A common assumption among NRIs is that because most Indian-source income -- bank interest, rent, mutual fund payouts, property sale proceeds -- already has tax withheld at source, there's nothing left to pay. That's often close to true, but 'close' is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Advance tax is a separate, independent obligation that sits underneath the TDS system, and it applies to non-residents on exactly the same terms as residents, with one notable exception that cuts against NRIs rather than for them.
When the obligation kicks in
Under the Income-tax Act, 1961, the liability to pay advance tax was set out in Sections 207 and 208; under the Income-tax Act, 2025, in force from 1 April 2026, the equivalent provisions are Sections 403 and 404. The trigger hasn't changed with the renumbering: any taxpayer -- resident or non-resident -- whose estimated tax liability for the year, net of TDS already deducted, is Rs 10,000 or more must pay advance tax during the year rather than settling the full amount when filing the return.
For NRIs this most often gets triggered by income that either isn't subject to TDS at all or is under-withheld relative to actual liability: capital gains on listed securities held outside a TDS-triggering redemption, rental income where a tenant deducted TDS at a lower certificate-based rate but the NRI's actual liability turned out higher, or any year with a large one-off capital gain -- such as an unlisted asset or foreign-currency conversion gain -- that no payer withheld against at all.
No senior-citizen exemption for NRIs
Resident individuals aged 60 or above with no business or professional income are exempt from paying advance tax entirely -- they can settle their full liability at return-filing time without interest exposure. That carve-out, under old Section 207(2) and its 2025 Act equivalent, is written explicitly for resident senior citizens. A non-resident senior citizen with substantial NRO interest, rental income, or capital gains gets no such relief regardless of age; the ordinary advance tax schedule and interest rules apply in full.
Due dates and the cost of missing them
The instalment schedule is the same four dates used across the tax system: 15 June, 15 September, 15 December, and 15 March, by which cumulative payments of 15%, 45%, 75%, and 100% of the estimated annual liability are due. Missing or underpaying an instalment triggers interest under what were Sections 234B and 234C of the 1961 Act -- now Sections 424 and 425 of the Income-tax Act, 2025 -- generally at 1% per month (or part of a month) on the shortfall, calculated from the due date of each missed instalment through to actual payment or assessment. A full failure to pay advance tax where it was owed compounds this across multiple instalments, since each missed deadline accrues its own interest run.
In practice, the safest approach for an NRI with a mix of TDS-covered and non-TDS income is to run a rough estimate each quarter -- total expected Indian-source income for the year, tax at applicable rates (including DTAA relief where a valid TRC is on file), less TDS already withheld or expected -- and pay the shortfall against each instalment date rather than waiting to true it all up in the return. Capital gains realised late in the year (say, a property sale in February) get some relief here: tax on income that genuinely couldn't have been anticipated earlier in the year is generally not penalised for the instalments that had already passed, provided it's paid with the next instalment falling due.