FAST-DS 2026 closes on 31 December 2026, and for most people reading this the difference between Category A and Category B is the difference between a ₹1 lakh fee and a 60% effective tax charge.
Last verified: 5 September 2026 · Applies to: foreign assets and income held as at 31 March 2026
Contents
- What FAST-DS 2026 is, and the date that matters
- Who the government says it is for
- Category A and Category B: the whole decision
- Illustrative examples: the RSU holder and the brokerage account
- What you get in return
- Valuation is taken at 31 March 2026
- What is not yet settled
- Working to a 31 December deadline from abroad
- Frequently asked questions
- How BVACA can help
What FAST-DS 2026 is, and the date that matters {#what-fast-ds-is}
FAST-DS stands for the Foreign Assets of Small Taxpayers – Disclosure Scheme. It was notified on 15 August 2026, took effect on 16 August 2026, and the rules were notified on 1 September 2026 by Notification 114/2026.
The window closes on 31 December 2026. That is a little under four months from the date this note was written, and it falls in the same fortnight as the belated and revised return deadline for FY 2025-26, which means the compliance queue in December will be long.
The scheme is a limited amnesty. It lets a person who has foreign assets or foreign income that was never reported in an Indian return come forward, pay a defined amount, and obtain immunity from penalty and prosecution under the Black Money Act. It is not a general tax amnesty and it is not open-ended.
Who the government says it is for {#who-it-is-for}
This is worth stating plainly, because a great many people assume a foreign-asset scheme is aimed at someone with an offshore trust. The scheme's own framing names four groups:
- students who opened a bank or brokerage account while studying abroad and kept it
- young professionals who worked overseas for a few years
- tech employees holding foreign shares, RSUs or ESPP stock from a parent or former employer
- relocated NRIs, people who spent years abroad and have since returned to India
If you moved back to Gurugram, Bengaluru, Mohali or Chandigarh from the US, the UK, Canada, the UAE or Australia in the last few years and still hold a 401(k)-adjacent brokerage account, an ISA, a TFSA, a UAE bank balance or vested employer shares, and you have not reported those in Schedule FA (Foreign Assets) of your Indian return, you are inside the target group. It is a reporting failure far more often than an evasion scheme, which is precisely why a scheme with a modest Category B fee exists.
Category A and Category B: the whole decision {#category-a-and-b}
Everything else in this article is detail. This is the decision.
| Category A | Category B | |
|---|---|---|
| Who it covers | Foreign assets or foreign income never disclosed | Assets acquired while you were non-resident, or already taxed but not reported |
| Ceiling | ₹1 crore | ₹5 crore |
| What you pay | 30% tax plus an equal additional amount, so 60% effective | A fee of ₹1 lakh |
| Typical fact pattern | An account opened and funded while you were resident in India, never reported | RSUs vested while you were on a US or UK payroll; a savings account opened while you lived in Dubai |
Read the Category B description again, because it does most of the work. "Acquired while non-resident" is the test that moves a returning NRI from a 60% charge to a flat ₹1 lakh fee. So is "already taxed but unreported": if the income was offered to tax somewhere and the failure is purely one of Indian disclosure, that is Category B territory rather than Category A.
The practical consequence is that establishing when each asset was acquired, and what your Indian residential status was in that year, is the single most valuable piece of preparation you can do. That is a factual exercise: joining dates, visa stamps, entry and exit dates, vesting schedules, account opening records. Where the year is borderline, the section 6 day-count tests that decide your residential status determine which category the asset falls into.
Where the value exceeds the ceiling, the scheme is not available for that asset. The disclosure then routes through the ordinary Black Money Act mechanism, which carries the standard 30% tax + 90% penalty + prosecution exposure — precisely what the scheme was meant to avoid. That is why establishing the FMV at 31 March 2026 carefully matters: an asset valued just over ₹1 crore that is squeezed under the Category A cap with better contemporaneous evidence can save 60 percentage points.
