result is under ₹10,000 for the whole year, you can stop: advance tax doesn’t apply to you.

How to actually pay, step by step

The good news: you don’t even need to log in, and there are no forms. The whole thing is about ten minutes on the income tax portal. Here’s the exact path.

Step 1: open e-Pay Tax

Go to incometax.gov.in and look for e-Pay Tax under Quick Links on the left of the homepage. This route works without logging in; if you prefer, the same option exists after login under e-File → e-Pay Tax.

Step 2: verify yourself with PAN and OTP

Enter your PAN twice, then your mobile number. You’ll get a six-digit OTP; enter it and the portal confirms your name in masked form. Check it’s actually you before proceeding.

Step 3: choose the right box

On the New Payment screen you’ll see several tiles. Pick Income Tax (the first one) and hit Proceed. Ignore the rest; they’re for TDS, equalisation levies and other things that aren’t you.

Step 4: the two dropdowns that matter

Select tax year (tax year: The single 12-month period you earn in and are taxed on, running 1 April to 31 March. It replaced the old previous-year and assessment-year pair on 1 April 2026, so income earned now sits in Tax Year 2026-27, with no second year to work out.) 2026-27 and type of payment Advance Tax (100). This is the single most common place people slip: pick the wrong year and your money lands against the wrong one, which is fixable but tedious.

Step 5: amount and payment

Enter your instalment amount in the Tax field (leave surcharge, cess and the other rows at zero; the portal totals it for you), then choose how to pay: net banking, debit card, NEFT/RTGS, or the payment gateway option, which is where UPI lives. Preview, confirm, pay.

Step 6: download the challan and keep it

After payment you get a challan (challan: The receipt you get when you pay tax. You keep it, and its number goes into your return at filing time.) receipt with a CRN, a BSR code and a challan serial number (CRN, BSR code and challan serial number: The three reference numbers printed on a tax payment receipt. Your return asks for them, which is the whole reason to keep the PDF.). Download the PDF and put it wherever you keep tax things; those numbers go into your return at filing time, and the payment itself shows up in your AIS/26AS within a few days, which is your confirmation it landed.

That’s it. No CA appointment required for the payment itself, though the estimate is worth a sanity check with yours if the numbers are large.

If you miss it

Interest at 1% a month on the shortfall, simple interest, under the usual provisions. It’s an annoyance, not a catastrophe, and the December instalment lets you catch up. But it’s also the most avoidable cost in a freelancer’s year: it is literally a bill for not knowing a date.

The real problem is not the maths

The instalment maths takes minutes. What actually stops people is that the inputs live everywhere except in one place: income scattered across invoices and bank credits, expenses in a camera roll, TDS in a portal you log into twice a year. By September nobody carries an honest “income so far” number in their head.

That’s the entire reason CleanTab exists: snap receipts as they happen, let your bank statement be read with every deposit given a reason, and keep a running tax estimate (with these advance-tax dates built in) that’s current all year. Then 15 September is a ten-minute payment, not an archaeology project.

CleanTab prepares your numbers; a human files. This article is general information, not tax advice, and your CA has the last word on your situation.