Form 16 in Excel Format for FY 2025-26: How to Download, Fill & Verify Before Filing ITR

Introduction

Every year around this time, the same message lands in a thousand WhatsApp groups: "Bhai, Form 16 aaya kya?" For salaried employees, Form 16 is the single most important document that stands between them and a smooth, error-free income tax return. Yet a surprising number of people - employees and small employers alike - still find the Excel version of Form 16 confusing. Where do you download it from? What goes into Part A versus Part B? And once you have it, how do you actually check that the numbers are correct before you file?

This guide walks through all of it, step by step, specifically for FY 2025-26 (Assessment Year 2026-27) - from downloading Part A off the TRACES portal, to preparing Part B in an Excel workbook, to verifying every figure against Form 26AS and AIS before you trust it with your ITR.

If you want the legal and structural side of things first - what changed under the new Income Tax Act, 2025, and the section-reference updates that now apply to Form 16 - our earlier post, Form 16 for FY 2025-26: Changes Under Income Tax Act 2025, covers that in detail. This post is the practical, hands-on companion to it.

What Is Form 16, and Why Does the Excel Format Matter?

Form 16 is the annual TDS certificate an employer issues to every employee from whose salary tax was deducted during the financial year. It proves to the Income Tax Department that tax was actually deducted and deposited against your PAN, and it gives you a ready reference for filling your ITR.

Form 16 has two parts, and they don't come from the same place:

• Part A is generated and digitally signed by the TRACES portal. It shows the employer's TAN, your PAN, the quarterly TDS deducted, and challan details. Nobody edits this manually - it's pulled directly from the TDS returns (Form 24Q) the employer has filed.
• Part B is prepared by the employer, usually in Excel, and contains the actual salary breakup: basic pay, HRA, special allowances, perquisites, deductions under Chapter VI-A (80C, 80D, and so on), and the final tax computation.

So why Excel specifically? Because Part B has to be built from payroll data, and Excel remains the most practical, transparent way to do that - especially for small and mid-sized employers who don't run a full payroll suite.

An Excel-based Form 16 workbook lets you plug in each employee's salary components once and have exemptions, deductions, and net tax auto-calculate through formulas, instead of computing everything by hand for every employee.

For employees, the Excel format also matters for a different reason: once you understand how the sheet is structured, it becomes much easier to trace exactly where each number in your Form 16 came from - which is the first step to catching an error before it becomes a mismatch notice from the tax department.

Who Needs This: Employers vs. Employees

This guide is useful for two different readers, so it's worth being clear about which sections apply to you:

• Employers / HR and payroll teams need to download Part A from TRACES, build Part B in Excel for every employee, merge the two, sign it digitally, and distribute it - all before the statutory deadline.
• Salaried employees mainly need to know how to read the Excel/PDF they receive, cross-check it against their salary slips and Form 26AS, and flag errors before filing their return.

Step 1: Downloading Form 16 Part A from TRACES

Part A cannot be created independently - it has to come from the TRACES portal, and only after the employer's TDS returns are properly filed. Here's the sequence:

1. Confirm all four quarters of Form 24Q are filed. Part A for FY 2025-26 won't generate correctly unless Q1 (Apr–Jun), Q2 (Jul–Sep), Q3 (Oct–Dec), and Q4 (Jan–Mar 2026) have all been filed and processed without pending corrections.
2. Log in to TRACES as the deductor using your TAN credentials.
3. Navigate to Downloads > Form 16, select Financial Year 2025-26, and choose "Salary" as the type.
4. Validate the request using either your Digital Signature Certificate or Normal KYC - the latter requires you to re-enter challan details (BSR code, challan amount, CIN, token number) exactly as filed in your 24Q. Even a small mismatch here gets the request rejected.
5. Wait for processing. TRACES typically takes 24–48 hours to prepare the file and will notify you by email once it's ready.
6. Download the ZIP file. It contains individual, digitally signed Part A PDFs for each employee, based on their PAN.

One rule worth repeating: never edit Part A manually, even if you spot an error. If something looks wrong - a wrong PAN, an incorrect TDS figure - the fix has to happen at the source, through a correction statement in the relevant quarter's TDS return, and then Part A has to be regenerated from TRACES.

Step 2: Preparing Form 16 Part B in Excel

This is where most of the actual work happens. A well-built Part B workbook for FY 2025-26 typically has the following sections, and the field names below map directly to what you'll see on the actual form:

A practical way to build this in Excel: use one row per employee with columns for each salary component, and let formulas calculate exemptions, taxable income, and the final tax liability automatically. This is especially useful when you're preparing Form 16 for multiple employees at once - the same template scales whether you're doing it for 5 employees or 50, as long as your column structure stays consistent.

