How Much to Save for Taxes as a Freelancer in India: A Monthly Number You Can Actually Use

A salaried friend never thinks about income tax. Their employer takes it out every month, and by March it's done.

You don't have that. A US client pays you the full invoice. An Indian client takes out some TDS, but rarely all of it. The rest is yours to pay as advance tax, in instalments, during the year. If you haven't put money aside, March arrives with a bill you weren't ready for.

So the real question for a freelancer isn't "what's my tax?" It's how much to save for taxes every month, so the money is there when each instalment falls due. This post turns that into one number, with the 2026-27 dates and a worked example.

Not legal or tax advice. A plain explainer for freelancers and solo founders. Your CA should check the numbers for your own situation.

The short version

• If your tax for the year, after TDS, is ₹10,000 or more, you pay advance tax.
• The usual schedule is four instalments: 15 June, 15 September, 15 December and 15 March.
• If you use presumptive taxation (50% of receipts treated as income), you can pay everything in one instalment by 15 March.
• Monthly saving = (estimated tax − TDS you'll get credit for) ÷ months left in the year.
• GST you collect is not your money. Keep it in a separate pot.

Today is 25 October 2026. The next instalment date is 15 December 2026. That's the one to plan for now.

What advance tax is, in one paragraph

Advance tax is your income tax for the year, paid during the year instead of after it. Since 1 April 2026 it sits in the Income-tax Act, 2025. The Income Tax Department's own transition FAQs say the dates and percentages haven't changed. Only the section numbers and the wording moved from "assessment year" to "tax year". Income you earn between 1 April 2026 and 31 March 2027 belongs to Tax Year 2026-27.

The rules that matter here:

TDS counts. The amount you owe as advance tax is your tax minus the TDS your Indian clients deduct. If you haven't read it yet, TDS for freelancers explains where that credit shows up.

The 2026-27 advance tax due dates

There's a small safety margin. Under Section 425(2), no interest applies for June if you'd paid at least 12% by then, or for September if you'd paid at least 36%.

One detail catches people out. The shortfall is measured against the tax on the income you finally file, not the estimate you made in June. If a big project lands in January, your earlier instalments were short in hindsight. The interest is small, but it's why a slightly high estimate is safer than a low one.

If you use presumptive taxation: one date, 15 March

Many freelancers file under presumptive taxation. Under the new Act it's Section 58. It used to be Section 44ADA. The Income Tax Department's FAQ on the scheme says:

• It's open to resident individuals in a specified profession. That covers law, medicine, engineering, architecture, accountancy, technical consultancy, interior decoration and IT, among others, plus any profession the CBDT notifies.
• Gross receipts must be ₹50 lakh or less. The limit goes up to ₹75 lakh if cash receipts are no more than 5% of the total.
• 50% of gross receipts is treated as your income, with no further deductions.
• You pay the entire advance tax by 15 March, and you can pay it in one go.

That last point changes how you save. You aren't working towards four dates. You're working towards one. That makes it easy to put off, and that's the risk. Pay nothing by 15 March and Section 425(3) charges 1% on the shortfall. If you paid less than 90% of your tax in advance, Section 424 also charges 1% for every month, or part of a month, until it's paid.

Whether your work counts as a "specified profession" isn't always obvious. A developer usually fits under IT. A graphic designer may not. Ask your CA before you build your plan around 15 March.

How to work out your monthly number

Four steps, about ten minutes, with your invoice list open.

1. 1.Estimate your receipts for the year. What you've been paid since 1 April, plus what you expect by 31 March. Count foreign payments in rupees at what actually landed in your bank. Your first foreign payment explains why the invoice rate, the bank rate and the income tax rate can all differ.
2. 2.Get the tax on that from your CA, or from the department's tax calculator. The slab maths changes with each Budget, so don't copy last year's number.
3. 3.Subtract the TDS your Indian clients have deducted or will deduct. Check it against Form 168.
4. 4.Divide what's left by the months until your next due date. That's your monthly number. Move it out of your main account the day each payment arrives.

If your income is lumpy, use a percentage instead. Divide the step 3 figure by your expected foreign receipts. Put that percentage of every foreign payment aside. TDS already covers part of the tax on your Indian payments.

Worked example: Rohan, a freelance developer in Ahmedabad

Rohan builds React front-ends. One US client pays him every month. Two Indian agencies send smaller projects and deduct TDS. It's late October 2026, and he hasn't paid any advance tax yet.

His receipts are under ₹50 lakh and his work falls under IT, so he can use Section 58. That's well above the ₹10,000 line, so advance tax applies.

If he uses presumptive taxation, the whole ₹60,000 is due by 15 March 2027. He has five months of income left: November to March. ₹60,000 ÷ 5 = ₹12,000 a month into a separate tax account. As a percentage, ₹60,000 is about 2.4% of his foreign receipts. He rounds up and keeps 3% of every US payment, which leaves a small buffer for a January surprise.

If he keeps regular books instead, he's on the four-date schedule, and he's already behind:

The ₹1,080 for June and September has already built up. He can't undo it. He can stop it growing: pay ₹45,000 before 15 December, and the remaining ₹15,000 by 15 March. Without that December payment, the shortfall then is ₹45,000, and another 3% (₹1,350) is added.

None of these interest figures will break anyone. The real cost of not saving is different: a ₹60,000 bill in March from an account that's already paid February's rent.

GST is a different pot

If you're GST-registered, the GST on your domestic invoices was never your money. You collect it for the government. It's paid with your GST return, on its own schedule, and it has nothing to do with advance tax.

Keep the two apart:

• Income tax pot: your monthly number from above.
• GST pot: the full GST amount on every domestic invoice, moved the day it's paid.
• Exports under an LUT carry no GST, so nothing goes into that pot for them. How to file an LUT covers that side.

Mix the two and the GST payment quietly eats your tax savings.

Paying it

Pay through e-Pay Tax on the income tax e-filing portal. Choose Tax Year 2026-27 for income earned from April 2026. The department's FAQs warn that payments for the year that ended in March 2026 go under AY 2026-27. The two labels look alike, and picking the wrong one puts the credit in the wrong year. Save the challan. Your CA will ask for it when filing your return.

A five-minute monthly habit

On the first of each month:

1. 1.Total what you were paid last month, in rupees.
2. 2.Move your percentage into the tax pot, and the GST into the GST pot.
3. 3.Check the next due date. It's 15 December 2026 for the four-instalment schedule, or 15 March 2027 for presumptive.
4. 4.Re-estimate the year once a quarter. If it's grown, raise the percentage.

Step 1 needs a clean list of who has paid you. Mavoin tracks every invoice's date and whether it's paid or still outstanding in ₹, for GST and export invoices alike, and exports the whole list as a CSV for your CA. ₹199/month, 30-day free trial, no card needed. If you only need the next invoice, the free export invoice generator builds one in your browser.

Mavoin is not a Chartered Accountant service. Verify your advance tax, eligibility for presumptive taxation and due dates with your CA.