Form 130 is the new Form 16, due by 15 June after the tax year.

Form 130 (earlier Form 16) is the certificate an employer gives each salaried employee from whose salary tax was deducted, showing the salary paid and the tax deducted and deposited for the tax year. It replaced Form 16 when the Income-tax Act, 2025 came into force on 1 Apr 2026, and is issued under section 395 of that Act. If no tax was deducted from someone's salary all year, the employer is not required to issue one.

It is the employee's proof of salary and tax deducted for the year. Employees use it to file the income-tax return and check the TDS against Form 168 (earlier Form 26AS); banks ask for it with a home or personal loan, visa offices with a visa file, and a new employer may ask for the last one in a background check. It covers one employer's months of one tax year, so someone who changed jobs keeps one from each.

It does the same job: Form 130 is the Income-tax Act, 2025 number for the salary TDS certificate that was Form 16 under the 1961 Act. Salary paid from 1 Apr 2026 is certified on Form 130; certificates for salary paid before 1 Apr 2026 are generally issued as Form 16. Ask your CA if a certificate straddles the change.

Neither. Form 130 is a certificate your employer gives you once a year; the income-tax return (ITR) is what you file yourself on the Income Tax Department's e-filing portal, using the certificate's figures. Receiving Form 130 does not mean a return has been filed, and it does not file one for you: you still file by the return due date and check that the TDS matches Form 168 (earlier Form 26AS). A payslip is different again: it covers one month's pay and comes every month, while Form 130 covers the whole tax year's salary and TDS and comes only where tax was deducted. A bank asking for "Form 16 and three payslips" wants both for that reason: the year's certified income and your current monthly pay.

Not as an employee. Only the employer can download Form 130, from its own TRACES account, after the Form 138 statements for the year are processed; it then signs the certificate and gives it to you, by 15 June. What you can download yourself is Form 168 (earlier Form 26AS), through the e-filing portal, which shows the tax credited against your PAN; if your employer is late, it tells you whether the TDS was at least reported. For a past employer, write to their HR or payroll with your PAN and the tax year.

15 June of the financial year after the tax year in which the salary was paid and tax was deducted. For tax year 2026-27 that is 15 Jun 2027, after the Q4 Form 138 (earlier Form 24Q) statement due 31 May 2027.

Because the whole certificate now has to come from TRACES. Under Form 16 only the TDS summary had to be downloaded there, so many employers printed the salary working from payroll or Excel. For Form 130 the Income Tax Department's FAQs say the whole certificate must be downloaded from TRACES and then signed digitally or by hand; one prepared any other way is not a valid TDS certificate. LekhaHR prepares the salary figures for Form 130 (earlier Form 16), which you download from TRACES once the Form 138 (earlier Form 24Q) statements built from those figures are processed.

Ask the employer to correct it. The employer files a revised Form 138 (earlier Form 24Q) statement for the quarter, and once TRACES has processed it, downloads and issues a fresh Form 130 (earlier Form 16). Form 168 (earlier Form 26AS) shows the tax credited against the PAN, so the two should agree.

One from each employer that deducted tax, covering its own months. The salary working in Part C, Annexure-I can come from each employer or only from the last one. Add both employers' salary and tax when filing the return.

Only those whose salary had tax deducted. In a small company many people have no TDS under the new regime, so no Form 130 is required for them; in practice, give them a signed salary certificate or an annual salary statement for loans and visas. Someone who left in October still gets their certificate after the year closes, by 15 June, not at F&F.