How to File Form 10BD Donation Statement for an NGO

Form 10BD is the annual donation statement that every charitable institution approved under Section 80G(5) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 must file on the income tax portal, reporting donor-wise details of every donation it received during the financial year. You file it by 31 May following the close of the financial year, and once it is filed the portal generates Form 10BE, the donation certificate the institution issues to each donor so they can claim their Section 80G deduction. There is no government fee to file, but a delay attracts a late fee of ₹200 per day under Section 234G and a penalty of ₹10,000 to ₹1,00,000 under Section 271K. This guide walks through who must file, the exact donor details required, the step-by-step portal process, Form 10BE, the penalties, corrections, and the mistakes that quietly cost an NGO its donors' deductions.

What Is Form 10BD?

Form 10BD is the statement of donations that a fund, trust, society, or institution approved under Section 80G(5) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 files once a year with the Income Tax Department, declaring the donor-wise particulars of every donation received in the financial year. It was introduced by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) through Notification No. 19/2021 dated 26 March 2021 and is filed electronically on the income tax portal.

The form exists to bring transparency to the donation chain. Before it, a donor could claim a Section 80G deduction on the strength of a paper receipt alone, which left the system open to inflated and fabricated claims. Form 10BD closes that gap by making the recipient institution report each donation directly to the department. The donor's deduction is then matched against what the institution has reported, so the claim and the record have to agree before the benefit is allowed.

Filing Form 10BD is not optional housekeeping; it is a condition of keeping the 80G approval meaningful. Section 80G(5)(viii) places the duty to deliver the statement on the institution, and Section 80G(5)(ix) places the duty to furnish the certificate, Form 10BE, on it as well. Rule 18AB of the Income-tax Rules, 1962 prescribes the form, the manner, and the timeline. Together these provisions turn donation reporting from a courtesy to the donor into a statutory obligation backed by a daily late fee and a separate penalty.

How Form 10BD and Form 10BE Work Together

Think of Form 10BD as the master return and Form 10BE as the receipt the system issues back. The institution prepares one Form 10BD covering every donor for the year and files it on the portal. The moment the filing is processed, the portal generates a separate Form 10BE for each donor named in the statement. The institution downloads these certificates and hands one to each donor. The donor attaches nothing to their return, but the certified figure pre-fills their Section 80G schedule, so the chain runs from the institution's filing straight to the donor's deduction.

This dependency runs one way, which is worth stressing to donors. The institution's filing creates the certificate; the donor cannot generate Form 10BE themselves, and a paper receipt from the institution is no longer enough on its own. A donor who holds a receipt but no Form 10BE should treat it as a prompt to ask whether the institution has filed Form 10BD, because until that statement is filed and processed, no valid certificate exists and the deduction has nothing to rest on. This is also why an institution that delays its filing inconveniences every donor at once, not just itself.

Who Must File Form 10BD?

Form 10BD is filed by the institution that receives donations, not by the donor. The obligation attaches to any entity holding a valid approval that lets its donors claim a deduction, and that received reportable donations during the year. The two broad categories are institutions approved under Section 80G and research or scientific institutions approved under Section 35.

Institutions Approved Under Section 80G(5)

Every trust, society, Section 8 company, or other fund that holds a Section 80G(5) approval and received donations during the financial year must file Form 10BD. This covers the vast majority of charitable organisations, from a small local trust to a large national NGO. The legal structure does not change the duty: a charitable trust, a registered society, and a Section 8 company with 80G approval all file the same Form 10BD. If you hold combined 12A and 80G registration, the 80G arm is what triggers this filing, because 12A governs the institution's own exemption while 80G governs the donor's deduction.

Research and Scientific Institutions Under Section 35

Institutions approved under Section 35, such as research associations, universities, colleges, and other bodies engaged in scientific research, social science research, or statistical research, also report through Form 10BD. Their obligation flows from Section 35(1A), which requires them to furnish a statement of the sums received and to issue a certificate to the payer. The mechanics are identical to the 80G route: the same form, the same 31 May due date, and the same Form 10BE certificate, with the relevant Section 35 clause entered as the section code for each contribution.