The base for the Category A 30% + equal additional amount is the fair market value of the undisclosed asset, not the undisclosed income. Some readings of the scheme in circulation confuse the two — for a foreign brokerage account, this means the market value of the holdings at 31 March 2026, not the annual dividends or capital gains that were never reported.
Illustrative examples: the RSU holder and the brokerage account {#illustrative-examples}
Illustrative example 1: the returning tech employee. An engineer worked in Seattle from 2018 to 2023 on a US payroll, non-resident in India throughout. RSUs vested across those years and were taxed in the US. She moved back to India in 2023, kept the brokerage account, and has filed Indian returns since without reporting the holding. The rupee equivalent of the fair market value at 31 March 2026 is ₹1.8 crore.
The assets were acquired while she was non-resident, so this is Category B. The value is below the ₹5 crore ceiling. Cost of disclosure: a ₹1 lakh fee.
Illustrative example 2: the resident who opened an offshore account. A Panchkula-based professional, resident in India throughout, remitted savings abroad and bought shares through a foreign broker. Nothing was ever disclosed. The value is ₹60 lakh.
These are never-disclosed foreign assets acquired while resident, so this is Category A, within the ₹1 crore ceiling. On a ₹60 lakh base that is 30% (₹18,00,000) plus an equal additional amount (₹18,00,000), a total of ₹36,00,000, the 60% effective charge.
Two people, similar sums, very different outcomes, and the only variable that matters is residential status at acquisition. Figures are illustrative and rounded.
What you get in return {#what-you-get}
The consideration for paying is immunity from penalty and prosecution under the Black Money Act. That is the point of the scheme. Black Money Act consequences for undisclosed foreign assets are of a different order from ordinary income-tax penalties, and prosecution exposure is the reason most people in this position have not simply filed a revised return and moved on.
A related relief sits alongside the scheme: prosecution immunity under section 42 of the Black Money Act for non-immovable foreign assets valued under ₹20 lakh in aggregate. That is a permanent statutory carve-out — it does not depend on the FAST-DS window — and it is the reason a small forgotten Dubai savings account is not the same category of problem as a large brokerage holding.
Valuation is taken at 31 March 2026 {#valuation}
Fair market value is taken as at 31 March 2026. This is fixed and it is helpful, because it removes the argument about which date to use and it means market movements after March 2026 do not change your disclosure figure.
What it does require is a valuation trail as at that date: broker statements, bank statements, fund NAVs and, for anything denominated in a foreign currency, the conversion into rupees. Foreign institutions are frequently slow to produce historical statements for a closed or dormant account, and a request made in November for a March statement can easily take four weeks. That is the practical reason to start now rather than in December.
The mechanics under Notification 114/2026: the declaration is filed on Form 1, electronically through the income tax e-filing portal, and the Category A tax + additional amount (or Category B fee) is payable within 30 days of the declaration being filed. The declaration is not effective until payment is made, so timing the filing to leave a clear runway for the payment matters at the December end of the window.
What is not yet settled {#not-yet-settled}
Three points are worth flagging honestly rather than glossed over, because getting them wrong is expensive:
- Borderline valuations at the ₹1 crore Category A ceiling. A holding valued just above ₹1 crore drops out of the scheme entirely and back into the ordinary Black Money Act regime — a 60-percentage-point cliff. Contemporaneous FMV evidence at 31 March 2026 is the file that saves you or costs you.
- Multi-asset aggregation questions. Whether a family of related holdings (a brokerage account plus its linked cash sweep, or a taxable US brokerage plus a 401(k)) is aggregated for the ceiling test needs a case-by-case view against the notified rules.
- Residential-status boundary cases. Whether you were non-resident in the year of acquisition (moving from Category A to Category B, a difference of ₹35 lakh on a ₹60 lakh disclosure) rests on the section 6 day-count and the s.6(5) 120-day-limb tests. Reconstruct your travel record before the filing rather than during it.
