Your Income Tax Challan Expires in Just T+15 Days: The CRN Validity Rule Taxpayers Miss

Most taxpayers treat the Challan Reference Number (CRN) as a receipt. On the Income Tax Department e-filing portal it is closer to a boarding pass: it is only good for a short window, and on the sixteenth day it stops working. Per the Income Tax Department's General Questions FAQ, a generated payment challan expires T+15 days from the date the CRN is generated, after which it can no longer be used to make the payment. This single operational rule trips up thousands of taxpayers every assessment year, who generate a challan, get distracted for a fortnight, and return to find a dead reference number staring back at them.

What the Section Says

The CRN rule is not written into a numbered section of the Income-tax Act, 1961. It is an operational condition of the e-Pay Tax service on the e-filing portal, and the controlling text sits in the Income Tax Department's own General Questions FAQ published at incometax.gov.in. In plain English, the rule has three moving parts that every taxpayer should memorise before they click "Generate Challan".

First, a generated challan carries a CRN that is valid for payment for exactly T+15 days, counting from the date of generation. If you generate a CRN on day T, the final day you can pay against it is day T+15; beyond that the portal will not accept payment and you must generate a fresh challan for the same tax head and amount.

Second, an expired challan does not vanish the moment it lapses. The portal retains it in your account for 30 days after expiry, purely for reference. You can still see the amount, the assessment year and the minor head, but you cannot pay against it; the 30-day visibility is a record-keeping convenience, not an extension of the payment window.

Third, there is a separate and often-confused timer for a saved draft challan that has not yet been generated. A draft you save but do not convert into a CRN is retained for only 15 days from the date of its last update, after which the portal discards it. The practical takeaway: a saved draft and a generated CRN are different objects with different clocks, and neither of them lasts as long as most people assume.

Because this is a portal rule rather than a statute, it applies uniformly across every tax payment you route through e-Pay Tax: advance tax, self-assessment tax, tax on regular assessment, and demand payments. The amount does not change when the CRN expires; only the reference number does. You regenerate, you pay, you move on. The cost of missing the window is not a penalty on the challan itself but the knock-on risk that your actual payment date slips later than you planned.

Worked Example

Consider Priya, a salaried product manager filing for assessment year 2026-27 under the new tax regime. Her gross salary is Rs 18,75,000 and, after the new-regime standard deduction of Rs 75,000, her net taxable income is Rs 18,00,000. Applying the FY 2025-26 new-regime slabs, her liability works out as follows.

Priya's employer has already deducted Rs 1,40,000 as TDS through the year, which leaves a self-assessment balance of Rs 26,400 (Rs 1,66,400 minus Rs 1,40,000) to be paid before she can file. You can reproduce this slab arithmetic for any salary using the income tax calculator for the new regime, or compare it against the old regime with the old-vs-new comparison tool.

Now the CRN clock starts. Priya logs in to the e-filing portal and generates a challan for Rs 26,400 on 10 October 2026. Here is how the next six weeks look under the T+15 rule.

Suppose Priya intends to pay immediately but a work deadline swallows the fortnight. She returns on 27 October 2026, clicks the saved challan, and the portal refuses the payment because the CRN lapsed on 25 October 2026. The Rs 26,400 liability has not changed by a single rupee, and no penalty attaches to the expired challan itself. She simply generates a new CRN for the same Rs 26,400 and pays. The real risk is timing: if the fresh payment date pushes past her filing deadline, interest can accrue on the outstanding tax under the Act. Freelancers and those with capital gains who pay in instalments should read our explainer on advance tax and model the shortfall with the advance tax calculator before letting any challan lapse.

The lesson from Priya's fortnight is blunt: generate the CRN only when you are ready to pay within the next 15 days. Generating a challan in advance "to be safe" achieves the opposite, because the 10 October 2026 CRN was useless to her by 26 October 2026.

Common Mistakes

Scrutiny of taxpayer grievances on the e-filing portal shows the same handful of CRN errors recurring every assessment year. Each one is avoidable once you understand that the challan carries its own 15-day expiry independent of your tax deadline.

Confusing the draft timer with the CRN timer. A saved draft challan is discarded 15 days after its last update, while a generated CRN is valid for payment for 15 days after generation. Taxpayers who save a draft, edit it once, and assume it will wait indefinitely find it gone; taxpayers who generate a CRN and assume the 30-day reference visibility is a payment window find the payment rejected after T+15. The 30-day figure is for viewing only.

Generating the challan far ahead of payment. Because a CRN expires on T+15, there is no benefit in creating one days or weeks before you can fund it. A challan generated on 10 October 2026 cannot be paid on 26 October 2026, so pre-generating it wastes the window and forces a regeneration for the identical amount.

Assuming an expired challan means the tax is paid. The 30-day post-expiry visibility displays the challan in your account, which some taxpayers mistake for proof of payment. Until money actually moves and a Challan Identification Number (CIN) is issued, nothing is paid. An expired CRN with no CIN is an unpaid liability, full stop.

Letting the regeneration push past the filing date. The expired challan carries no penalty, but a payment made late enough can attract interest on the unpaid self-assessment tax. Treat the 15-day CRN window as a prompt to pay now rather than a grace period, especially in the weeks before a return is due.

Mismatching the assessment year on the regenerated challan. When you regenerate a lapsed CRN, re-check that the assessment year and minor head match the original. A fresh challan filed against the wrong assessment year creates a mismatch that delays credit and can trigger a departmental query, exactly as flagged in the Income Tax Department guidance at incometax.gov.in.

FAQ

How long is a tax payment challan (CRN) valid on the e-filing portal?

A generated CRN is valid for payment for T+15 days from the date of generation. Per the Income Tax Department's General Questions FAQ at incometax.gov.in, once those 15 days pass the challan can no longer be used to make the payment and you must generate a fresh one.

What happens to my challan after it expires?

An expired challan remains visible in your e-filing account for 30 days after expiry, but strictly for reference. You can see the amount and details, yet you cannot pay against it. After the 30-day reference period it drops out of the active view, and only a fresh CRN lets you complete the payment.

Is a saved draft challan the same as a generated CRN?

No. A saved draft that has not been generated into a CRN is retained for only 15 days from the date of its last update, after which the portal discards it. A generated CRN is a different object: it is valid for payment for 15 days (T+15) from the date of generation. Two separate 15-day clocks, two different starting events.

Does my tax liability change if the CRN expires?

No. If Priya's self-assessment balance was Rs 26,400 on 10 October 2026, it is still Rs 26,400 after the CRN lapses on 25 October 2026. The expiry affects only the reference number, not the amount. You regenerate the challan for the same figure and pay.

Will I be penalised for letting a challan expire?

The expired challan itself attracts no penalty. The risk is indirect: if regenerating and paying pushes your actual payment date past the filing due date, interest can accrue on the outstanding tax. Model any shortfall with the advance tax calculator before you let a CRN lapse.

How do I generate a fresh challan after mine expires?

Log in to the e-filing portal, open e-Pay Tax, and create a new challan for the same tax head, assessment year and amount as the expired one. The portal issues a new CRN valid for another 15 days. Confirm the assessment year carefully so the payment is credited to the correct year.

How soon before paying should I generate the CRN?

Generate it only when you can fund it within 15 days. Because the CRN expires on T+15, creating it earlier simply burns the window. The safest practice is to compute your liability first, using the income tax calculator, and generate the challan immediately before you intend to transfer the money.