When You Do Not Need to File

If your institution received no reportable donations during the financial year, Form 10BD is generally not required for that year, although a documented nil position is worth keeping. An institution that holds only 12A or 12AA registration without 80G approval has no Form 10BD duty arising from 80G, because there is no donor deduction to certify. Anonymous collections with no identifiable donor also fall outside donor-wise reporting and are dealt with under Section 115BBC instead.

Even when filing is not strictly required, a short documented note is wise. Record that the institution received no reportable donations for the year, cross-referenced to the books and bank statements, and retain it in the compliance file. This costs nothing and answers the obvious question during an assessment or while signing the audit report, namely why no Form 10BD appears on record for a year in which the institution was active. A clear nil note is far easier to produce now than a reconstruction of the position years later.

Form 10BD for Trusts, Societies, and Section 8 Companies

The duty to file Form 10BD follows the 80G approval, not the legal form of the institution, so a trust, a registered society, and a Section 8 company all file the same statement in the same way. What differs between them is the governance around the filing: who is authorised to sign, how the books are maintained, and which other annual filings sit alongside the donation statement.

For a charitable trust, the authorised signatory is usually a trustee, and the donation statement sits beside the trust's audit report and income tax return. For a registered society, the signatory is typically an office-bearer named in the governing body, and the society also carries filings under the relevant societies legislation. A Section 8 company adds Ministry of Corporate Affairs compliance on top, with directors holding a Digital Signature Certificate that is also convenient for verifying Form 10BD. In every case the donor fields, the 31 May deadline, and the penalties are identical, so the structure shapes the surrounding paperwork rather than the donation statement itself.

Whichever structure an institution uses, the prerequisite is the same: a live 80G approval carrying a Unique Registration Number. An organisation still choosing its structure should weigh the wider compliance load alongside the donation reporting, because the donation statement is a constant while the rest of the calendar varies with the entity type. Our overview of NGO registration compares the routes for a new charitable organisation.

What Counts as a Donation Reportable in Form 10BD?

Not every sum an institution receives is a donation, so part of preparing Form 10BD is deciding what belongs in it. A donation is a voluntary contribution received without consideration by an institution approved under Section 80G or Section 35. Voluntary contributions form the core of the statement, whether they arrive as cash, bank transfer, cheque, or contributions in kind. What you exclude matters as much as what you include, because a wrongly classified receipt creates a gap the moment the statement is reconciled with the books.

The distinctions below decide whether a receipt is reported as a donation:

• Voluntary donations: reported, whether general, corpus, specific grant, or restricted grant, as long as the donor is identifiable.
• Contributions in kind: reported with the mode shown as kind, though they do not qualify for the donor's 80G deduction.
• Grants from other institutions or companies: reported as donations where received without consideration, including eligible corporate CSR contributions.
• Anonymous collections: not reported donor-wise, because there is no identifiable donor; these fall under Section 115BBC.
• Receipts against services or sales: not donations at all, because they carry consideration, so they stay out of Form 10BD.
• Membership and event fees: receipts of the institution rather than donations, recorded as income, not in the donation statement.

The guiding test is whether the payment was voluntary, without consideration, and from an identifiable payer. Membership fees that carry benefits, charges for events, and the sale of publications are receipts of the institution, not donations, and they belong in income rather than in Form 10BD. Keeping this line clean from the receipt stage is what makes the year-end statement agree with the audited accounts without any adjustment, which is exactly what the auditor looks for when reconciling Form 10BD with Form 10B or Form 10BB.

Form 10BD vs Form 10BE: Key Differences

The two forms are halves of one process, but they are not interchangeable, and confusing them is a frequent source of error. Form 10BD is what you file; Form 10BE is what the system gives you to pass on. The table below sets out the distinction clearly.

The practical takeaway is that Form 10BE never exists on its own. You cannot generate a certificate without first filing the statement, and you cannot fix a certificate without revising the statement. So all of the care goes into Form 10BD: get the donor list right, file it on time, and the certificates follow correctly. A donor who asks for their certificate is really asking whether you have filed Form 10BD, because that filing is the only thing that produces a valid Form 10BE.

