Link PAN With Aadhaar Before Jan 2026 Or Lose Your PAN: What To Know?

Pragya Pathak

Author

Updated: 06-11-2025 at 8:30 AM

A Permanent Account Number (PAN) Card is one of the most crucial documents, which is issued by the Income Tax Authority of India to individuals so that they can conduct various financial-related functions. Recently, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) issued a new PAN Card update that every PAN cardholder is required to follow before the deadline passes.

Read the article to learn more about the new update PAN card, including answers to questions like, ‘How to update PAN card online?’.

Link your PAN Card With your Aadhaar Card instantly with Jaagruk Bharat Online Services.

What Is The New PAN Card Update?

Recently, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) introduced PAN card new update that every cardholder is mandated to follow before the specified deadline. The update is concerning linking one’s Permanent Account Number Card with their Aadhaar card before January 1st, 2026. Whosoever fails to comply with the given deadline will be required to face several unpleasant consequences, like penalties, legal complications, etc.

Why Is The PAN-Aadhaar Linking Made Mandatory?

The government has made the PAN-Aadhaar linking mandatory for all citizens of the nation under the Income Tax Act of 1961. There are various reasons behind this move, some of which are laid down below for one’s reference:

PAN-Aadhaar linking is made compulsory to reduce and eventually eliminate the instances of various criminal activities like identity theft, duplication of documents, etc. This linking will make both the documents secure, protected, and tamper-proof so that no one can take undue advantage of someone else’s identity.
This PAN card update will help the Income Tax Department of India to track financial transactions, whether it may be large, like the purchase of properties, or small. This will help the authorities in catching criminals involved in finance-related crimes like black money circulation, income tax fraud, and others.
Linking one’s Aadhaar number with the PAN card will help the government in referring to one database and not multiple databases. This will help the authorities in maintaining and quickly accessing a single unified database as and when required.
The linking would also help in quicker and accurate identity verification of the cardholders.
PAN-Aadhaar linking is extremely important for accessing government welfare schemes, wherein identity can be verified using Aadhaar, and the PAN card would help in the successful credit of subsidies or pensions using the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) mechanism.

Also Read: Be Cautious Against PAN 2.0 Scams

What’ll Happen If I Don’t Link My PAN With Aadhaar?

Individuals who do not link their respective PAN cards with Aadhaar cards will be in direct violation of the Income Tax Act of 1961. This means that there will be several consequences of not doing the linking before January 1st, 2026, such as:

After the deadline, unlinked PAN cards will stop being functional, and the cardholder will not be able to conduct any financial or tax-related transactions, such as opening a bank account, investing, filing tax returns, etc.
In order to file the Income Tax Return (ITR), a PAN card is one of the most significant documents, without which the ITR cannot be filed. So, cardholders who do not do the linking process will probably face penalties or delays in filing ITR.
The linking process is important to conduct various PAN card-related functions too, such as online PAN card correction by filling the PAN card correction form 49A. Moreover, people won’t be able to access the online portal for the PAN card details update.

Who Should Link Their PAN With Aadhaar?

All the citizens of India who possess a Permanent Account Number card and an Aadhaar card are mandated to link the two before the specified deadline passes. i.e. January 1st 2026. The linking process can be completed free of cost from the comfort of one’s home and will allow people to continue doing the PAN-related functions, such as PAN card photo update online or PAN card date of birth update. However, those who don’t comply with the recent mandatory notification will be subject to legal consequences like fines and penalties.

How To Link PAN Card With Aadhaar Card?

The process of linking one’s PAN card with the Aadhaar card has been simplified by the Income Tax Department of India using an online e-filing portal. The steps for linking the two documents are laid down below in a stepwise manner for one’s better understanding:

Step 1: Please visit the official e-filing portal.

Step 2: Click on the ‘Link Aadhaar’ option on the left side.

Step 3: Fill in the details of your PAN card and Aadhaar card and click on ‘validate’.

Step 4: To complete the linking process, an OTP will be sent to your registered mobile number. Fill in the OTP, and complete the linking process successfully.

Please note that you can use the same portal for various other PAN card-related functions, like PAN card mobile number update or PAN card email update.

About The PAN Card 2.0 Update

The government has introduced certain changes and updates in the existing PAN card services. Changes introduced under the PAN card 2.0 update online are as follows:

There will be a single platform for both PAN and TAN (Tax Deduction and Collection Account Number). The merger would help in increasing efficiency and would eliminate any sort of delays due to operational difficulties.
Under PAN 2.0, PAN cards will have a QR code that will help people carry out all PAN-related functions, such as accessing data of the cardholder, verification process, etc., simply through a scan.
People applying for PAN cards for the first time can do so with the help of their Aadhaar cards. e-PAN will be issued immediately after the successful registration without any extra charges.

Conclusion

The new PAN Card update. i.e., about linking one’s PAN card with Aadhaar card is a mandatory rule which is to be followed by the government before January 1st, 2026. We advise you all to comply with the deadline and swiftly complete the linking process before the deadline passes to avoid legal punishments.

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