AIS PDF Password: How to Open Annual Information Statement

AIS stands for Annual Information Statement. Think of it as the Income Tax Department's file on you — legally, of course. It lists every major financial transaction linked to your PAN in a financial year. Your salary, bank FD interest, mutual fund dividends, property purchases, even foreign remittances. Over 57 types of transactions, all in one place.

It replaced the old Form 26AS as the department's master statement and is way more detailed. You use it before filing ITR to make sure everything matches — because if it doesn't, the tax department will notice.

You can download it in PDF, JSON, or CSV. The PDF version is what most people go for. And yes, it comes locked.

First things first — go get the file.

Done. Now you have a locked PDF sitting on your computer. Let's unlock it.

Here is the formula:

Your PAN + Your date of birth in DDMMYYYY format

No spaces. No dashes. Just your PAN followed by your DDMMYYYY DOB.

Notice the case in that example — the PAN is typed exactly as printed, in uppercase. Many users report the lowercase version (aaaaa1234a21011991) also works. So: uppercase first, lowercase as your fallback.

For companies, firms, or HUFs, use the date of incorporation instead of DOB.

That's it. Type it in and the PDF opens.

I see people make the same errors again and again:

• Wrong case — The official example types the PAN exactly as printed (uppercase: AAAAA1234A). If that fails, try all lowercase.
• Adding spaces or slashes — DDMMYYYY means exactly that. Not DD/MM/YYYY, not DD-MM-YYYY. No spaces between PAN and DOB either.
• Wrong date — Obvious, but happens more than you think. Double check your birth date or incorporation date.
• For companies — stop entering your DOB. Use the incorporation date.
• Wrong financial year — The AIS you downloaded might be for a different year than the one you're checking. The password is the same, but verify the year before assuming the file is corrupt.

Still stuck? Re-download the PDF. Sometimes the download itself gets corrupted. It happens.

Knowing what's inside helps you use the document, not just open it. The main sections:

• Part A – General information: your PAN, masked Aadhaar, contact details and filing status
• Part B – TDS/TCS details: every deduction and collection reported against your PAN, with deductor names
• Transaction categories: salary, interest from savings and FDs, dividends, securities transactions, mutual fund purchases and redemptions, property deals, foreign remittances and credit card payments reported under SFT
• Other information: GST turnover and any demand or refund data

Two columns matter for each entry — "Reported Value" (what the reporter filed) and "Added Value under SFT/other" (what the department has derived). The gap between them is where disputes start, so read both.

If the PDF is giving you a hard time, you have options:

AIS for Taxpayer Mobile App — Available on Play Store and App Store. Log in with your PAN and OTP. No password nonsense. Straight up view.

JSON via AIS Offline Utility — Download in JSON format and use the AIS Offline Utility on the Income Tax site. Again, no PDF password headache.

HTML view on the compliance portal — Click the AIS tile and read it on screen, no download needed.

All three are free and official.

AIS is built from reports filed by banks, brokers, employers and registrars — and they make mistakes. If an entry is not yours or the amount is wrong:

1. Open the transaction on the AIS compliance portal

1. Pick the right feedback option: information is not fully correct, relates to another person or year, is duplicate, or is already considered

1. Submit it

1. Your TIS (Taxpayer Information Summary) updates accordingly

Doing this before filing matters — ITR pre-fill is generated from TIS, and an uncorrected wrong entry is exactly the kind of thing that triggers a mismatch notice later.

From Tax Year 2026-27, the Income-tax Rules, 2026 renumber the Annual Information Statement as Form 168 under the Income-tax Act, 2025. For FY 2025-26 and earlier, it is still AIS. The content and the purpose stay the same — only the form number changes. Source: Forms FAQ, incometaxindia.gov.in.

Before you conclude the password itself is wrong, look at how it is failing. Three very different problems all end at the same password prompt, and each needs its own fix:

If your symptom matches none of these rows — say the prompt flashes open and closes on its own — the general downloaded-PDF fixes guide covers the odder failure modes.

The AIS for Taxpayer app is the cleaner mobile route: log in with your PAN, verify the OTP, and the full statement sits on screen with no PDF password involved. If you specifically need the PDF on a phone, download it from the portal in your mobile browser and open it in a reader that properly supports password prompts — a file manager's quick-preview is the usual culprit when a perfectly correct password seems to do nothing.

Desktop is where the PDF route makes more sense. Use a full reader — Adobe Reader or the viewer built into Chrome or Edge — rather than a thumbnail preview. Type the password instead of pasting it if you can: pasting is how a trailing space or a dropped character sneaks in unnoticed. And keep one folder for tax documents, so the file you open is the one you just downloaded rather than last year's copy with the same name.

The PAN + DOB formula quietly assumes the department has your correct date of birth on record. Two situations break that assumption:

• A recent correction — if your DOB was corrected on your PAN or Aadhaar recently, the statement may still be generated against the older record. Check the profile section after logging in at incometax.gov.in; whatever date shows there is the one your password needs.
• Non-individual PANs — companies, firms and HUFs have no DOB at all, so the date of incorporation takes its place. This trips up anyone opening a HUF statement for the first time.

If the profile date is wrong, fix it before filing season rather than while you are holding a locked PDF. Corrections go through the standard PAN update process, which takes days — not something to discover on the evening of 31 July.

The AIS PDF password confused me the first time too. But honestly, it is one of those things that is obvious once you know it. PAN, DDMMYYYY DOB, no spaces. Now you know. Save this for next time.

This is for educational purposes only. Consult a qualified chartered accountant for personalized tax advice.