An Indian PAN — no Aadhaar, no Indian address needed.

Yes. There is a form prescribed specifically for it, you do not need to be resident in India, you do not need an Indian address and you do not need Aadhaar. A foreign national applies on Form 95 and a company or entity incorporated outside India applies on Form 96. Both can be applied for from outside India.

No, and this is worth checking against any guidance you have been given. Form 49AA was withdrawn on 1 April 2026 and split into two forms under the Income-tax Rules, 2026 — Form 95 for an individual who is not a citizen of India, and Form 96 for an entity incorporated or formed outside India. A great deal of material online, including material written by advisers, still says 49AA.

Form 96, which covers a company incorporated outside India and an unincorporated entity formed outside India. A tax identification number from the company's own country is required, and the incorporation documents have to be attested by apostille or by an Indian embassy, high commission or consulate.

Form 93, the same form an Indian citizen in India uses. This is the distinction people get wrong most often: the form follows your citizenship, not your residence. An Indian citizen who has lived in Dubai for twenty years still uses the citizen form; a British citizen living in Bengaluru uses Form 95.

Foreign, for this purpose. An OCI card is not Indian citizenship, so an OCI holder applies on Form 95. The OCI card itself is accepted as proof of identity, and it can also serve as proof of address and of date of birth, which usually makes the document side straightforward. A PIO card works the same way.

Yes. The Aadhaar requirement applies to Indian citizens. A foreign national applies on the basis of a passport, and the forms for non-citizens do not ask for Aadhaar at all. What you cannot use is the instant e-PAN service, because that works by verifying an Aadhaar number by one-time password — which is why the online instant route appears to fail for foreign applicants rather than telling them plainly that it is not for them.

For identity: a passport, an OCI or PIO card, or another national identification or taxpayer identification number. For address: a passport, OCI or PIO card, a bank account statement from your country of residence, an NRE account statement from India, a certificate of residence or residential permit, a registration certificate from the Foreigners Registration Office, or a visa together with an appointment letter and an employer certificate of your Indian address. Documents that are not Indian government issued must be attested by apostille where your country is party to the Hague Convention, and otherwise by an Indian embassy, high commission or consulate.

Yes, and you should use your real one. The form accepts a foreign address with your country's own postal code, and the card can be dispatched outside India for a higher fee. Using a hotel, a friend's or a relative's Indian address to look more local is a bad idea — the address on your PAN is the address the department will use for notices, and one you do not control is one you will not see.

Yes, entirely remotely — no visit to India, no PAN centre and no biometrics. In a clean case the number is usually allotted within about a week or two of a complete application, with the e-PAN available first and the physical card following by post. The delays that happen are almost always attestation and name-matching, not processing.

No, and this is the fear that stops people applying. Residence is decided only by how many days you spend in India under the statutory tests. A PAN is an identification number; it says nothing about your residential status and it does not start a clock. Thousands of non-residents hold Indian PANs and are taxed only on their Indian income.

Holding a PAN does not by itself create a filing obligation — what creates one is Indian income. If you have Indian rent, capital gains, business income or salary above the threshold, you file whether or not you hold a PAN. A non-resident whose only Indian income is interest, dividend, royalty or fees for technical services on which tax has been fully withheld at the statutory rate is generally relieved from filing, though filing is often still worth it where the withholding was higher than the final liability, because that is how the refund is claimed.

No. A permanent establishment depends on what the company actually does in India — a fixed place of business, people concluding contracts, a dependent agent. A tax identification number is not a place of business and does not create one. The confusion is understandable but the two questions are unconnected.

Where the recipient does not furnish a PAN, tax is deducted at the higher of the rate otherwise applicable and 20%, and no treaty rate is applied. So yes, furnishing a PAN usually brings the rate down to the correct one — but not always, because the correct rate might itself be high. Get the payment characterised first, then decide whether the PAN alone solves it.

In defined cases, yes, and this is not widely known. For payments of interest, royalty, fees for technical services, dividend and consideration for the transfer of a capital asset, a non-resident is not pushed to the higher no-PAN rate provided they give the deductor their name, email, contact number and address in their country of residence, their taxpayer identification number there, and a tax residency certificate. It does not cover every kind of payment — professional fees to an individual, for instance, generally fall outside it — so it is a genuine route in some cases and a trap in others.

Not necessarily. Treaty relief needs a tax residency certificate from your own tax authority and the declaration that used to be Form 10F, carried forward as Form 41 from tax year 2026-27. That declaration has to be filed electronically, and the portal now allows a non-resident who is not required to hold a PAN to register and file it without one. This is an area where the procedure has been changed more than once, so confirm the current position rather than relying on an article — including this one.

Completely different. PAN identifies a taxpayer; TAN identifies someone who deducts or collects tax at source and is quoted on every deduction, deposit and TDS return. A PAN cannot be used in place of a TAN. You need a TAN only if you are the one deducting — not because you are being deducted from. It is applied for on Form 135 for a non-government applicant, which replaced Form 49B, and it must be in place before the first deduction is deposited.

Only if it is the person responsible for deducting Indian tax — typically because it has a branch, project or liaison office here that pays Indian salaries, contractors or rent. A company with no Indian presence, simply receiving payment from an Indian customer, is the one being deducted from and needs a PAN rather than a TAN. A liaison office does need one once it pays salaries, even though it earns nothing.

Yes, and buyers are regularly caught by this. Tax on a purchase from a non-resident seller is withheld under the non-resident provisions and reported in Form 27Q, which requires the buyer to hold a TAN — unlike a purchase from a resident, which works on PAN alone. Where there are joint buyers, each generally needs their own. Apply well before the payment date, because without a TAN you cannot deposit the tax or file the return, and a deposit made under the wrong number is painful to unwind.

No. One person may hold only one PAN and the Act penalises holding more than one, so a second application creates a problem rather than solving one. The existing number can be traced and reprinted, and the details corrected if your passport or name has changed since. If you genuinely cannot establish whether you were ever allotted one, that can be checked before anything is filed.

It is the most common reason a PAN is useless in practice — a bank, a buyer or a deductor will reject a mismatch even though the number is valid. Indian records often split a single foreign name into first, middle and surname in a way that does not match the passport, and a name change on marriage or a new passport makes it worse. It is fixed by a correction application rather than a fresh PAN, and it is far better done before a transaction than during one.