Form 16 Password: What is Form 16 and How to Open Form 16 Password?

Updated on: May 27th, 2025

2 min read

If you are a salaried individual, you may have heard of Form 16, which is a certificate issued by the employer to their employees, containing information regarding income, TDS, exemptions, and deductions. Form 16 is a password-protected file.

You might be interested to know what password to use and whether you can change or remove it. Let us dive into this article to get answers to the above questions.

What is Form 16?

Form 16 is a password-protected file that contains all the information regarding your income, such as salary, tax deductions based on investment declaration made to the employer, and tax deducted (TDS) on it. It is required while filing an income tax return and has two components: Part A and Part B.

What is the Password of Form 16 and How to Open It?

Form 16 password is configured by your employer. You can refer to the email sent by your employer to check the format of the password.

Form 16 password is usually configured in the below combination.

Your PAN (Lower or uppercase).
Your Date of birth in DDMMYYYY format or DD/MM/YYY format.
Combination of your PAN (Lowercase or uppercase) and Date of birth.

Form 16 Password Example

Generally, the password for Form 16 is a combination of the first five characters of your PAN number and date of birth in DDMMYYYY format. Let's say your PAN is ABCDE0000A and your date of birth is February 9, 1990, then, your password will be ABCDE09021990.

How to Remove the Form 16 Password?

Since Form 16 is password protected, you need to enter a password each time you open it, to avoid that, you can follow these steps-

Right-click on the PDF file and open the file with Google Chrome.
Enter the password in the above-specified format and click on the submit button.
The screen printer option will appear in the upper right corner; click on it or press Ctrl + P.
Now, the print window will appear with an option to change the destination
Change the destination to Save as PDF.
Click on the Save button below and choose the desired location to save the PDF
The password is now removed from Form 16.

However, please note that removing the password in the above steps might change the file format, and pdf might not be readable for other software.

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Frequently Asked Questions

When will Form 16 be generated?

Form 16 is to be issued by the employer to their employees by 15th June after the end of financial year i.e. 1st April to 31st March. An employer can generate and download Part A of Form 16 through the TRACES portal.

How to open password protected Form 16?

Form 16 can be opened using the password in specified format i.e. first five characters of PAN followed by date of birth in DDMMYYYY format.

How do I open a password protected income tax return PDF?

Income tax return PDF which is the acknowledgement generated after filing the return i.e. ITR-V can be opened using PAN in lower case followed by date of birth in DDMMYYYY format. Lets say, your PAN is AAAAA0000A and date of birth is February 10, 1990. Then, your password will be aaaaa0000a10021990.

What is a password protected PDF?

It is a certificate in which the user has to enter the password before they can open the file to prevent unauthorised access.

How do I open a password protected PDF without the password?

To open the password protected PDF, you will need to enter the password as your PAN in lowercase followed by date of birth in DDMMYYYY format. Most of the income tax files can be opened using this password.

Can i remove my Form 16 password?

Yes, you can remove your Form 16 password.

Why is the Form 16 password protected?

To avoid any kind of malpractice or to get copied to any other software, your form 16 is password protected.

What is Form 16?

Form 16 is basically a certificate that is provided by an employer, which shows the TDS deducted from your salary and also gives some tax-related information. Typically, this comes in the form of a password-protected PDF.

Can the employer use a different password format?

Even though by standard it is referred to as PAN+DOB, a few companies use their format wherein Employee ID or Date of Joining. Refer to the email or instructions alongside Form 16 at all times.

About the Author

CA Mohammed S Chokhawala

Content Writer

I'm a chartered accountant, well-versed in the ins and outs of income tax, GST, and keeping the books balanced. Numbers are my thing, I can sift through financial statements and tax codes with the best of them. But there's another side to me – a side that thrives on words, not figures. Read more

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