Who must file
Under section 166 you must file if your income for the year exceeds the tax-free limit, or you were assessed in any of the three preceding years, or you are a company, a shareholder director or shareholder employee of a company, a firm, a partner in a firm, an association of persons, an employee holding an executive or managerial post in a business, a public servant, or a non-resident with a permanent establishment in Bangladesh. You also file if you received income enjoying a tax exemption or a reduced rate, if you are registrable as a taxpayer under section 261, or if section 264 requires you to produce proof of return. Section 166(2) exempts a defined list: Bangla-medium primary, pre-primary and government secondary or higher secondary schools and MPO institutions without an English-version curriculum, public universities, Bangladesh Bank, BTRC, BSEC, local authorities and cantonment boards, non-commercial statutory bodies that run on government funds, orphanages and religious institutions, non-resident individuals with no permanent establishment here, funds, and anyone the Board exempts by gazette notification.
Tax year and deadline
The income year normally ends 30 June and the tax year runs the twelve months from the 1 July that follows. Do not look for a Tax Day deadline — since 1 July 2026 Tax Day means the National Tax Day, a public-awareness day, and carries no filing consequence. Instead section 170 puts an individual or Hindu undivided family on a sliding scale across the whole tax year: file between 1 July and 30 September and you get an incentive of 5% of the tax payable or Tk 25,000, whichever is lower; between 1 October and 31 December, nothing either way; between 1 January and 31 March you pay an extra 2% or Tk 3,000, whichever is higher; between 1 April and 30 June, an extra 5% or Tk 5,000, whichever is higher. Someone who has never filed before may file by the 30 June following the income year. Someone abroad on study leave, deputation or lien, or working on a valid visa and permit, files within 90 days of returning to Bangladesh. Every other taxpayer, companies included, has a hard deadline: the fifteenth day of the ninth month after the income year ends, or the following 15 September if that day would fall earlier — which for a 30 June year end means 15 March. Filing two months before that deadline earns the same 5% or Tk 25,000 incentive; filing after it but still inside the tax year costs 2% or Tk 25,000, whichever is higher. Public holidays roll to the next working day. NBR no longer has the power to extend the date by a month.
Filing step by step
- File on e-Return at etaxnbr.gov.bd. NBR launched the service for tax year 2026-27 on 22 July 2026 and online filing is mandatory for individual taxpayers, with paper left open only to taxpayers aged 65 or over, taxpayers with a disability certificate, Bangladeshis living abroad, legal representatives filing for someone who has died, and foreign nationals working in Bangladesh.
- Register on the portal with your e-TIN and the mobile number that is biometrically registered to your own NID, then sign in and pick the assessment year.
- Complete the return for self-assessment under section 180 — that is the default route for an individual under section 170A. Enter income heads, claim the investment rebate, and list assets and liabilities where the form requires it.
- Claim credit for tax already deducted or collected at source and attach the certificates. Since the Finance Act 2026 excess tax deducted at source is refundable rather than only adjustable, and an individual whose only income is salary, financial assets and agriculture gets an automated refund under section 170A(3) where the return shows one.
- Pay through the portal — bank transfer, debit or credit card, bKash, Nagad or Rocket, settled through a-chalan — then download the acknowledgement. Keep it: section 264 requires proof of return submission for a long list of services, and it is checked.
Penalties for filing or paying late
Under section 266(1) of the Income Tax Act, 2023, a Deputy Commissioner of Taxes may fine a person who fails without reasonable cause to file a required return 10% of the tax on the last assessed income, with a minimum of Tk 1,000 and a further Tk 50 for each day the failure continues. The fine is capped at Tk 5,000 for a person never assessed before, and at the higher of 50% of the last assessed tax or Tk 1,000 for a person assessed before. A return filed after the section 170 period counts as a late return under section 174: the taxpayer pays the tax due plus extra tax of 10% of the tax payable or Tk 5,000, whichever is higher. Section 271 allows a penalty of up to 25% of the tax for not paying the liability admitted in the return.