What is AIS and Form 26AS? Indian tax pre-fill data — complete 2026 guide

The Annual Information Statement and Form 26AS are the two documents on the Indian e-filing portal that together hold every tax credit, financial transaction and pre-fill data point the Income Tax Department has gathered against a taxpayer's PAN. Form 26AS, governed historically by Rule 31AB and the now-omitted Section 203AA, is the consolidated tax-credit ledger. AIS, introduced by the Central Board of Direct Taxes on 1 November 2021 under the broader Section 285BB framework, is the comprehensive financial information statement that has effectively superseded 26AS as the primary pre-fill data source while keeping 26AS as the tax-credit reference.

This guide is the encyclopedic reference for AIS, 26AS and the derived Taxpayer Information Summary as they stand on 30 May 2026 — statutory basis, history from the TRACES era to the current e-filing portal, the sub-section structure of AIS, the role of TIS in ITR pre-fill, the data sources that feed the system, the feedback mechanism, and the practical reconciliation traps that catch holders of foreign shares, RSUs and LRS remittances. Read alongside Schedule FA for AY 2026-27 step-by-step and the ITR-2 walkthrough for RSU holders, both of which depend on AIS and 26AS reconciliation as their starting point.

TL;DR. Form 26AS is the consolidated tax statement showing TDS, TCS, advance tax, self-assessment tax and refunds against a PAN. AIS, introduced in November 2021, is the broader Annual Information Statement that adds SFT data, salary, interest, dividend, mutual fund and securities transactions, foreign remittances and property transactions. TIS is the derived summary that powers the ITR pre-fill on incometax.gov.in.

Definition and statutory basis

Form 26AS and AIS are not the same document and are not introduced by the same statute. Understanding the legal scaffolding is the entry point to using either correctly.

Form 26AS was inserted as an annual tax credit statement under Rule 31AB of the Income Tax Rules, 1962, drawing authority from Section 203AA of the Income-tax Act, 1961. Section 203AA mandated the prescribed income-tax authority or the person authorised by it to deliver a statement of tax deducted or collected against every PAN. Rule 31AB operationalised that mandate as Form 26AS, hosted on the TDS Reconciliation Analysis and Correction Enabling System known as TRACES. The Finance Act, 2020 amended the framework. Section 203AA was omitted with effect from 1 June 2020 and a new Section 285BB was inserted, giving statutory authority to a broader Annual Information Statement. Rule 31AB was correspondingly omitted and Rule 114-I was inserted to govern the new AIS. Form 26AS continued to exist in transitional form under the new rule, with a wider scope and a new structure that absorbed some material previously reported under Section 285BA.

AIS was operationalised under Section 285BB by CBDT Notification 30/2020 dated 28 May 2020 and Notification 71/2020, with the live rollout dated 1 November 2021 for Assessment Year 2021-22 onwards. Rule 114-I requires the prescribed income-tax authority — in practice the Directorate of Income-tax (Systems) — to upload the Annual Information Statement in Form 26AS reflecting information specified by the CBDT. The expression Form 26AS continues to appear in the rule even though, in taxpayer-facing terms, the broader statement is referred to as AIS. This creates the terminological loop that confuses many taxpayers and practitioners: the legal artefact called Form 26AS under Rule 114-I is, conceptually, the parent of both the narrower tax credit statement still labelled 26AS on the portal and the wider AIS.

TIS has no separate statutory basis. It is an administrative summary derived from AIS by the Directorate of Systems for the purpose of pre-filling the income-tax return, and is documented in the AIS handbook published by the Directorate.

The result is a three-layer disclosure regime sitting on a single statutory base. AIS is the comprehensive financial picture, 26AS is the consolidated tax-credit picture, and TIS is the derived summary that flows into the pre-fill engine.

History — from TRACES to AIS

The trajectory from a single TDS statement to the present three-layer system runs over more than two decades and tracks the Income Tax Department's progressive consolidation of third-party financial data.

