s.6(1) — Residence of an individual
Under section 6(2) of the 2025 Act (6(1) of the 1961 Act) an individual is resident on 182 days in the year, or 60 with 365 in the four preceding years, relaxed for citizens leaving for work and visiting citizens and persons of Indian origin.
Income-tax Act, 1961
s.6(1)
Income-tax Act, 2025
s.6(2) to (6)
In force from 1 April 2026, but s.536(2)(c) preserves the 1961 Act for tax years beginning before that date.
In short
Section 6(2) of the Income-tax Act, 2025, which governs tax year 2026-27 onwards, makes an individual resident in India in a tax year if he is in India for a total of 182 days or more in that year (clause (a)), or for 60 days or more in that year and 365 days or more in the four years preceding it (clause (b)). Section 6(3) disapplies clause (b) for a citizen who leaves India in any tax year for the purposes of employment outside India or as a member of the crew of an Indian ship as defined in section 3(18) of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1958; section 6(4) does the same for a citizen or person of Indian origin (section 2(78)) who, being outside India, comes on a visit, but section 6(5) applies clause (b) with 120 days for 60 where his total income other than income from foreign sources exceeds fifteen lakh rupees. Section 6(6) leaves the days of a citizen serving as crew of a foreign-bound ship to be determined as prescribed, and rule 8 of the Income-tax Rules, 2026 excludes the period from the joining date to the signing-off date entered in the Continuous Discharge Certificate for an eligible voyage. Because section 3(1) defines a tax year as the twelve months of the financial year commencing on 1 April, the four-year look-back reaches years governed by the 1961 Act. For years up to 2025-26, section 6(1) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 carries the same limbs in clauses (a) and (c); clause (b), the old dwelling-place test, was omitted by the Finance Act, 1982 from assessment year 1983-84. Its Explanation 1(a) substitutes 182 days for 60 in clause (c) in relation to the year in which a citizen leaves India for employment or as crew of an Indian ship; Explanation 1(b) does the same for a visiting citizen or person of Indian origin within the Explanation to section 115C(e), substituting 120 days from assessment year 2021-22, under the Finance Act, 2020, where income other than income from foreign sources exceeds Rs 15 lakh; and Explanation 2, inserted by the Finance Act, 2015, leaves a foreign-bound ship crew member's days to be prescribed, rule 126 of the Income-tax Rules, 1962 excluding the same Continuous Discharge Certificate period. Residence is decided for the whole year, and residence for one source is residence for all (section 6(12) of the 2025 Act; section 6(5) of the 1961 Act).
What the provision does
Makes an individual resident on days of physical presence counted over the year and, for the 60-day limb, over the four preceding years, and relaxes the 60-day limb for citizens who leave for employment or as crew of an Indian ship and for citizens and persons of Indian origin who come on a visit. It does not turn on citizenship except for those reliefs, on domicile, on intention or on owning a home in India; it does not split a year; and it does not decide residence under a tax treaty, which the treaty's own Article 4 does.
Threshold questions
- Was the individual in India for 182 days or more in the year
- Was he in India for 60 days or more in the year and for 365 days or more in the four preceding years
- Is he a citizen who left India in the year for the purposes of employment outside India or as crew of an Indian ship
- Is he a citizen or person of Indian origin who, being outside India, came on a visit, and is his income other than income from foreign sources above Rs 15 lakh
- Is he a citizen serving as crew of a foreign-bound ship, so that the days from the joining date to the signing-off date in the Continuous Discharge Certificate for an eligible voyage are left out
- Have the day of arrival and the day of departure each been counted, and on what evidence
In practice
The recurring disputes.
