Form 104: the provisional registration a new trust files first

A trust deed is signed, the PAN is in hand, and no activity has started yet. This is the form that puts a brand-new institution on the register. Two declarations on it, and a handful of clauses in the deed behind it, decide whether the registration holds.

The deed is registered and the bank account is open, but the school has not admitted a child and the trust has not spent a rupee on its objects. A founder in that position wants two things: the trust's income exempt, and donors able to claim a deduction. Under the Income-tax Act, 2025, both start with one form, filed before any work begins.

What Form 104 is, and who cannot use it

Form No. 104 is the common application for provisional registration under section 332(3) and provisional approval under section 354(2), for a non-profit organisation whose activities have not yet commenced. One form does both. It is filed electronically to the Commissioner of Income Tax (CPC) under Rule 181 of the Income-tax Rules, 2026, and it needs a valid PAN.

It is the direct successor to Form 10A. Around 1.2 lakh of these were filed each year over the last five years, so for most new trusts this is the first tax form they will ever submit.

The eligibility line is narrow, and it is where applications fail before they begin. Two things bar the form.

What you get back, and how fast

The Commissioner of Income Tax (CPC) passes an order in Form No. 106, carrying the 16-digit Unique Registration Number, within one month from the end of the month in which Form 104 is filed. File in August, and the order is due by the end of September.

The department's own material calls this an automatic provisional registration. It is granted without an examination of the genuineness of the charity, because a body with no activity has nothing yet to examine. That does not make it unconditional. The grant stands on the statutory conditions in section 332(2), and the provisional registration can be cancelled later if the form carried a false or incorrect declaration. The genuineness of the charity is tested at the next stage, on Form 105, when the deed is read against three years of actual activity.

Two separate orders issue from the single form, one for the registration and one for the approval, each with its own URN. During the provisional term the trust's income can be exempt, and donors can claim the deduction under section 133(1)(b)(ii), exactly as they could under a regular approval.

The journey, in one view

Provisional registration is one step in a sequence that begins with the deed and ends with a regular registration years later. Seeing the whole path helps at the start, because the deed drafted at step one is the document examined at the last step.

How long provisional status lasts, and turning it regular

Provisional registration and approval run for three tax years, or up to six months from the commencement of activities, whichever is earlier, counted from the tax year in which the application is made. It is a fixed term, not a permanent status. Before it ends, the trust must apply for regular registration.

The blank form

Form 104 has been cut to a single page. Details of assets, liabilities and income break-ups that the old Form 10A demanded have been removed, on the sensible view that an entity with no activity has no such figures to give. What is left is set out below.

A simplified representation of the notified one-page Form No. 104, shown for orientation. File the live version on the Income Tax e-filing portal.

How to fill it, point by point

Most of the form is straightforward once the deed is in front of you. A handful of entries carry the whole application, and these are the ones to slow down on.

1. Name, PAN and address (Part A). Use the entity's own PAN, not a trustee's, and the name exactly as it reads in the deed and the registration certificate. The form will not submit without a valid PAN.
2. Section code. Pick the code for provisional registration under section 332(3), Sl. No. 1, and for provisional approval under section 354(2) where donor deduction is also wanted. A wrong code is the most common thing that has to be undone, and at the provisional stage the clean fix is to withdraw within seven days and refile.
3. Activities commenced: No. This must be answered truthfully. If the trust has begun its work, Form 104 is the wrong form and will be treated as non-est. Do not answer No to slip past the gate. A later finding that activity had started can cancel the registration and the URN from the beginning.
4. Irrevocable: Yes, and mean it. Read the deed clause before you tick this. If the deed lets the settlor revoke, the trust is ineligible under section 332(2)(b), and the honest answer bars the form. Amend the deed first if it needs amending.
5. Earlier rejection or cancellation. Disclose any past rejection or cancellation and attach the order. Concealment is itself a ground to cancel later, so there is nothing to gain by leaving it out.
6. Objects and proposed activities. State the objects as the deed states them, and describe what the trust actually intends to do in plain terms. This paragraph is read back against reality when the regular application is made, so it should not promise relief of the poor if the plan is a fee-charging coaching centre.
7. Office bearers and beneficial ownership. List every office bearer with a unique identification number, and where an office bearer is a body rather than a person, name the ultimate natural-person owner behind it. This beneficial-ownership field is new, and leaving it blank stalls the form.
8. Attachments. Self-certified copies of the deed or instrument, the registration with the Registrar of Companies, Firms and Societies or Public Trusts, FCRA registration if the trust holds one, any past rejection order, prior-year accounts going back up to three years where the return has not been filed, and a note on the proposed activities.
9. Undertaking and verification. The form is verified by the person authorised to verify the trust's return, under a digital signature or an electronic verification code. Keep that person and their credentials ready before you start, not at the last screen.

Five clauses to check in the deed before you file

Preparing a Form 104 application begins with the trust deed, not the e-filing portal. The eligibility conditions are conditions about the instrument, and the form only declares them. Most registration problems trace to a clause in the deed rather than a field in the form, and a deed is slow to fix once filing has started. Read these five first.

1. The revocation clause. Section 332(2)(b) requires the property to be held for the general public under an irrevocable trust. A clause letting the settlor revoke the trust, or take back the corpus, defeats eligibility outright. The deed should say irrevocable, and nothing elsewhere in it should contradict that.
2. The objects clause. The objects must fall within a charitable purpose under section 2(23), or a public religious purpose, as section 332(2)(a) requires. Vague, open-ended or commercial objects invite rejection, and applying income outside the stated objects is later a specified violation under section 351(1)(a). Specific charitable objects are safer than sweeping ones.
3. Benefit to the founder or related persons. The property must be for the general public. A deed that allows income or assets to benefit the author, the trustees, their relatives or other related persons is a standing problem, because such application is specified income taxed at 30% under section 337 and can cost the registration. No clause should reserve a private benefit.
4. Religious or community direction. For a trust created for a charitable purpose after the new Act, directing income to a particular religious community or caste, other than the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, backward classes, women and children, is a specified violation under section 351(1)(d). Applying income for private religious purposes that do not enure to the public is a specified violation under section 351(1)(c). Objects that mix charitable and religious purposes need careful drafting.
5. The dissolution clause. The deed should provide that, on winding up, the assets pass to another registered non-profit organisation with similar objects. This is not a section 332(2) condition, but a dissolution to anyone else brings the accreted-income tax under section 352 into play. The clause is cheap to include at formation and expensive to add later.

Where new trusts go wrong

The mistakes here are rarely about the form. They are about the gap between what a founder thinks the trust is and what the deed and the facts say it is.

One trust files provisionally, then quietly starts a small activity in the same year to show momentum to donors, and does not track the six-month clock that this starts. Another ticks irrevocable without reading a deed that reserves a power of revocation to the founder, and the whole registration is voidable from the day it was granted. A third writes expansive objects at the provisional stage, then spends its first three years on something narrower, and meets the mismatch at the Form 105 examination. A fourth treats the beneficial-ownership field as a formality and leaves it blank, then waits for an order that does not come, because the form has stalled at validation and the provisional term it was banking on has not begun to run.

The provisional stage is forgiving. Regular registration is not, and behind it sits section 352, which taxes accreted income on a cancellation. That exposure is what makes the deed and the first three years worth getting right from the start, not at renewal.

Questions we are asked

This note sets out the general position in law as at 26 July 2026 and is written for information only. It is not advice on any particular matter, and it should not be acted on without professional advice on the specific facts. Provisions, forms and time limits change, and the position for your own institution may differ.