The UK treaty is narrower than Indian law in two separate ways.

Yes. Article 13 defines fees for technical services to include payments for technical or consultancy services which make available technical knowledge, experience, skill, know-how or processes, or which consist of the development and transfer of a technical plan or design. You will find published summaries claiming the UK treaty has no such condition and that all technical and consultancy services are caught — that is wrong, and it matters, because relying on it means withholding tax that need not have been withheld. The Indian courts have repeatedly applied the condition, holding that a service requiring technical expertise is not a technical fee unless the recipient is left able to apply the technology independently.

Dividends are capped at 10% in the general case, with a higher rate applying to distributions from certain property-holding vehicles. Interest is capped at 10% where the recipient is a bank or financial institution and 15% otherwise, with relief for government lending. Royalties and technical fees are split: the lower rate for equipment royalties and services ancillary to them, and the higher rate for other royalties and for technical fees. As always these are ceilings on what India may charge once the treaty is properly claimed, not defaults.

No, and this is the point most often missed. Indian domestic law defines fees for technical services to include managerial, technical and consultancy services. The India-UK treaty definition omits managerial services entirely — it reaches technical and consultancy services only, and then only where the make-available condition is met. So a genuine management fee from a UK parent to its Indian subsidiary falls outside the treaty article, and the question becomes whether it is taxable as business profits, which needs a permanent establishment. That is a materially better position than the domestic rate.

The UK and US treaties are the generous ones on services, because both apply a make-available condition — and the UK treaty goes further by excluding managerial services from the definition altogether. The German treaty is the opposite: a flat 10% on technical fees with no make-available test, so the same service fee that escapes tax under the UK treaty is taxable under the German one. Groups that see Germany's lower headline rate and assume it is the better treaty for services have it backwards.

Often not under the treaty, but the analysis has to be done properly and the documentation has to support it. A recharge that is genuinely for managerial oversight falls outside the treaty definition of technical fees. Three things then decide the outcome: whether any part of the recharge is in substance technical or consultancy work that makes something available, whether the UK entity has a permanent establishment in India through which the services are delivered, and whether the amount is at arm's length, since a recharge between related parties brings transfer pricing with it. A single undifferentiated management charge invites all three questions at once; an itemised one usually answers them.

The same analysis applies as under other treaties: the question is whether the payment buys a right in the copyright — to reproduce, adapt or commercially exploit — or merely the use of a copyrighted product. Ordinary licence and subscription payments where no copyright right passes are generally business profits rather than royalty, and so taxable in India only through a permanent establishment. The position has largely settled but it depends on the contract wording, so a standard global licence agreement is worth reading against this before the first invoice.

On the usual grounds: a fixed place of business in India, a building site or installation project exceeding the treaty period, or a dependent agent who habitually concludes contracts or maintains stock for it. The treaty also contains a services limb, so a UK enterprise furnishing services in India through personnel present beyond the specified period can be treated as having one without any premises. Because the treaty otherwise removes so much service income from Indian tax, the permanent establishment question does a lot of work here — it is often the only route by which India taxes the income at all.

Obtain a UK certificate of residence for the relevant period, file the declaration now numbered Form 41, and give both to whoever pays you in India before they deduct. Where tax has already been over-deducted on rent, interest or a property sale, the route is an Indian return and a refund claim rather than an adjustment at source. Note that the tax treaty and the social security agreement are separate instruments doing separate jobs — the social security position between India and the UK changed in July 2026 and is dealt with on its own page.

A current UK residency certificate, Form 41 filed electronically, and then Form 145 for the remittance with an accountant's certificate in Form 146 where required. Where you are arguing that a payment is outside the treaty definition altogether — because it is managerial, or because nothing is made available — expect the payer to want that position in writing. They are not being difficult: if they under-withhold, the shortfall, the interest and the disallowance in their own accounts all land on them and cannot be recovered from you afterwards.