Chartered Accountant · ICAI M.No. 153926 · FRN 136869W · Reviewed on 12 October 2026
Why it takes the time it takes
The AO is pre-approving your capital-gains math — purchase deed, improvement proofs, the draft sale terms, and your computation of actual gain versus the 12.5% deduction on gross the buyer must otherwise make under section 195 (section 393(2) of the 2025 Act, for payments from 1 April 2026). Queries travel through the TRACES portal; each round adds days. Applications filed in the January–March rush, or with valuation gaps, sit longest — hence the 8–12 week planning number. Certificates already issued under the 1961 Act stay valid for the period they state; the change of Act does not void them.
What to file, and when to start
Start as soon as a buyer is in sight — the application can proceed on an agreement to sell. The pack: PAN, passport/visa (residency), purchase documents, cost-improvement bills, draft agreement, computation, and the buyer’s details — a TAN where the buyer is a company or firm; from 1 October 2026, an individual or HUF buying from an NRI needs no TAN at all (CBDT Notification 121/2026) and deposits through Form 141, the challan-cum-statement with its NRI-specific Schedule E. The certificate issues for a specified amount, a specified deductor and the period it states — ordinarily the financial year, so a sale slipping past 31 March needs a fresh one.
What it changes in money terms
Without it, TDS runs on the sale price; with it, on something close to the actual gain — on a ₹2-crore sale with a ₹40-lakh gain, that is the difference between ₹25 lakh-plus parked with the department and a deduction near your true liability, with the balance repatriable sooner. The refund route works too; it just costs a year of liquidity. Our NRI property-sale practice runs the certificate (Form 13, now Form 128), the buyer’s filing side and the remittance forms (15CA/15CB, now Forms 145/146) as one sequence.