A few things to get right while building Part B:

• The certificate number generated on Part A must be carried into Part B - the two need to reference the same certificate.
• Run both an old regime and new regime calculation side by side wherever relevant, so the correct figure gets used based on the regime the employee has opted for.
• Double-check that total TDS shown in Part B matches Part A exactly - this single mismatch is the most common reason employees get confused during filing.
• If you're issuing Form 16 for someone who left mid-year, don't skip them - Form 16 is owed to anyone who was on payroll for even part of FY 2025-26.

Once Part A and Part B are both ready, they're merged into a single certificate - most TDS software has a built-in utility for this - and the final PDF is signed, ideally with a Digital Signature Certificate, before distribution.

Step 3: Verifying Form 16 Before You File Your ITR

Whether you built the Excel yourself or received a finished Form 16 from your employer, don't file your return until you've checked it against these three things:

1. Match it against Form 26AS

Form 26AS shows the TDS actually deposited against your PAN, as reported by your employer (and any other deductor). The TDS figure in your Form 16 should match this exactly, quarter for quarter. If it doesn't, your employer likely has a pending correction on their TDS return.

2. Cross-check with AIS

The Annual Information Statement goes a step further than 26AS and pulls in a broader picture of your income and TDS from various sources. It's worth reviewing this alongside Form 16 to make sure nothing is missing or duplicated. We've covered the full process in How to Use AIS to Cross-Check Your ITR Before Filing for AY 2026-27.

3. Reconcile with your salary slips

Add up your monthly gross salary from your payslips for FY 2025-26 and compare it to the gross salary figure in Part B. Also verify that any deductions you actually claimed - 80C investments, health insurance premiums, NPS contributions - are correctly reflected, especially if you submitted proof late in the year.

Common Errors Worth Watching For

• PAN typos - even one incorrect digit means the TDS won't reflect against your name in the system
• Wrong tax regime applied when computing tax in Part B
• HRA exemption calculated on outdated basic pay or rent figures
• Missing TDS from a previous employer, if you switched jobs during the year
• Certificate number mismatch between Part A and Part B

If you spot a discrepancy, don't try to "fix" the PDF yourself - go back to your employer's payroll or HR team and ask them to issue a correction. Trying to file a return with mismatched figures is one of the most common reasons people receive a notice later.

Choosing the Right ITR Form Once Form 16 Is Verified

Once your Form 16 is confirmed accurate, the next decision is which ITR form applies to you - salaried individuals with only salary and simple other-source income usually fall under ITR-1 or ITR-2, but it depends on your specific situation.

Our detailed breakdown, ITR Form Selection Guide for AY 2026-27, walks through eligibility for each form under the new Income Tax Act, 2025 framework.

It's also worth revisiting whether the old or new tax regime works out better for you this year, since the numbers can shift depending on your deductions and salary structure - our comparison in Old vs New Tax Regime: Which Option Is Better can help you decide before you finalise your ITR.

Why Employers Should Move Beyond Manual Excel Workbooks

Excel is a perfectly reasonable way to prepare Form 16 for a handful of employees, but the moment headcount grows, manual workbooks start showing cracks - inconsistent formulas across sheets, version-control confusion when multiple people edit the file, and hours lost reconciling Part A downloads against Part B calculations one employee at a time.

This is exactly the gap TDS software is built to close. CompuTds automates Part A download, Part B preparation, and certificate merging in one workflow, while CompuOffice extends this into a complete practice management setup for CA firms and payroll teams handling multiple clients or a large employee base.

If your organisation is still stitching together Form 16 by hand every June, it's worth seeing how much of this can be automated.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the last date to issue Form 16 for FY 2025-26?

Employers must issue Form 16 to employees by June 15, 2026, which is 15 days after the Form 24Q Q4 filing deadline of May 31. Delayed issuance can attract a penalty of ₹100 per day per employee under the Income Tax Act.

Can I download Form 16 Excel format directly from the income tax portal?

No. Employees cannot download Form 16 themselves - it must be issued by the employer. Only the employer, acting as deductor, can download Part A from the TRACES portal; Part B is prepared separately and given to you along with Part A.

What should I do if my Form 16 has an error?

Report it to your employer's payroll or HR team immediately. If the error is in Part A, it requires a correction statement to the relevant quarter's TDS return, followed by a fresh download from TRACES. Errors in Part B can usually be corrected and reissued directly by the employer.

Is Form 16 mandatory for filing ITR?

Form 16 isn't legally mandatory to file an ITR - you can file using payslips, Form 26AS, and AIS - but it makes the process significantly easier and less error-prone, since it consolidates salary and TDS details in one place.

Will Form 16 be renamed under the Income Tax Act, 2025?

From FY 2026-27 onward, the certificate is set to be referred to as Form 130 under the new Income Tax Act, 2025 numbering. For salary paid during FY 2025-26, however, it continues to be issued and referred to as Form 16.

Disclaimer

This article is for informational purposes only. Compliance requirements, due dates, and regulatory provisions are subject to change based on government notifications. Please verify all deadlines and filing requirements on the relevant official portals before acting.