The first version of Form 26AS appeared in 2004-05 as a TDS credit statement under Rule 31AB, hosted then on the NSDL TIN portal. The early statement was limited to Part A — TDS reported by deductors — and was used primarily for reconciliation by salaried taxpayers and businesses claiming TDS credit in the return. Part B for TCS and Part C for advance tax and self-assessment tax were added later as challan-level data from the OLTAS challan system was integrated.

In 2013 the migration to the TRACES portal consolidated 26AS access under the deductor-facing TDS administration platform. From 2014 onwards Part E was added to show high-value transactions reported by banks and other institutions under the Annual Information Return framework that pre-dated SFT. Parts F and G followed to capture TDS on immovable property sales under Section 194-IA and TDS defaults respectively.

Budget 2020 marked the inflection point. The Finance Minister announced the intention to provide taxpayers with a fully pre-filled return covering not just salary and tax credits but the broader universe of financial transactions reported under various information reporting provisions. Section 203AA was omitted and Section 285BB was inserted with effect from 1 June 2020. The CBDT issued Notification 30/2020 prescribing a new Form 26AS under Rule 114-I with effect from the same date. The new Form 26AS expanded Part E to cover specified financial transactions, and added Part B for demand and refund details and Part D for completed and pending assessments and proceedings.

On 1 November 2021 the department launched AIS as a separate, broader statement accessed through the Compliance portal linked from the new e-filing site at incometax.gov.in. The launch followed the rollout of the new e-filing portal earlier in 2021. AIS absorbed and significantly expanded the SFT data that had previously appeared in Part E of 26AS, added salary, interest, dividend and mutual fund transaction data sourced from quarterly TDS returns and SFT, and folded in foreign remittance data filed by authorised dealers under Form 15CC. TIS was rolled out alongside AIS as the summary view that powers ITR pre-fill.

Through 2022 to 2025 the department expanded AIS coverage to include GSTN turnover data, depository-level securities trades, and broader foreign remittance information. From AY 2024-25 onwards the AIS feedback mechanism was significantly improved with a structured feedback workflow and an option to download a Negative Confirmation report. The mobile application AIS for Taxpayer was launched in March 2023 and offers offline access to AIS and TIS.

By 2026 the three-layer system is in steady state. Form 26AS retains the tax-credit ledger function. AIS is the comprehensive information statement. TIS is the derived summary that powers pre-fill. All three are accessed from a single login on incometax.gov.in.

AIS sub-sections — what each part captures

AIS is organised into Part A and Part B at the top level, with Part B further sub-divided into information categories. Every line item in AIS carries a source identifier showing which reporting entity supplied the data, the underlying information code, the description, and the reported value. The structure is stable but the granular sub-categories are reviewed periodically by the Directorate of Systems.

Part A — General information. PAN, masked Aadhaar, name, date of birth or incorporation, mobile, email and address as held by the department. Part A is the identity block and is used to confirm the AIS belongs to the right taxpayer before the financial data is reviewed.

Part B — Financial information. The substantive block. The current sub-sections, broadly, are as follows.

Sub-section	What it captures
TDS and TCS	Tax deducted or collected against the taxpayer's PAN. Sourced from quarterly Form 24Q, 26Q, 27Q and 27EQ filed by deductors and collectors. Includes TCS on LRS remittances reported by authorised dealers.
SFT	Statement of Financial Transactions reported under Section 285BA read with Rule 114E. Covers cash deposits and withdrawals above the threshold, credit card payments, mutual fund purchases, share purchases, bond and debenture purchases, dividend income, interest income and immovable property transactions.
Payment of taxes	Advance tax and self-assessment tax challans paid by the taxpayer, with challan identification number, BSR code and date of payment.
Demand and refund	Refunds processed by the Centralised Processing Centre and outstanding demands under Section 156 with assessment year and amount.
Other information	Foreign remittance data filed under Form 15CC, GSTN turnover, salary information from Form 24Q with employer detail, business turnover from tax audit reports, and any data that does not fit elsewhere.

Within each sub-section the line items are grouped by information code and reporting entity. A taxpayer with a salaried job and three brokerage accounts will see one block per employer under salary and one block per broker under SFT or securities transactions.