One more difference matters for record-keeping. Form 10BD is filed once a year and revised only if needed, so the institution holds a single acknowledgement per statement. Form 10BE, by contrast, is a set of certificates equal to the number of donors, so the institution manages one filing record but potentially thousands of certificate PDFs. Organising the certificates by donor from the moment they are generated saves real time later, both when a donor requests a duplicate and when the auditor samples certificates against the donation register during the annual audit.

What Donor-Wise Details Does Form 10BD Require?

Form 10BD is a line-by-line statement: one row for each donation, carrying enough detail to identify the donor and match the contribution to a deduction. The particulars you collect at the time of receipt are exactly the particulars the form asks for, which is why donation records should be built around these fields from day one.

Donation Type: Corpus, Specific Grant, Restricted Grant, and Others

The donation type tells the department the nature of the contribution. A corpus donation is one made with a specific written direction from the donor that it shall form part of the corpus, or capital fund, of the institution, and it is treated as a capital receipt. A specific grant or restricted grant is given for a defined purpose or project, while others covers general donations the institution can use freely. The classification you choose in Form 10BD should match how the contribution is recorded in your books, because a mismatch between the statement and the accounts is one of the first things an auditor questions when signing Form 10B or Form 10BB.

Mode of Receipt and the Cash Donation Rule

The mode of receipt is reported as cash, kind, electronic modes including account payee cheque or draft, or others. Mode matters for the donor, not just for the record. Under Section 80G(5D), a donation made in cash above ₹2,000 does not qualify for a deduction, so even though you still report it in Form 10BD, the donor cannot claim it. A donation in kind is reported because it is a contribution, but it too falls outside the 80G deduction. Capturing the mode accurately at receipt stops a donor from later expecting a deduction the law does not allow.

Donor Identification: Why PAN Drives the Deduction

The identification number is the field that makes or breaks the donor's claim. The form accepts PAN, Aadhaar, and, where neither is available, alternatives such as a Tax Identification Number, passport number, voter ID, driving licence, or ration card number. For an Indian taxpayer, the PAN is what counts: when you file Form 10BD with a correct PAN, the donation flows into that donor's Annual Information Statement and pre-fills the Section 80G schedule of their income tax return. A wrong PAN sends the donation to the wrong person or nowhere at all, and the donor's deduction silently fails. There is no minimum amount that escapes reporting, so a ₹500 donation needs the same care as a ₹5 lakh one.

For donors who genuinely have no PAN or Aadhaar, such as certain foreign individuals, the form accepts a Tax Identification Number or passport number so the donation can still be reported. The practical reality, though, is that the Section 80G deduction is geared to Indian taxpayers holding a PAN, so a donation reported against a passport number is captured in the statement but rarely results in a usable deduction. Where a domestic donor cannot provide a PAN, the honest position is to tell them upfront that their contribution, while valued and reported, may not yield a tax benefit.

Form 10BD Due Date and the Compliance Calendar

The deadline is fixed and the same for every institution: 31 May immediately following the end of the financial year in which the donations were received. There is no extension built into the rule, and the late fee under Section 234G begins to accrue on 1 June. Because both the statement and the certificates fall due on the same date, the realistic working window is April and May, when the books are being closed for audit.

Treat 31 May as the hard outer limit and set your own internal deadline earlier, around mid-May, so there is room to chase missing PANs and fix a rejected CSV upload without crossing into late-fee territory. The donation statement sits inside the wider charitable-trust compliance calendar alongside the audit report and the income tax return, and the most efficient organisations reconcile donations monthly so the May filing is a quick confirmation rather than a scramble. Our guide on annual compliance for a charitable trust maps how Form 10BD fits with the other annual obligations.

The timing also interacts with the donor's own filing. Individual donors typically file their income tax returns from June onwards and rely on the Section 80G figure pre-filled from your Form 10BD. If you file the donation statement late, your donors may file their returns before their donation appears, forcing them either to claim manually and risk a mismatch or to wait and revise later. Filing by 31 May therefore protects not only the institution from the late fee but also every donor from a needless complication in their own return.

