This calculator does not price a sale where the seller is a non-resident: withholding on a non-resident's sale follows different rules, which the Income Tax Department pages verified for this article do not set out, so this page does not state them. What is verified is the tax on the gain itself. That rate is 12.5% without indexation for a property held at least 24 months, before surcharge and cess. Determining who even counts as a non-resident seller, and what happens to the money afterward, both rest on rules this page's mechanics don't otherwise cover.
How to tell if your seller counts as "resident" for this calculator
The calculator asks you to pick resident or NRI, and that choice is a tax-residency test, not a citizenship or passport question. The Income Tax Department's own AY 2026-27 guidance defines a non-resident individual by failing the residency test under Section 6 — broadly, presence in India of fewer than 182 days in the financial year, with a fewer-than-60-days sub-test that carries its own exceptions for certain citizens and persons of Indian origin earning over ₹15 lakh. An Indian citizen who has lived abroad for years and visits briefly can still fail this test and count as a resident seller for the year of sale; an NRI who has spent an extended stretch in India during that financial year can cross back into resident status. Ask the seller how many days they were actually in India during the financial year of the sale, not where they hold a passport, before picking an option on this calculator.
Where the seller's net proceeds go when the seller is a non-resident
For a non-resident seller the money trail is regulated too. An NRI or PIO seller's payment for the property, and afterward the sale proceeds net of TDS, must move through banking channels — credited to or debited from an NRE, FCNR(B) or NRO account, not handed over as cash or a traveller's cheque. Repatriating those net proceeds out of India is capped: no more than two such properties per seller, and remittance of the proceeds is restricted to one million US dollars per financial year for legacy or inherited property — a figure the source itself states in US dollars, kept in dollars here rather than converted to rupees, that a seller planning to move sale proceeds abroad needs to plan around well before the TDS deduction itself becomes the binding constraint.
What a non-resident seller's long-term gain is taxed at
For a long-term capital asset — one held 24 months or more, a holding period the July 2024 reform left unchanged — the tax rate on the gain is 12.5% without indexation, down from 20% with indexation before July 2024, before surcharge and health-and-education cess. A property held for less than 24 months produces a short-term gain taxed at the seller's slab rate instead. That split is why the calculator will not produce a single non-resident figure: the rate depends on facts about the seller's holding period and income that a purchase-price calculator does not have. How much the buyer must withhold from a non-resident, and whether the seller can obtain a lower-deduction certificate, should be confirmed with the Income Tax Department or a chartered accountant before the first payment.
From April 2026 the TDS statement changed: Form 26QB gives way to Form 141
For years the buyer reported this deduction on Form 26QB, which the Income Tax Department ties explicitly to Section 194-IA: “Form 26QB — TDS on purchase of immovable property (Section 194-IA)”. The same department states the deduction is required only where the transaction value exceeds ₹50 lakh.
The Income Tax Act, 2025 replaces that form. Form 141 is a single consolidated challan-cum-statement for tax deducted under section 393(1) of the new Act, replacing several earlier forms including 26QB. The transition rule is date-based: where the credit or payment happened on or before 31 March 2026, the old Act's forms continue to apply. A purchase that straddles the changeover — agreement and first instalment before April 2026, later instalments after — can therefore involve both forms. Check which one each payment date falls under before filing, and confirm the current deduction rate on the department's own pages at the time you pay.
Methodology
The residency test is read from the Income Tax Department's own AY 2026-27 help page. The 12.5%/24-month capital-gains figures are read from the official CBDT FAQ issued the day after the 2024 reform took effect. Payment-channel and repatriation rules are read from two separate, independently-worded RBI sources rather than one, since both state the one-million-US-dollar figure identically.
Sources
- Income Tax Department — Non-Resident Individual for AY 2026-27 (residency test) — accessed 2026-09-21
- Press Information Bureau / CBDT — FAQs on the new capital gains tax regime — accessed 2026-09-21
- Reserve Bank of India — Master Circular, Acquisition and Transfer of Immovable Property by NRIs/PIOs — accessed 2026-09-21
- Reserve Bank of India — FAQs, Purchase of Immovable Property — accessed 2026-09-21
- Income Tax Department — Form 141 (challan-cum-statement for TDS u/s 393(1)) — accessed 2026-09-21
- Income Tax Department — TDS compliance (Form 26QB, Section 194-IA) — accessed 2026-09-21