The data underlying AIS is processed through deduplication and adjustment logic before being pushed into TIS. A single dividend payment can appear three times in raw AIS — once from the company through SFT, once from the registrar through SFT, and once from the depository through securities transactions — and the deduplication logic collapses it to one entry in TIS.

TIS — the pre-fill engine

The Taxpayer Information Summary is the practical layer through which AIS flows into the income tax return. TIS aggregates the line-level AIS data into the same broad income heads that appear in the ITR — salary, interest, dividend, rent, capital gains, business income, other income — and shows three values for each category.

The reported value is the sum of all line items received from third-party reporters before any adjustment. The processed value is the figure after the Directorate of Systems applies deduplication, off-set and bucket-mapping logic. The derived value is the final number that flows into the ITR pre-fill, after taxpayer feedback is applied.

When a taxpayer logs into the e-filing portal and opens a draft ITR-2 for AY 2026-27, the pre-filled numbers in Schedule S for salary, Schedule OS for other sources, Schedule CG for capital gains and Schedule TDS for tax credits are populated from the derived value column in TIS, with line-item drill-downs sourced from AIS itself. This is the operative pre-fill flow. The taxpayer's job is to confirm the derived values against actual records, override where necessary, and ensure the final ITR figures reconcile with AIS, TIS and the underlying source documents.

TIS does not, in practice, cover everything. Capital gains from foreign brokerage accounts, US dividend income paid to a foreign account, RSU sale proceeds in a US brokerage account and foreign-source interest income are typically absent from TIS because the underlying data flows are domestic. Those numbers must be added manually to the ITR by the taxpayer.

Data sources feeding AIS

AIS is fed by several distinct statutory streams. Knowing which stream a given line item came from is critical for resolving discrepancies because the correction has to flow back to the source reporter.

TDS and TCS feeds. Form 24Q is the quarterly salary TDS return filed by employers, with annexure-level salary detail in the Q4 filing. Form 26Q is the quarterly TDS return for non-salary domestic payments. Form 27Q is the quarterly TDS return for payments to non-residents. Form 27EQ is the quarterly TCS return covering Section 206C collections including TCS on LRS remittances. All four feed Form 26AS Parts A and B and the TDS/TCS sub-section of AIS.

SFT feed under Section 285BA. Rule 114E specifies the reporting entities, transactions and thresholds. Banks report cash deposits and withdrawals above the threshold, fixed deposit creation above Rs 10 lakh aggregated by PAN, and credit card payments above Rs 1 lakh in cash or Rs 10 lakh in aggregate annually. Mutual fund houses report unit purchases above Rs 10 lakh per scheme. Registrars and share transfer agents report purchases of shares and debentures above Rs 10 lakh. Sub-registrars report immovable property transactions above Rs 30 lakh. Listed companies and Indian mutual fund houses report dividend payments. SFT filers submit Form 61A annually.

Foreign remittance feed under Section 195(6) and Rule 37BB. Authorised dealers in foreign exchange — banks and certain non-bank entities permitted by the Reserve Bank of India — file Form 15CC quarterly with detail of remittances made out of India. The feed picks up LRS remittances for investment in foreign shares, education, travel, gifts, and any other purpose code under the LRS scheme. Foreign remittances feed both AIS and, through the TCS aspect, Form 26AS.

Depository and exchange feeds. Central Depository Services Limited and National Securities Depository Limited share trade-level data on listed equity and debt to feed the securities-transactions block in AIS. Exchanges and clearing corporations share buyer-seller-level trade summaries.

GSTN feed. GST turnover data is shared between the GSTN and the Income Tax Department's data warehouse for cross-verification against the income disclosed in the ITR.

OLTAS feed. Direct tax payments through the Online Tax Accounting System — advance tax, self-assessment tax, regular assessment demand payments — populate Form 26AS Part C and the payment-of-taxes sub-section of AIS.

The volume of data flowing in is substantial. A salaried taxpayer with one mutual fund SIP, one demat account and one credit card will typically have between fifty and two hundred line items in AIS for a given financial year. A taxpayer with vested RSUs, LRS remittances to a US brokerage and multiple Indian fund houses can have several hundred. The aggregation logic in TIS is what makes the data usable.