Documents and Prerequisites You Need

Filing is fast once the data is ready, so most of the effort sits in preparation. Before you log in, assemble the donor data and confirm the access and approvals the portal will check. The checklist below covers both the documents you compile and the prerequisites you need in place.

1. Valid 80G or Section 35 approval: the institution must hold a live approval with a Unique Registration Number (URN), available on Form 10AC.
2. Portal access: a registered account on incometax.gov.in using the institution's PAN, with a working password.
3. Donor-wise donation list: every donation for the year with name, address, identification, type, mode, and amount.
4. Donor PAN or Aadhaar: the identification number for each donor, collected at the time of receipt wherever possible.
5. Donation register and receipts: the ledger, receipt copies, bank statements, and cash book that support each entry.
6. Corpus direction letters: written directions from donors for any contribution treated as corpus.
7. Verification method: a Digital Signature Certificate (DSC) of the authorised signatory, or an Aadhaar-linked mobile for OTP or EVC.
8. Reconciled accounts: books and the income statement so the total donations agree with the audit report in Form 10B or Form 10BB.

Step-by-Step: How to File Form 10BD on the Income Tax Portal

The full process runs across 8 steps, from confirming applicability to generating Form 10BE. Once your donor data is reconciled, the online filing itself takes well under an hour; the time is in the preparation. Work through the steps in order, because each section of the form must be marked complete before the next opens.

Step 1: Confirm Applicability and Gather Donor Data

Start by confirming that the institution holds a valid Section 80G(5) or Section 35 approval and that it received donations during the year, which together make Form 10BD mandatory under Section 80G(5)(viii) read with Rule 18AB. Then build the donor-wise dataset: for every donation, capture the donor's name, address, identification type and number, the donation type, the mode of receipt, the section code, and the amount. Treat this dataset as the backbone of the filing, because everything downstream, including the CSV upload and each Form 10BE, is generated from it.

Step 2: Reconcile Donations With Your Books and Receipts

Match every line in your donor dataset against the donation register, receipts, bank statements, and cash book. Confirm each donor's PAN or Aadhaar, the amount, the date, and the mode of receipt, and flag any corpus donation supported by a written direction. Reconciliation is where errors are caught cheaply: a wrong PAN, a duplicated entry, or a donation recorded twice across cash and bank. The reconciled total also has to agree with the voluntary contributions in your books, because that figure reappears in the audit report and any gap invites questions during assessment.

Step 3: Log In to the Income Tax Portal and Open Form 10BD

Visit the income tax portal and log in with the institution's PAN and password. Go to e-File, then Income Tax Forms, then File Income Tax Forms, and locate Form 10BD under the tab for persons not dependent on any source of income. Select the relevant financial year and choose Filing Type as Original for a first filing, then click Continue. The form opens in three parts: Basic Information, Details of Donors and Donations, and Verification, each of which must be completed in turn.

Step 4: Confirm the Basic Information and URN

Open the Basic Information section, which the portal pre-fills from your registered profile. Check the institution's name, PAN, and address, and verify the Unique Registration Number (URN) along with its date of issue exactly as they appear on Form 10AC. If anything is wrong, correct it in My Profile before returning, because an incorrect URN will stop the statement from being accepted. Once every detail is accurate, confirm the section so it is marked complete and the donor details section becomes available.

Step 5: Download the Template and Enter Donor-Wise Details

In the Details of Donors and Donations section, download the Excel template the portal provides. Enter one row per donation, filling the identification type and number, the donor's name and address, the donation type (corpus, specific grant, restricted grant, or others), the mode of receipt, the section code, and the amount. Keep the rows identical to your reconciled register, and avoid editing the template's column headings or order, because the portal validates the structure strictly and rejects files that do not match the expected format.

Step 6: Convert to CSV and Upload the Donor File

Save the completed template in CSV format, which is the only format the upload accepts. Back in the donor details section, upload the CSV file and let the portal validate it. The system checks each row and flags problems such as a missing PAN, an invalid identification number, or an unrecognised donation type. Correct every flagged row in your file, save it again, and re-upload until the file is accepted cleanly, then save the section so it is marked complete. For large donor lists, a single malformed row can block the whole file, so validate carefully.

