Late filing fee and interest calculator
Filed after the due date, or about to? This works out the section 234F fee and the section 234A interest, and tells you what filing late costs beyond the money.
You can still claim your refund on a belated return
Missing the deadline does not forfeit money you are owed. If your TDS exceeded your liability, the excess is still repayable and a belated return is how you claim it. A salaried person with several TDS deductions is frequently owed far more than the fee costs — so writing the year off is usually the expensive choice.
Your figures
Interest is charged on tax still unpaid. Where TDS already covers your liability, or a refund is due, there is no interest — only the fee.
The three costs of filing late
The section 234F fee is fixed: ₹5,000, reduced to ₹1,000 where total income does not exceed ₹5,00,000. It is a fee rather than a penalty, so it applies automatically with no proceedings and is very hard to contest.
Section 234A interest runs at 1% per month, or part of a month, on tax still unpaid. It grows every month you wait.
Loss of carry-forward is the invisible one and it is permanent. Capital and business losses can be carried forward for eight years — but only from a return filed by the original due date. File belatedly and they are gone, even though the return is accepted normally. Nobody tells you at the time; it surfaces years later when you have a gain and nothing to set against it.
A worked example
Total income ₹8,00,000, ₹50,000 of tax still unpaid, three months late: a ₹5,000 fee plus ₹1,500 of interest, so ₹6,500 in total — and no carry-forward of losses for that year.
Belated returns are still open until 31 December
Send your documents and we will tell you what you owe, or what you are owed, before anything is filed.
- Section 234F — ₹5,000, reduced to ₹1,000 where total income is within ₹5,00,000. Verified 1 September 2026.
- Section 234A — 1% per month or part month on unpaid tax from the due date. Verified 1 September 2026.