How to access AIS and Form 26AS

Both statements live behind the same login on incometax.gov.in. The access flow is identical in structure for both.

1. Log in. Open incometax.gov.in and sign in with PAN as the user ID. The login requires either a password or an Aadhaar OTP. New users register with PAN, name, date of birth and contact details.

2. Open Form 26AS. From the dashboard go to the Services menu and select View Form 26AS. The portal presents a confirmation page and then redirects to a TRACES-hosted view of Form 26AS in a new tab. Select the assessment year and view format. The PDF download is password protected with the taxpayer's date of birth in DDMMYYYY format.

3. Open AIS. From the dashboard go to the Annual Information Statement option in the top menu or under Services. The portal redirects to the Compliance portal hosted at compliance.insight.gov.in. AIS and TIS sit on separate tabs. Each can be downloaded as PDF, JSON or CSV. The PDF download is password protected with a combination of PAN in lowercase and date of birth in DDMMYYYY format with no separator.

4. Mobile access. The AIS for Taxpayer mobile application, available on the Google Play store and the Apple App Store, offers offline access to AIS and TIS after a one-time PAN-based registration secured by a four-digit MPIN.

5. Common access errors. AIS data for the current financial year is provisional and is updated continuously as third-party reporters file their statements. Final AIS for an assessment year is generally stable by 30 June following the financial year end, the SFT filing deadline. Taxpayers checking AIS in April or May are looking at incomplete data.

The same login also exposes the e-pay tax flow for advance tax and self-assessment tax payments, with the resulting challan flowing back into Form 26AS Part C within 48 hours.

AIS vs 26AS vs TIS — three-way comparison

The three statements overlap deliberately. The clean comparison.

Dimension	Form 26AS	AIS	TIS
Statutory basis	Rule 114-I (earlier Rule 31AB / Section 203AA)	Section 285BB read with Rule 114-I	Administrative document
Scope	Tax credits — TDS, TCS, advance tax, self-assessment tax, refunds, specified transactions	Comprehensive financial information — TDS, TCS, SFT, salary, interest, dividend, securities, foreign remittance, GST	Derived summary by income head
Granularity	Line-by-line per deductor and challan	Line-by-line per source reporter	Aggregated per category
Primary use	Claiming TDS credit in the ITR	Reconciliation, transparency, audit trail	ITR pre-fill
Access	Services menu on incometax.gov.in, hosted on TRACES	Annual Information Statement menu, hosted on Compliance portal	Same Compliance portal as AIS
Feedback mechanism	Limited — corrections go through the deductor and TRACES	Full feedback mechanism with structured response codes	No direct feedback; flows from AIS feedback
Frequency	Updated as TDS returns are processed	Updated continuously through the year, finalised after 30 June	Refreshed as AIS feedback is applied
Replaces	Annual Information Return (AIR)	Earlier Part E of Form 26AS	Earlier manual pre-fill from 26AS

Form 26AS has not been retired and remains the document a taxpayer relies on when claiming TDS credit in the ITR. AIS is the broader information statement that the assessing officer will reference if a case is opened. TIS is the pre-fill input.

Foreign-asset reporting in AIS — RSUs, US dividends, LRS

The interface between AIS and foreign-asset holdings is the source of most reconciliation work for Indian residents holding US shares. The picture is uneven because the data flows are uneven.

RSU perquisite value at vest. The taxable perquisite on RSU vesting is taxed under salary as a Section 17(2) perquisite. The Indian employer — or the Indian payroll function of the US parent — computes the perquisite, deducts TDS under Section 192, and reports it through Form 24Q. The perquisite value, the TDS and the net salary all flow into Form 26AS Part A and the TDS sub-section of AIS, and the salary value flows into TIS. The number a taxpayer sees in TIS salary is the gross salary inclusive of RSU perquisite.