Step 7: Complete Verification and e-Verify the Statement

Open the Verification section and enter the authorised signatory's details, then preview the full Form 10BD and check every figure against your reconciliation. Submit the form and e-verify it using a Digital Signature Certificate (DSC), an Aadhaar OTP, or an Electronic Verification Code (EVC). Where the institution is required to file its income tax return using a DSC, the same DSC is mandatory for Form 10BD. Verification is what completes the filing; an unverified form is not treated as filed and the late fee continues to run.

Step 8: Download the Acknowledgement and Generate Form 10BE

After successful verification, download the acknowledgement from View Filed Forms under the e-File menu and save it to your compliance file. The portal then generates Form 10BE for each donor listed in the statement. Download every Form 10BE in PDF and issue it to the respective donor on or before 31 May, because the donor relies on this certificate to claim the Section 80G deduction. Keep a record of when and how each certificate was sent, which becomes useful evidence if a donor later queries their deduction.

How to Download Form 10BE and Issue It to Donors

Form 10BE is generated automatically; your job is to retrieve it and distribute it. After Form 10BD is processed, go to View Filed Forms in the e-File menu, open the relevant Form 10BD entry, and download the linked Form 10BE certificates. Each certificate carries the institution's details, the donor's details, the donation amount, and the URN, and serves as the donor's proof of donation for their Section 80G claim.

Issuing the certificates is a statutory duty, not a goodwill gesture. Section 80G(5)(ix) requires the institution to furnish Form 10BE to the donor, and Section 234G charges the same ₹200 per day late fee for a delay in issuing it as for a delay in filing Form 10BD. Send each donor their certificate by 31 May, ideally by email with a clear record of dispatch. Because the donor's deduction now pre-fills from your filing, a donor who receives their Form 10BE promptly can verify that the amount and PAN are correct well before they file their own return, which prevents a mismatch surfacing later as a notice.

Keep the issuance organised, because at scale it becomes the real work. For an institution with hundreds of donors, download the certificates in a single batch, save them against each donor record, and send them through a tracked channel so you can prove the date of issue if it is ever questioned. A short covering note asking the donor to verify the PAN and amount on their Form 10BE before filing their return turns the certificate into a checkpoint, catching any error while there is still time to file a revised Form 10BD.

Penalties for Late Filing or Non-Filing: Sections 234G and 271K

Two distinct consequences attach to a default, and they stack. The first is an automatic late fee that accrues day by day; the second is a discretionary penalty the Assessing Officer can impose for failure. Understanding both is the difference between a small, contained cost and a serious one.

Section 234G imposes a late fee of ₹200 for every day the institution fails to file Form 10BD or issue Form 10BE after 31 May, and the fee runs until the default is cured, subject to a ceiling equal to the donation amount in default. Section 271K is separate: it lets the Assessing Officer levy a penalty of not less than ₹10,000 and up to ₹1,00,000 for a failure to furnish the statement or the certificate. The two can apply together, so a prolonged default can cost both an accumulating daily fee and a five-figure penalty. The practical lesson is that filing late is far cheaper than not filing at all, and filing on time costs nothing, so the deadline deserves a firm place on the compliance calendar.

The exposure is easy to underestimate because the two charges compound. Consider an institution that files Form 10BD 45 days late for a year with ₹6,00,000 of reportable donations. The Section 234G late fee is ₹200 multiplied by 45, that is ₹9,000, which is well inside the donation-amount cap. If the department also invokes Section 271K for the failure, a penalty anywhere from ₹10,000 to ₹1,00,000 can be added on top, turning a free, on-time filing into a charge that can cross ₹1,00,000. Set against that, the cost of filing on time is simply the effort of keeping donor records current through the year.

A Worked Example: Form 10BD for a Charitable Trust

A concrete case shows how the rules translate into rupees and into donor outcomes. Consider a charitable trust approved under Section 80G(5) that received donations during FY 2025-26 and must file Form 10BD by 31 May 2026. Five contributions sit in its donation register, and the trust reconciles each against receipts and bank records before filing.

