Claiming DTAA relief and actually receiving it are two different things. The relief itself — credit for tax you've already paid abroad, set off against your Indian tax on the same income — is a substantive right under India's tax treaties and domestic law. But the Income Tax Department doesn't scan your foreign tax documents and apply it for you. You have to file Form 67, under Rule 128 of the Income-tax Rules, and you have to file it in a specific way, within a specific window, or the credit gets stuck.
Form 67 matters most to people who don't fit the simple 'NRI' or 'resident' boxes cleanly in a given year: someone who moved back to India mid-year and still has US-sourced income taxed there, a resident Indian with foreign investment income subject to withholding abroad, or an RNOR with a foreign consulting contract. If you're a resident (ordinarily or not) reporting foreign-source income that India also taxes, and tax was already withheld or paid on it overseas, Form 67 is how you get credit for that overseas payment against what you owe India — separate and distinct from Form 15CA/15CB, which governs money leaving India, not credit for tax already paid on income earned abroad.
What actually goes into the form
Form 67 isn't a bare declaration — it requires supporting detail, and the tax department can and does query claims that don't have it. Rule 128(8) sets out what counts as acceptable proof of foreign tax paid.
- A statement of the foreign income and the foreign tax deducted or paid on it, in the format Form 67 itself specifies
- Proof of payment — a certificate or statement from the foreign tax authority, the foreign payer (for tax deducted at source abroad), or a self-certified statement of the foreign return along with proof of payment/deduction, where the deducting authority's certificate isn't available
- Currency conversion at the Telegraphic Transfer buying rate as on the last day of the month immediately preceding the month in which the foreign tax was paid or deducted — not the date of the Indian tax filing
The deadline that trips people up
Rule 128(9) gives you until the end of the relevant assessment year to file Form 67, provided your return itself was filed on time under Section 139(1) or as a belated return under 139(4) — for FY2025-26/AY2026-27, that technically means you have until 31 December 2026, well after the ITR filing deadline itself. If you're filing an updated return under Section 139(8A), Form 67 needs to accompany that filing instead.
In practice, most tax practitioners don't rely on that longer window. The return-processing system cross-checks Form 67 against the credit claimed in the ITR, and filing it well before or alongside your return avoids a mismatch notice that then has to be resolved after the fact. Treat 'end of assessment year' as the outer legal limit, not the target date.
What happens if you miss it anyway
A late Form 67 is not automatically fatal, and this is worth knowing before you assume a missed window means a lost credit. Multiple ITAT benches — Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Indore — have held that Rule 128(9)'s timeline is directory rather than mandatory, on the reasoning that foreign tax credit is a substantive right under the treaty relief provisions, and a procedural rule can't extinguish a right the underlying section grants. Rule 128 itself, unlike some other provisions in the Act, doesn't contain express language disallowing the credit for a late filing.
That case law is real, but it's relief you get on appeal, not a default outcome. The CPC's automated processing will typically deny or flag the credit first if Form 67 wasn't on record when the return was processed, leaving you to file a rectification request or, if that fails, go through appellate channels citing this line of rulings. It's an available remedy, not a substitute for filing on time.
The credit itself has limits
Even a correctly and timely filed Form 67 doesn't hand back a rupee-for-rupee refund of foreign tax paid. The credit is capped at the lower of the foreign tax rate or the Indian tax rate applicable to that specific income, computed country-by-country and income-by-income, and it applies only against Indian income tax, surcharge, and cess — not against interest, fees, or penalties charged under Indian law. Foreign tax that's currently under dispute abroad isn't creditable until that dispute is resolved and the tax is actually paid.
One more thing worth flagging given how much else has shifted: under the Income-tax Act, 2025, now in force from FY2026-27, the underlying double-taxation relief provisions move from the old Sections 90, 90A, and 91 to new Sections 159 and 160, and Form 67 itself is being succeeded by Form 44 under Rule 76 of the Income-tax Rules, 2026. For the current filing season covering income earned before 1 April 2026, Form 67 and Rule 128 remain the operative mechanics — but don't assume the form number stays the same next year.