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Guide · Checked 7 August 2026

Form 145 and Form 146 — what replaced 15CA and 15CB

On 1 April 2026 the remittance forms were renumbered under the Income-tax Act 2025. The paperwork did not get harder; it got renamed, and most of what is written about it still uses the old numbers. Here is which form is whose.

What changed

Three names, one date. The old certificates stay valid for remittances completed before 31 March 2026, and the old terms are still what people search for — so both are given here rather than pretending the previous decade did not happen.

NowFormerlyWhat it is, and who produces it
Form 145Form 15CAThe remitter's declaration. You file it, in your own name, on the income-tax portal.
Form 146Form 15CBThe certificate. Only a practising Chartered Accountant can issue it, under a UDIN.
§395 · Form 128§197 · Form 13The lower-deduction certificate application — a different document with a different purpose. It has its own guide.

Sequence

The order it has to happen in

Nothing here is optional and nothing here reorders. A wire held at the bank is almost always a step taken out of turn.
  1. 01

    Your Chartered Accountant works out the tax position. Whether the remittance is taxable in India, and at what rate, is the question the whole pack turns on. It is also the one question on this page nobody but a CA should answer.

  2. 02

    The CA issues Form 146, if one is required. This is the certificate. Only a practising Chartered Accountant can issue it, and it carries a UDIN — a unique document identification number, which is what makes the certificate traceable back to the member who signed it.

  3. 03

    You file Form 145. The declaration is the remitter's, so it is filed in your name on the income-tax portal, not by us and not by your bank. Where a Form 146 was required, its details go into the declaration.

  4. 04

    The acknowledgement goes to your bank. An AD Category-I bank will not execute an outward remittance without it. This is where a missing certificate stops the wire, which is why the order above is not optional.

  5. 05

    Only then is the rate quoted. The paperwork and the pricing are separate conversations, and they happen in that order — so the rate is the last thing decided and the easiest thing to lose track of. That is the gap the rate checker exists to close.

The line

What a Chartered Accountant does, and what we do not

Only a CA

The certificate and the judgement behind it

Whether the remittance is taxable, at what rate, under which treaty article, and what the certificate says. Form 146 is signed by a member of the ICAI under a UDIN, and that signature is the whole point of it. We do not sign, we do not opine, and we do not hold out as accountants.
What we do

Sequence, timing and the price of the wire

The order above, the financial-year boundaries that make it urgent, the document pack, and the arithmetic on the exchange rate you were quoted. Process, timing and price. Every question that needs interpreting goes to your CA, and we say so instead of guessing.

Questions

The ones we are actually asked

Is Form 145 the same thing as Form 15CA?

It is the successor to it. From 1 April 2026, under the Income-tax Act 2025, Form 145 replaced Form 15CA and Form 146 replaced Form 15CB. The roles did not change: Form 145 is the remitter's own declaration, Form 146 is the Chartered Accountant's certificate.

My remittance was before April 2026. Which forms apply?

The old ones. Remittances completed before 31 March 2026 fall under the earlier framework and the 15CA/15CB certificates issued for them stay valid for that tax year. If your paperwork straddles the boundary, that is a question for your Chartered Accountant rather than a rule of thumb.

Do I need a Chartered Accountant's certificate at all?

It depends on whether the remittance is taxable and how much you are sending in the financial year. The published rule turns on a taxable remittance whose aggregate crosses ₹5 lakh in the year, where no order has been obtained from an Assessing Officer. Whether that describes your remittance is exactly the judgement a CA is for, and we do not make it.

Can you file it for me?

No. We are not Chartered Accountants, we do not sign returns and we do not issue certificates. A managed property exit coordinates the sequence and the timing, and the CA invoices you directly for the work only a CA can do. We never take a share of that fee — Indian professional rules prohibit it.

What happens if it is not filed, or filed wrong?

Published guidance puts the penalty for failing to file the declaration, or furnishing inaccurate information in it, at up to ₹1 lakh under section 462 of the Income-tax Act 2025. The practical cost usually arrives sooner than that: the bank will not release the wire without the acknowledgement.

Does this have anything to do with the exchange rate?

Only in sequence. The forms decide whether the money may leave; the rate decides how much of it arrives. They are handled by different desks at the bank, which is why the rate is often quoted after everything else is settled and accepted without being questioned.

The forms are settled. Is the rate?

The declaration decides whether the money may leave. The rate decides how much of it arrives, and it is quoted last, by a different desk, usually without being questioned. Check what yours is costing before you authorise it.
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