The Donations on the Register

The first donation is ₹2,00,000 by bank transfer, a general donation recorded as others, with the donor's PAN on file. The second is ₹5,00,000 by cheque, given with a written direction to add it to the corpus, again with PAN. The third is ₹1,800 in cash from an individual who provided PAN. The fourth is ₹40,000 in cash with PAN. The fifth is ₹15,000 collected anonymously through donation boxes during an event, with no identifiable donor. Each entry needs the correct type, mode, and treatment rather than a blanket approach.

What the Trust Reports and What Each Donor Can Claim

The trust reports the four identified donations in Form 10BD: ₹2,00,000 (others, electronic), ₹5,00,000 (corpus, electronic), ₹1,800 (others, cash), and ₹40,000 (others, cash), a reported total of ₹7,41,800 across four donors. The ₹15,000 anonymous box collection has no donor to name, so it is not reported donor-wise and is dealt with under Section 115BBC. The portal then issues four Form 10BE certificates. The first three donors can claim their Section 80G deduction, but the fourth cannot: their ₹40,000 was paid in cash above the ₹2,000 limit in Section 80G(5D), so although it is reported, no deduction is available. If the trust had filed ten days late, the Section 234G fee would be ₹200 multiplied by 10, that is ₹2,000, well within the donation-amount cap.

Two lessons stand out. First, reporting and deductibility are not the same thing: the ₹40,000 cash donation is correctly reported yet correctly non-deductible, and telling the donor this upfront avoids a dispute later. Second, the corpus donation of ₹5,00,000 is still fully deductible for the donor, because the corpus restriction affects how the trust treats the receipt in its own accounts, not the donor's 80G claim. Getting the type and mode right on each row is what makes both the trust's audit and the donors' returns line up.

Scale the same logic to a larger NGO and the principle holds. An organisation with two thousand donors follows exactly this process, only through a CSV upload rather than manual entry, and the same four questions decide each row: is the donor identifiable, what is the donation type, what is the mode of receipt, and is the amount supported by the books. The arithmetic grows, but the judgement does not change, which is why a clean data routine maintained through the year matters far more than any last-minute effort in May.

How to File a Correction or Revised Form 10BD

Mistakes happen, and the system anticipates them. If you discover a wrong PAN, an incorrect amount, a misclassified donation, a duplicate, or a donor you left out, you correct it by filing a revised Form 10BD rather than starting over. The revised statement supersedes the original, and a corrected Form 10BE is generated for the affected donors.

The Revision Process on the Portal

Log in and follow the same path, e-File, Income Tax Forms, File Income Tax Forms, Form 10BD, but choose Filing Type as Revised and quote the Pre-Acknowledgement Number of the original statement. Export or rebuild the donor data, make the corrections in the template, mark any entry for deletion where needed, add any omitted donor, convert to CSV, upload, and re-verify with DSC or EVC. Once processed, download the corrected Form 10BE and reissue it to the donors affected, and tell them to verify the updated figure before they file or revise their own return.

Time the revision with the donor's filing in mind. If you find the error before the donor has filed their return, a prompt revision lets the corrected figure pre-fill cleanly and the donor needs to do nothing further. If the donor has already filed using a wrong figure, they will have to revise their own return after you reissue Form 10BE, so flag the correction to them quickly. The sooner a revised Form 10BD is filed, the smaller the knock-on effect on everyone who relied on the original certificate.

One caution governs every revision: only add a donor who genuinely gave during that financial year, supported by receipts and banking records. A revised Form 10BD is a tool to correct the record, not to manufacture deductions, and an entry that the books cannot support is exactly the kind of discrepancy that surfaces when Form 10BD is reconciled against the audit report.

Common Mistakes to Avoid in Form 10BD Filing

A handful of recurring errors account for most of the trouble institutions face, and each is avoidable with a small change in routine. Knowing them in advance is the cheapest form of compliance insurance.

Filing Late or Forgetting Form 10BE

Missing 31 May is the most common and most expensive mistake, because the Section 234G fee accrues automatically and the Section 271K penalty looms behind it. Equally common is filing Form 10BD on time but forgetting to download and issue Form 10BE, which carries the same daily fee. Treat the statement and the certificates as one task that ends only when every donor has their certificate in hand.

