A DTAA existing between India and your country of residence doesn't automatically get you the lower treaty rate on dividends, interest, rent, or fees for services sourced in India. The payer — a bank, a tenant, an Indian company paying a consulting invoice — has to have documentary proof in hand before they deduct tax, or they default to the higher domestic rate under the Income-tax Act. That proof is a combination of two documents: a Tax Residency Certificate (TRC) from your country of residence, and a supplementary declaration on the Indian e-filing portal, historically called Form 10F. Under the Income-tax Act, 2025, now governing FY2026-27 onward, that declaration is renumbered Form 41, filed under Section 159(8) read with Rule 75 of the Income-tax Rules, 2026 — the mechanics are the same in substance, but don't be surprised if the form name in your CA's checklist has changed from what it was last year.
Why the TRC by itself stopped being enough
For a period after DTAA relief provisions were first written, a TRC alone was treated as sufficient proof of treaty eligibility. A 2013 amendment changed that: it added a requirement that non-residents furnish additional prescribed information if the TRC itself didn't already contain it — country of residence, taxpayer identification number, period of residency, and a few other specifics that a foreign tax authority's TRC template often omits. Form 10F was introduced to capture exactly that gap-filling information. Under the new Form 41 regime, that logic has actually tightened further: rather than being required only when the TRC is missing details, the declaration is now mandatory in every case where treaty benefits are claimed, regardless of how complete the TRC already is.
Getting the TRC itself
The TRC has to come from the tax authority of your actual country of residence — the IRS issues Form 6166 for US tax residents requesting one, and HMRC has its own certificate process for UK residents; most jurisdictions with a functioning tax administration have an equivalent. It typically needs to be renewed for each relevant tax year rather than treated as a one-time document. (The reverse case — an Indian resident who needs a TRC to claim relief in a foreign country — goes through a different route domestically, applying to the jurisdictional Assessing Officer using Form 10FA and receiving Form 10FB; that's a separate process from what an NRI claiming Indian-side treaty relief needs.)
What the declaration actually asks for
Beyond the TRC, the Form 10F/Form 41 declaration collects a defined set of details the Indian tax administration wants on record independent of what the TRC template happens to include.
- Status of the assessee — individual, company, firm, or other category
- Nationality, or country/place of incorporation for a non-individual
- Tax identification number in the country of residence, or a unique identification number if no TIN exists there
- The specific period for which the TRC's residential status applies
- Address in the country of residence during that period
Skip it, and the cost shows up as a refund claim, not a rate cut
Filing has been fully electronic since October 2023, including for non-residents without an Indian PAN — the e-filing portal has a dedicated registration category for 'non-residents not holding and not required to have PAN,' so lack of a PAN isn't a reason to skip this step. If the TRC and declaration aren't on file with the payer before the payment is made, the payer has no choice but to withhold at the higher default domestic rate rather than the treaty rate — this shows up often with rent paid to NRI landlords and interest or dividend payments. Getting that difference back afterward means claiming a refund through your Indian income tax return rather than simply asking the payer to correct it retroactively, which is a slower and more paperwork-heavy path than filing the TRC and Form 10F/Form 41 before the money moves in the first place.