Working to a 31 December deadline from abroad {#working-to-the-deadline}
If you are still overseas, or you have returned to India but your records sit with a foreign bank or a former employer's stock plan administrator, plan on this sequence:
| Step | What it involves | Realistic lead time |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Asset inventory | Every foreign account, holding, pension and share plan, with opening dates | 1 to 2 weeks |
| 2. Residential status by year | Day counts and status for each year an asset was acquired | 1 week, longer if travel records are incomplete |
| 3. Statements as at 31 March 2026 | Requests to foreign banks, brokers and plan administrators | 2 to 4 weeks, often the bottleneck |
| 4. Category determination | Asset by asset, Category A or Category B | Days |
| 5. Declaration and payment | Prepare, file and pay before the window closes | Days, subject to the notified rules |
Working backwards from 31 December 2026, step 3 needs to be in motion by early November at the latest. Time zones cut both ways here: an email to a US broker sent from India at the end of the working day lands at the start of theirs, which is useful, but a document chain that needs three rounds of clarification burns a fortnight regardless.
The window closes on 31 December 2026. There is no indication of an extension, and a scheme deadline is not the same thing as a return deadline that gets pushed.
Frequently asked questions {#frequently-asked-questions}
What is the deadline for FAST-DS 2026?
31 December 2026. The scheme was notified on 15 August 2026, took effect on 16 August 2026, and its rules were notified on 1 September 2026 by Notification 114/2026. Fair market value for the disclosure is taken as at 31 March 2026.
I held RSUs that vested while I was working in the US. Which category am I in?
Assets acquired while you were non-resident fall in Category B, which carries a ₹1 lakh fee up to ₹5 crore rather than the 60% effective charge in Category A. The evidence that matters is your residential status in the year each tranche vested, so keep vesting schedules and travel records together.
What is the difference in cost between Category A and Category B?
Category A covers never-disclosed foreign assets or income up to ₹1 crore and costs 30% tax plus an equal additional amount, a 60% effective charge. Category B covers assets acquired while non-resident, or already taxed but unreported, up to ₹5 crore, and costs a ₹1 lakh fee. On a ₹60 lakh disclosure that is ₹36 lakh against ₹1 lakh.
Does the scheme protect me from prosecution?
It provides immunity from penalty and prosecution under the Black Money Act for what is disclosed under it. That immunity is the substantive benefit of the scheme, and it is why the exercise is worth doing properly rather than partially.
I have already paid tax abroad on this income. Do I still need to disclose?
Possibly yes. The Indian obligation is a reporting obligation as well as a tax one, and "already taxed but unreported" is expressly one of the fact patterns that Category B covers. Having paid tax overseas does not by itself cure a failure to report the asset in your Indian return.
How BVACA can help {#how-bvaca-can-help}
Bachhal Vijender & Associates works on the India side of these disclosures: building the asset inventory, reconstructing residential status year by year under section 6, sorting each holding into Category A or Category B on the evidence, and preparing the declaration and computation for filing before the window closes. Where you have a tax adviser or attorney in the US, UK, Canada, the UAE or Australia, we act as the India-side partner and work to their file rather than duplicating it. We do not file overseas returns.
Most of this runs remotely. Documents come by email or a shared folder, calls are scheduled to your evening rather than ours, and nothing about the process requires you to be in Panchkula.
The scheme closes on 31 December 2026. If you think you may be in scope, the useful step this month is the asset inventory and the residential-status reconstruction, because those determine the category and everything else follows from it. See our cross-border tax consultancy and disclosure support, our NRI and returning-resident return filing work, or the wider NRI and cross-border services page. If the disclosure will be followed by moving money, see also repatriating funds out of India.
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Author box: CA Vijender Singh Bachhal, Managing Partner, Bachhal Vijender & Associates (FRN 028355N), Panchkula. About the firm
Disclaimer: This article is general information current as at 5 September 2026, not advice for a specific situation. Tax and corporate law in India changed materially on 1 April 2026; verify the position before acting. Illustrative examples are not client matters.
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