Income Tax Return 2025: What is the last date to file ITR?

This year, the tax department was a bit slow in notifying all ITR forms, and that is understandable as there were some notable changes that had to be made in these ITR forms (Forms 1–7) to align with modifications and amendments in tax laws and provisions announced in the budget last year.

ITR Filing Deadline 2025: The most common question taxpayers have on their minds every year during the tax filing season is: what is the last date to file ITR? This is because the taxpayers usually get only 30–45 days in reality to comply with their tax return filing responsibilities, even though the new financial year starts on April 1 and the income tax department notifies necessary ITR forms in the very first month of the financial year and subsequently releases the online and offline utilities of these forms to facilitate tax return filing.

Delay in utilities and TDS update makes early filing difficult

This year, the tax department was a bit slow in notifying all ITR forms, and that is understandable as some notable changes had to be made in these ITR forms (Forms 1–7) to align with modifications and amendments in tax laws and provisions announced in the budget last year. However, the government is yet to update utilities to help taxpayers file ITR online on the income tax department’s e-filing portal.

And even if the tax department updates utilities now, which will anyway happen soon, probably in a week or so, another issue taxpayers face is that TDS deducted for the last quarter of the financial year for an individual or entity gets updated in Form 26AS by May 31 after the income tax department processes it. So if someone wants to file a tax return for the last financial year, he or she might not have complete TDS deducted data for the entire financial year since the last quarter TDS gets processed in May-end.

The other thing with salaried taxpayers is that they get Form 16 from their employers after 15 days of the TDS being processed and started reflecting in Form 26AS. So, in a way, if a salaried individual wants to file ITR, he has to wait for June 15 or after for the release of Form 16 by his or her employer. Though, it is not necessary to have Form 16 to file an ITR, and it can be done with the help of Form 26AS and other documents.

Will the ITR deadline be extended this year too?

Amidst all this, like previous years, the million-dollar question is: will the income tax department extend the ITR filing deadline after July 31? The answer is uncertain at this point, as the government in the past has extended the deadline on some occasions. But those extensions were due to technical glitches tax return filers faced or some other extraordinary circumstances like what we saw during the Covid-19 pandemic.

But under normal circumstances, the Income Tax department has never extended the deadline in the past, so chances are that they might not do it this time also. We asked this question to a couple of experts too. Here’s what they have to say:

According to CA (Dr.) Surana, historically, the income tax department has taken such calls closer to the due date, and only under specific circumstances.

“Extensions in previous years have been granted only in limited situations such as widespread technical disruptions on the e-filing portal, significant delays in the release of Form 16 or Annual Information Statements (AIS), or exceptional events like natural calamities or public health emergencies,” he emphasised.

As of yet, no such extraordinary circumstances have emerged that would justify a revision of the filing timeline, he said.

Abhishek Mundada, Partner, Dhruva Advisors, says that since the due date for filing ITR is 31st July, there is adequate time for timely compliance.

So, it has to be seen how soon the government releases the online utilities for filing tax returns and also how smooth the tax return filing is this year. So if everything runs well, and no technical glitches are reported, and there are no unusual circumstances, then probably the July 31 will remain the deadline for ITR filing in non-audit cases.

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