Whether the day of arrival and the day of departure are both counted
The section asks whether the individual is in India for a period amounting in all to the stated number of days, and the Revenue's case is that any day on which he is in India for any part of it is such a day; the passport stamps show both. An earlier ruling of the Authority for Advance Rulings, recorded in Pradeep Kumar Joshi, counted both the day of entry and the day of exit. Several Tribunal Benches have excluded the day of arrival: Fausta C. Cordeiro (Mumbai, 29 June 2012), as not a complete day for an individual who arrived late at night, and Pradeep Kumar Joshi (Ahmedabad, 29 October 2021) and Sanjay Bhaskar (Delhi, 30 December 2025), following the Bangalore Bench's reading of section 9 of the General Clauses Act, the last treating the point as covered by the Karnataka High Court's decision in Manoj Kumar Reddy Nare. The Revenue's textual argument has real force and the point is open. Our view is that the Tribunal line is the authority to plead at the Tribunal, with evidence of the time of arrival on the record, but that for planning both days should be counted; on a year that turns on one or two days the point decides the result.
Whether going abroad for one's own business is leaving India for the purposes of employment
The Revenue reads employment as service under an employer. The Kerala High Court held in O. Abdul Razak (13 December 2010) that the word has no technical meaning, that the relief excludes only going abroad as a tourist, for medical treatment, for studies or the like, and that business or self-employment abroad qualifies, relying on the Board's Circular No. 346 of 30 June 1982, which described the relief as meant for citizens employed or engaged in other avocations outside India; the Mumbai Tribunal followed it for an investor in Nishant Kanodia (8 January 2024), and the Delhi Tribunal applied both in Sanjay Bhaskar (30 December 2025). The Revenue answers that Parliament used business, profession and vocation elsewhere in the Act and not here; our view is that the wider reading has High Court authority and the Tribunal has followed it, but the assessee must still prove the activity abroad, and an investor who only holds shares abroad is the weakest case.
Whether the employment relief reaches years after the year of leaving
Section 6(3) of the 2025 Act says that the 60-day limb shall not apply to a citizen who leaves India in any tax year for employment outside India, without the words in relation to that year, which gives the assessee an argument from tax year 2026-27; the Revenue will answer that residence is decided tax year by tax year, so that in any tax year can only mean the year under test, and that a consolidating Act does not widen a relief without clear words. The 1961 Explanation applies the 182-day figure to clause (c) in relation to the year in which the citizen leaves India, and the Bangalore Tribunal held in Binny Bansal (9 January 2026) that the relief applies to the year in which the citizen leaves India (para 83), and not to a citizen living abroad who comes on a visit in a later year (para 86). The Delhi Tribunal in Sanjay Bhaskar applied the relief in years long after the departure without analysing those words. Under the 2025 Act we think the Revenue's reading is the more likely one, but the point is open; on the 1961 words we think Binny Bansal is right.
Who is a citizen who, being outside India, comes on a visit
Binny Bansal held, as a rule of law, that the visitor relief is available only to an individual who is already non-resident (paras 81 and 84). The Bombay High Court in Binod Kumar Singh (22 April 2019) upheld a finding that the travels to India of a person who had migrated abroad, set up his business there and lived there with his family were in the nature of visits unless the contrary was brought on record. The assessee's reading is that being outside India describes where the visitor lives; the Revenue's is that a person resident in the previous year does not come on a visit. Our view is that the assessee's reading is closer to the text, and the file should show where the individual lives; the point is open.
Whether days of involuntary stay are counted
The section counts days in India without regard to why the individual was here. The Delhi High Court in Suresh Nanda (27 May 2015) excluded the days an individual was held in India by an unlawful impounding of his passport, because his presence was not by his choice or volition, but said there is no thumb rule and each case turns on its facts. The Board excluded specified days of the previous year 2019-20 for individuals stranded by the lockdown (Circular No. 11 of 2020) and gave no general relaxation for 2020-21, inviting individuals facing double taxation to file Form NR (Circular No. 2 of 2021). Our view is that Suresh Nanda is authority for excluding days of a stay compelled by an unlawful restraint proved on the record; beyond that the exclusion remains an argument.