RSU sale and capital gains. When the taxpayer sells the vested shares in the foreign brokerage account, the gain is capital gains in the Indian return and is reported in Schedule CG. The transaction does not appear in AIS because the foreign brokerage is not an Indian SFT reporter. AIS will sometimes pick up the outward LRS leg if the sale proceeds are repatriated to India, but the trade itself is invisible. The taxpayer must compute and report capital gains from broker records. See the ITR-2 walkthrough for RSU holders.

US dividend income. US dividends are taxable in India in the year received and qualify for foreign tax credit against the 25 percent US withholding under the DTAA. The dividend itself does not directly feed AIS because the payer is a US company. The dividend appears in AIS only if the proceeds are remitted back to India through an authorised dealer who reports the inflow, or if a domestic intermediary processes the credit. In most cases the taxpayer must add US dividend income manually to Schedule OS and Schedule FSI.

LRS remittances and TCS. Outward remittances under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme are reported by authorised dealers through Form 15CC. The remittance appears in AIS under Other Information. TCS collected at 20 percent on LRS remittances above Rs 7 lakh under Section 206C(1G) is reported through Form 27EQ by the authorised dealer and feeds Form 26AS Part B and the TCS sub-section of AIS. The taxpayer claims TCS credit against the final tax liability in the ITR. See What is TCS on LRS.

Foreign asset disclosure. AIS does not replace Schedule FA. Even if a vested RSU appears nowhere in AIS, the underlying foreign custodial account and the share itself must be disclosed in Schedule FA Tables A2 and A3 on the calendar-year basis. See What is Schedule FA. AIS is the picture the department has built; Schedule FA is the picture the taxpayer must give.

Feedback mechanism for incorrect AIS entries

AIS includes a built-in feedback mechanism that lets the taxpayer flag inaccurate, duplicated or misallocated line items. The workflow is structured.

Open the line item in AIS. The portal shows the information code, the source reporting entity, the reported value, and any adjustment already applied. Click Provide Feedback. The portal presents a fixed list of response codes:

• Information is correct.
• Information is not fully correct — partial correction with a modified value.
• Information relates to other PAN or year.
• Information is duplicate or included in other information.
• Information is denied.
• Customised feedback for cases not fitting the above.

Submit the response with any supporting narrative. The line item is now shown with both the original reported value and the modified value. TIS is recomputed to reflect the modified value. The Directorate of Systems forwards the feedback to the source reporter for confirmation. The reporter may file a corrected statement that supersedes the original. If the reporter does not respond, the feedback remains in the system as the taxpayer's position.

A taxpayer who has filed structured feedback can download a Negative Confirmation report — effectively a record that they have rejected or modified specific AIS entries. The report is useful documentary support if the line item later surfaces in an assessment.

Filing feedback does not, by itself, alter the ITR. The taxpayer must still manually adjust the corresponding fields in the return. Feedback in AIS and a corresponding correction in the ITR should be filed together so the two reconcile.

Common reconciliation mismatches

The patterns repeat year after year. The catalogue.

Duplicate dividend reporting. A listed-company dividend appears once from the company, once from the registrar and once from the depository. TIS deduplication catches most cases but not all. The taxpayer should net out duplicates before relying on TIS dividend totals.

Mutual fund switch treated as redemption plus purchase. A switch from one mutual fund scheme to another is processed as a redemption plus a purchase by the AMC. AIS shows both legs. The redemption is reportable as a capital gain in Schedule CG; the purchase is not income but appears under SFT. Taxpayers sometimes double-count by reporting the same transaction twice.

RSU perquisite mismatch between Form 16 and AIS salary. The salary in AIS comes from Form 24Q. If the employer recomputes the perquisite at year end and issues a revised Form 16 without filing a revised Form 24Q, AIS will lag the Form 16 figure. The ITR should match Form 16; the AIS feedback workflow should be used to flag the AIS line as not fully correct.

TCS on LRS without matching SFT remittance line. Sometimes the TCS line appears in AIS from Form 27EQ but the underlying Form 15CC remittance line does not, because the authorised dealer filed the TCS return on time but the Form 15CC late. The taxpayer should claim the TCS credit on the basis of Form 26AS Part B even if the AIS Other Information block has not yet caught up.