Mismatch Between Form 10BD and the Books

The total donations in Form 10BD must reconcile with the voluntary contributions in the accounts and in the audit report. Reporting donations net of expenses, omitting in-kind contributions, or double-counting a receipt across cash and bank all create a gap that an auditor flags while signing Form 10B or Form 10BB. Reconcile first, file second.

Misclassifying the Donation Type

Recording a corpus donation as general, or a general donation as corpus, creates a contradiction between the statement and the books and can affect the trust's own exemption position. A corpus donation needs a written direction from the donor; without that direction it is not corpus, however the institution would prefer to treat it. Match the type in Form 10BD to the documented intention of the donor.

How Form 10BD Fits Into Wider NGO Compliance

Form 10BD does not stand alone. It is one filing in a connected set of obligations that keeps a charitable institution's tax position intact, and treating it in isolation is how reconciliation problems start. The donation statement links most directly to three other areas: the audit report, the 80G approval itself, and any foreign-funding compliance.

The closest link is to the audit report in Form 10B or Form 10BB, which requires the total voluntary contributions per the books to be reconciled with the donations reported in Form 10BD. Filing the donation statement accurately first makes the audit report consistent, so sequence the two deliberately. The second link is to the institution's 80G approval, which is now time-bound and must be renewed; an expired approval undermines both the institution's standing and its donors' deductions. Our guide on renewing 80G and 12A registration using Form 10AB covers that cycle. The third link, for institutions that receive foreign contributions, is to FCRA reporting, which is a separate obligation; Form 10BD addresses the income tax side, while FCRA addresses the foreign-contribution side. Where donations come through corporate CSR, our guide on applying for CSR funding explains how those contributions are routed and documented before they ever reach a Form 10BD row.

Viewed together, these filings form a sequence rather than a checklist. The 80G approval has to be valid for the donation to be deductible, the donation has to be recorded correctly in the books to be reported, Form 10BD has to be filed to generate Form 10BE, and the audit report has to reconcile with the statement. A weakness at any point flows through to the rest, so an institution that treats donation reporting as a year-round discipline, rather than a single May deadline, keeps the whole chain intact and its donors' deductions secure.

What Does It Cost to File Form 10BD?

Filing Form 10BD itself costs nothing in government fees. The only statutory amounts arise from default, and the rest is the value of getting the data right. The table below sets out the cost picture in full.

The meaningful cost of Form 10BD is never the filing fee, which is zero; it is the late fee and penalty that follow a missed deadline, and the donor goodwill lost when a deduction fails because of a wrong PAN. For an institution with a handful of donors, the work is light enough to handle in-house with the steps above. For one with hundreds or thousands of donors, the effort is in reconciliation and CSV preparation, where professional assistance is charged according to the donor volume and scope, separate from any statutory dues. Either way, the economics favour filing accurately and on time, because the cost of doing it right is far below the cost of a default.

Related Resources

• 12A and 80G Registration: secure the approvals that make donations deductible and trigger Form 10BD.
• How to Renew 80G and 12A Using Form 10AB: keep the approval that underpins your donors' deductions current.
• Annual Compliance for a Charitable Trust: where Form 10BD sits in the full yearly calendar.
• How to Apply for CSR Funding: how corporate donations are routed before they reach Form 10BD.
• NGO Registration: structure options for a new charitable organisation.
• Section 8 Company Registration: the company route to a non-profit with 80G eligibility.

Summary

Form 10BD is the annual donation statement that institutions approved under Section 80G(5) or Section 35 file on the income tax portal by 31 May, reporting each donor's name, identification, donation type, mode, and amount. Once filed, the portal generates Form 10BE, the certificate you must issue to every donor so they can claim their Section 80G deduction. There is no government fee, but a delay costs ₹200 per day under Section 234G plus a penalty of ₹10,000 to ₹1,00,000 under Section 271K. Reconcile donations with your books, collect every PAN at the point of receipt, file on time, issue the certificates, and use a revised Form 10BD to fix any error. Done well, the statement protects both the institution's standing and its donors' deductions.