The point
Schedule VDA reports every crypto sale, swap or disposal. It sits inside ITR-2 or ITR-3. ITR-2 filers are due by 31 July of the assessment year. ITR-3 filers with no audit requirement have until 31 August. Each row asks for the date you bought, the date you sold, what it cost, and what it fetched. Every figure gets checked against TDS, the tax deducted at source, which the department already has on file.
Why a separate schedule exists, and which form carries it
Schedule VDA was added to the ITR forms by the Finance Act 2022. The same amendment inserted Section 115BBH and Section 194S. Before that, a crypto disposal sat wherever a filer's own reading of the law placed it. It could land in capital gains, business income, or income from other sources. The tax department had no single field to check it against. Schedule VDA closes that gap. Every transaction goes into one place, with the same fields, matched automatically against the TDS a deductor already reported through Form 26AS.
Schedule VDA sits inside two of the ITR forms, and only two. Neither ITR-1 nor ITR-4 accepts a Schedule VDA entry. A salaried investor who normally files the one-page ITR-1 has to move to ITR-2 the moment a crypto disposal enters the year. That holds even if the gain is a few hundred rupees.
The split between ITR-2 and ITR-3 follows how the activity is classified, whatever the size of the gain. An investor holding crypto as an investment, with no business income, files ITR-2. Someone whose crypto activity counts as a business files ITR-3. So does anyone who already has business or professional income from something else. The full form-by-form breakdown carries the edge cases.
The choice shapes the rest of the return. Inside Schedule VDA, the row-by-row mechanics are identical either way. Both forms tax the same statutory definition of a virtual digital asset at the same flat rate under Section 115BBH. Schedule VDA appears in the income tax department's own ITR-2 user manual as part of the filing flow.
What does each row in Schedule VDA ask for?
Schedule VDA works transaction by transaction, with no single net figure for the year. Every crypto disposal gets its own row: a sale, a swap into another token, or spending crypto directly. Each row asks for five things. Three are descriptive: the type of virtual digital asset, the date you acquired it, and the date you transferred it. Two are rupee figures: the cost of acquisition and the sale consideration you received.
Sale consideration minus cost of acquisition gives the income on that row, computed once the two rupee figures are entered. Section 115BBH allows only the cost of acquisition as a deduction. There is no field for gas fees, which are the network's charge on a transfer, and none for exchange withdrawal charges. Nothing beyond the price paid to acquire the asset comes off the taxable figure.
A sixth detail sits alongside each row: the TDS already deducted under Section 194S on that same transfer. It stays out of the row's income calculation. The department matches it against the Annual Information Statement and Form 26AS, its own record of what was deducted and by whom. A row whose TDS does not match what the deductor reported is the single most common reason a Schedule VDA filing draws an automated query. How TDS on crypto works in India covers how that 1 percent reaches Form 26AS in the first place.
Fifty disposals in a year mean fifty rows. Schedule VDA has no annual netting the way other income heads do. A losing position in one row cannot offset a winning position in another. The loss-treatment rule under Section 115BBH keeps every row standalone. The arithmetic on each row stays simple, and the work is in having fifty rows' worth of records ready.
When it is due, and the work that comes before
The due date follows the form you file. An investor filing ITR-2, with no business income, is due by 31 July of the assessment year. An investor filing ITR-3 without a tax audit requirement has until 31 August. Where ITR-3 requires an audit, the date moves to 31 October. Where the return also carries a transfer-pricing report, it moves again to 30 November.
The current due dates by form are notified each year. The base date of 31 July is set under Section 139(1) of the Income Tax Act. Treat these as the standing dates unless the CBDT, the Central Board of Direct Taxes, issues a fresh extension circular closer to the deadline.
The work that has to happen before that date is matching your own records against the department's. TDS deducted across the year sits in Form 26AS and the Annual Information Statement well before the filing deadline, usually within days of the deductor's quarterly TDS return. Pull the platform's own transaction history. Match it line by line against the Annual Information Statement before typing a single row into Schedule VDA. Do it in that order and the filing itself is data entry.
One more date matters if the crypto gain is large enough on its own. Advance tax, which is tax paid in instalments during the year itself, applies once the year's total tax liability crosses the statutory threshold. A gain realised early in the financial year can push an instalment due months before the Schedule VDA filing date.
How one row reads in practice
Take an investor who bought crypto for 2,00,000 rupees on 15 June 2025. They sold it for 2,80,000 rupees on 10 January 2026, crossing the TDS threshold on the way out. The Schedule VDA row for that transfer reads as five fields. Date of acquisition: 15/06/2025. Date of transfer: 10/01/2026. Cost of acquisition: 2,00,000 rupees. Sale consideration: 2,80,000 rupees. Income: 80,000 rupees.
Section 115BBH taxes that 80,000 rupee gain at 30 percent: 24,000 rupees. Add the 4 percent cess charged on that tax, 960 rupees, for a total of 24,960 rupees. The platform would have deducted 1 percent TDS on the 2,80,000 rupee consideration at the time of sale: 2,800 rupees. That amount is credited against the 24,960 rupees owed. The investor pays the difference at filing time: 22,160 rupees, provided the 2,800 rupees shows up correctly in Form 26AS against the same transaction.
The arithmetic does not change if the investor made forty other disposals that year. Each one gets its own row and its own match against what the platform already reported. What can legally reduce a crypto tax bill in India is covered separately.
Keeping records the form can use
The rate, the fields and the due date are all fixed. What an investor controls is whether the row-by-row data exists in usable form when the form asks for it. Matching the platform's history against the Annual Information Statement every quarter keeps that data ready. Left to the deadline, the same filing becomes a reconstruction project.
The reporting penalties that apply from April 2026 add a fixed daily charge for non-reporting and a fixed penalty for inaccurate reporting. That is a cost on top of the tax itself. For the full framework Schedule VDA sits inside, the rate, the TDS mechanism and the loss rules, see how crypto gains are taxed in India.
Frequently asked questions
Which ITR form do I use to report crypto income?
ITR-2 if crypto is held as an investment with no business income. ITR-3 if the activity counts as a business, or you have other business or professional income. Neither ITR-1 nor ITR-4 accepts a Schedule VDA entry. A salaried investor who normally files ITR-1 has to move to ITR-2 the year they have any crypto disposal to report.
What does one row in Schedule VDA record?
The type of virtual digital asset, the date acquired, the date transferred, the cost of acquisition, and the sale consideration. Income is consideration minus cost. Every disposal in the year gets its own row. There is no single annual total.
When is Schedule VDA due for FY 2025-26 (AY 2026-27)?
31 July for ITR-2 filers with no business income. 31 August for ITR-3 filers who do not require a tax audit. 31 October where an audit applies. These are the standing statutory and notified dates, and the CBDT can extend any of them by circular closer to the deadline.
What happens if the TDS on a row does not match Form 26AS?
The Annual Information Statement carries the TDS the deductor reported against the same transaction. A mismatch between that and what you enter in Schedule VDA is the most common trigger for an automated query under Section 142(1). Matching the platform's transaction history against the Annual Information Statement before filing prevents it.
Do I need to file Schedule VDA if I only made one crypto sale all year?
Yes. Reporting is mandatory for every disposal, regardless of size or frequency. A single sale still gets its own row, with the same fields as an investor who made fifty.
Crypto investments are subject to market risk. Not financial advice.
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