US dividend paid to US brokerage account. Not visible to AIS. Must be reported in Schedule OS, Schedule FSI and the foreign tax credit claimed via Form 67 — being renumbered Form 44 from Tax Year 2026-27.

Property transaction reported under the wrong PAN. Sub-registrars occasionally mis-allocate a property transaction to a co-owner's PAN. Use the AIS feedback code Information relates to other PAN or year.

SFT data for fixed deposits at multiple bank branches. Banks aggregate fixed deposits by PAN across branches. A taxpayer who has split deposits across branches may still see a single SFT line if the aggregate crosses the Rs 10 lakh threshold. This is correct behaviour but is sometimes mistaken for over-reporting.

Foreign brokerage trades absent. A flat absence rather than a mismatch. The taxpayer must construct the capital gains computation from broker records and statement-level FX conversion at the SBI TT Buying Rate.

Practical workflow at filing time

The reconciliation sequence used by chartered accountants and self-filers.

1. Download Form 26AS. Verify TDS and TCS totals against Form 16, Form 16A and Form 27D. This is the tax-credit ledger for Schedule TDS, Schedule TCS and Schedule TDS2.
2. Download AIS and TIS PDFs from the Compliance portal. Skim Part A for identity correctness.
3. Reconcile salary against Form 16 Part B. Where the figures differ by the RSU perquisite, identify whether the difference is timing or substantive.
4. Reconcile interest and dividend. Match TIS against bank certificates and broker statements. Catalogue duplicates.
5. Reconcile securities transactions against the broker capital gain statement. File feedback where AIS has the trade at a different value.
6. Reconcile LRS and TCS in AIS Other Information against the taxpayer's record and Form 27D.
7. Add foreign items not in AIS — US dividends, foreign brokerage capital gains, foreign interest — to the ITR manually.
8. File AIS feedback with the appropriate response code for each contested line. Save the acknowledgement.
9. Cross-check ITR pre-fill against TIS derived value. Override where necessary.
10. Retain documentation — AIS, TIS, 26AS, feedback acknowledgements, broker statements, Form 16, 16A, 27D and Form 67 acknowledgement — to support the return against any future scrutiny under Section 143(2) or reassessment under Section 148.

Tools and related references

The Schedule FA helper converts US broker exports into the calendar-year tables required for Schedule FA, which is the disclosure side of the same data that AIS reflects on the income side. The Form 67 deadline tracker covers the procedural filing that supports a foreign tax credit claim against US dividend withholding that AIS will not pre-fill. The US investing hub is the umbrella for the broader regime.

Related concepts

Section 285BA. The information-reporting provision under which SFTs are filed by banks, mutual fund houses, registrars, sub-registrars and other prescribed reporters. SFT data is the largest single input into AIS.

Section 285BB. The Finance Act, 2020 provision that gives AIS its statutory basis.

Section 203AA. The earlier provision under which the original Form 26AS was issued. Omitted with effect from 1 June 2020.

Rule 114-I. Operationalises Section 285BB and prescribes the manner of preparing and uploading the AIS.

Rule 114E. Prescribes the SFTs reportable under Section 285BA with reporting entities and thresholds.

Form 24Q, 26Q, 27Q, 27EQ. Quarterly TDS and TCS returns that feed Form 26AS Parts A and B and the TDS and TCS sub-sections of AIS.

Form 15CC. Quarterly statement of foreign remittances by authorised dealers under Section 195(6). Feeds the foreign remittance block.

Form 61A. Annual SFT return filed by reporting entities under Section 285BA.

TRACES. TDS Reconciliation Analysis and Correction Enabling System hosting Form 26AS.

Compliance portal. Hosts AIS, TIS and the e-Verification scheme at compliance.insight.gov.in.

Form 26AS is the tax-credit ledger. AIS is the comprehensive information statement. TIS is the derived summary. All three sit behind a single PAN on incometax.gov.in. Treating them as one document is the most common practical error. Treating them as three distinct artefacts — each with its statutory basis, its scope, its update cycle and its correction mechanism — is the foundation of a clean Indian return for any taxpayer holding foreign shares.