The annual salary TDS certificate Indian employers issue — renumbered as Form 130 from 1 April 2026.
Form 16 is the certificate an Indian employer issues to a salaried employee showing the tax deducted at source from their salary and deposited with the government, and it is the document employees rely on when filing their income tax return. Under the Income-tax Act, 2025 the TDS certificate forms have been renumbered, and the Income Tax Department now publishes the salary certificate in the 130-series. Both names are therefore in circulation, and they attach to different periods rather than being interchangeable.
The Income Tax Department publishes its current TDS certificate forms in a document titled "Form No. 130_131_132_133 (Earlier Form No. 16/16A/16B/16C/16D/16E/27D)". The title is the mapping: the certificates previously issued in the 16-series are now issued in the 130-series, under the Income-tax Act, 2025.
The two names are not interchangeable, because they attach to different periods. The Income Tax Department's own guidance confirms that obligations and penalties for FY 2025-26 remain governed by the Income-tax Act, 1961, and that the form numbers and formats applicable to the old Act continue to apply to corrections for that year. An employee asking for "my Form 16" for last year is asking for exactly the right document.
Payroll teams should expect questions about section references that no longer match the ones employees remember, since the new Act renumbers deduction provisions as well as forms. Confirm the current form number, format and issue deadline for the year you are certifying with the Income Tax Department before the filing season opens.
The certificate is widely used as proof of income well outside its statutory purpose — for loan and mortgage applications, visa applications and background verification during hiring. That makes late or inaccurate issuance an employee-relations problem, not merely a compliance one. It is also why the renumbering is worth communicating proactively: an employee presenting a certificate under an unfamiliar number to a lender expecting "Form 16" will need to be able to explain it.
Where an employee has worked for more than one employer during the year, each employer issues a certificate for the period the employee was with them. That fragmentation is a recurring source of filing errors: an employee who files on the strength of their final employer's certificate alone understates income earned earlier in the year, and the mismatch surfaces later against the department's own records.
It is being renumbered rather than abolished. The Income Tax Department now publishes the salary TDS certificate in the 130-series under the Income-tax Act, 2025, and its form document is titled "Form No. 130_131_132_133 (Earlier Form No. 16/16A/16B/16C/16D/16E/27D)". Certificates for FY 2025-26 remain governed by the Income-tax Act, 1961.
Each employer issues a certificate covering the period the employee worked for them. The employee needs all of them to file a complete and accurate return — filing on the strength of the final employer's certificate alone will understate total income for the year.
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