Who's actually responsible: the payer, not the recipient
TDS is withheld by the party making a payment — the withholding agent — before paying the recipient. That means if you're an employer paying salaries, a business paying a consultant or contractor, or anyone else required to withhold tax at source, the deposit deadline is your responsibility, not the person you're paying. Confusing this is one of the more consequential mistakes we see: assuming the deadline is somehow the recipient's problem.
What TDS actually covers
TDS applies to a range of payment types, each with its own rate under the Income Tax Act — salary, rent, contract payments, service fees, interest, dividends, and commission among others. See our TDS rates reference guide for the rate that applies to your specific payment type; rates are tied to the fiscal year and can change, so don't rely on a remembered figure for anything you're about to file.
Deposit and filing are the same monthly cycle
Depositing the withheld tax and filing the ETDS return happen together, on the same 25-day-after-month-end cycle. This repeats every single month you have withholding-eligible payments — it doesn't pause for a quiet month the way some people assume.
See this alongside your other monthly deadlines
TDS rarely exists in isolation — most businesses that owe it also owe a monthly VAT return around the same time. Our Compliance Calendar shows both together, converted to your fiscal year's actual Bikram Sambat and Gregorian dates, so you're tracking one calendar instead of piecing deadlines together from memory.