Paying Bengaluru Property Tax From Abroad, 2026-27
Bengaluru property tax is paid at bbmptax.karnataka.gov.in with a 10-digit application number or a PID, plus three consecutive characters of the owner name. The portal lists the 2026-27 rebate period as 1 April 2026 to 30 April 2026, first-half interest from 1 June 2026, second-half interest from 1 December 2026 and penalty from 29 November 2026. BBMP is now five Bengaluru city corporations under the Greater Bengaluru Authority. The registered mobile number can be changed online one time only, and that is the step that strands owners living outside India.
Read off the Bengaluru City Corporations property tax portal and its published documents on 8 September 2026.
Two dates on this page were wrong until 8 September 2026. It carried a rebate cut-off of 31 May 2026 and a penalty starting 1 June 2026, both taken from a property blog. The portal's own Dates to Remember panel says the rebate ran to 30 April 2026 and penalty starts on 29 November 2026. The portal is the source and the dates below now match it.
The dates the portal publishes for 2026-27
| 2026-27 | |
|---|---|
| Rebate period | 1 April 2026 to 30 April 2026 |
| First half interest starts | 1 June 2026 |
| Penalty starts | 29 November 2026 |
| Second half interest starts | 1 December 2026 |
Interest and penalty are two separate charges with two separate start dates, and the portal treats them that way. Interest on the first half has been running since 1 June 2026. Penalty is a later trigger, on 29 November 2026.
The portal publishes those dates without publishing the rates beside them. Its own FAQ document describes a 5% early payment discount and penal interest at 2% a month on belated payment. Rather than trust a percentage from anywhere, search your own PID and read the figure the portal computes for your property. The records are updated on a near real-time basis, in the portal's words, and it states there is no requirement to visit an office to see them.
BBMP is now five city corporations
Property tax administration sits with five corporations under the Greater Bengaluru Authority: Bengaluru Central, Bengaluru East, Bengaluru North, Bengaluru South and Bengaluru West, each split into Zone 1 and Zone 2. The portal is headed Bengaluru City Corporations, its head office is the Joint Commissioner of Revenue at NR Square, GBA, and it publishes a separate top defaulter list for each of the five corporations.
The calculation, the portal and the identifiers did not change. What changed is who you escalate to. The tax portal links an official lookup, Know Your New Corporation, at bbmp.gov.in/KnowYourNewCorporation/index.html, which maps a ward to its corporation. Check yours before you file a grievance, because a ticket aimed at the old structure is a ticket nobody owns.
One warning on that link. When tested from outside India on 8 September 2026, bbmp.gov.in refused the connection while bbmptax.karnataka.gov.in answered without trouble. If the lookup will not load for you, the tax portal itself is reachable and its defaulter lists are already grouped by corporation, which gets you to the same answer.
The mobile number is the trap, and it has a one-time limit
The portal sends a one-time password to the number on the property record. For an owner who left India in 2013, that is a dead SIM, and there is no payment without it.
The portal offers two routes, and the difference between them matters:
- Update Mobile No, on the portal menu, changes the registered number. The portal states this is allowed one time only.
- Change mobile Number (Old number unavailable), at
Forms/MobileGrievanceReq.aspx, is the route for an owner who cannot receive anything on the old number. It runs as a grievance request rather than a self-service change.
Fix this in April, when nothing is due. Attempting it in the last week of a rebate window, from a different time zone, with one allowed attempt, is how an owner loses the discount and then the year.
What the tax is calculated on
Bengaluru uses the Unit Area Value method. The portal's FAQ describes six value zones set from the published guidance value of the Department of Stamps and Registration, with the rate applied per square foot per month against built-up area, adjusted for use and for occupancy.
Three rules in that FAQ decide more bills than owners expect:
Area comes from the sale deed. For an apartment, the FAQ says the measurement in the schedule to the sale deed is what counts, because it is irrefutable evidence, and that the total shall not be less than the area in the occupancy certificate. Not carpet area.
Car park is charged at half. Car park area is charged at 50% of the rate prescribed for the zone and status. Where a sale deed folds stilt parking into one number, the FAQ says to measure the car park on its own and deduct it.
Vacant is not tenanted. A property can be declared self-occupied for as long as it is not tenanted. Once it is tenanted, the FAQ says to file a return and declare the changed status. This is where owners abroad go wrong. Move out, let the flat, leave the status untouched, and the underpayment sits there until a buyer's lawyer finds it during a sale.
Which form applies:
| Form | When you use it |
|---|---|
| Form IV, white | Nothing changed since last year. Same area, same use, same occupancy. |
| Form V, blue | Built-up area, usage or occupancy changed. |
| Form VI | The property is exempt and a service charge applies. |
How to pay
- Go to bbmptax.karnataka.gov.in and open SAS Property Tax Payment.
- Enter the 10-digit application number or PID, plus any three consecutive characters of the owner name. The portal's own example is that for "Bruhat Bengaluru" you may enter bru, ruh, hat, eng or alu.
- Read the built-up area and the occupancy status the portal returns, not the amount alone.
- If nothing changed, continue to Form IV. If area, usage or occupancy changed, tick the box for Form V and correct it there. The amount will move.
- Choose full payment or two instalments.
- Pay by net banking, card or UPI, or generate a challan and pay at one of the designated bank branches the portal lists.
- Download the receipt under Downloads, Receipt Print. Challan Print, Application Print and Acknowledgement Print sit in the same menu, so a receipt lost later is retrievable against the identifier.
BDA properties are billed on a different portal, propertytax.bdabangalore.org. Which authority bills you is set out in the guide to BDA property tax.
Paying from outside India
Foreign cards get declined. Indian municipal gateways route through domestic acquirers. Net banking from an NRO account works, and so does UPI linked to an NRO account. Keep one live NRO netbanking login for this job.
The money leaves and no receipt appears. Do not pay again. The portal states that excess or duplicate payments are auto-refunded to the taxpayer's bank account, with the process initiated within 10 working days of the excess payment reaching the corporation. It also states that refunds on payments made through the HDFC Bank payment gateway are processed only by the Bengaluru City Corporations, and that taxpayers should not approach the gateway provider. For a failed transaction or a bank-initiated refund, the portal directs you to your own bank. For a double payment or a refund that does not arrive, raise a ticket in the Grievance section. The portal disclaims liability for duplicate payments, failed transactions and auto-refunds, so the paper trail is yours to keep.
Nobody is holding the receipts. You will be asked for several years of them at sale, at khata transfer and by any bank lending against the property. One folder, one PDF per year.
The receipt is a deduction
If the property is let out, municipal tax paid during the financial year comes off gross rent before the 30% standard deduction under Section 24. It has to be paid rather than billed, and borne by you as owner rather than by the tenant. For a landlord whose rent already carries TDS, that deduction is part of what gets reclaimed at filing. The mechanics are in the guide to paying India property tax from abroad.
Years of arrears
Arrears attach to the property, not to the owner, so they arrive at the worst moment: khata transfer refused, a buyer's lawyer pricing them in, a lender declining. The route back to a clean khata is in the guide to khata and mutation for a remote owner.
Two items on the portal are worth knowing before you assume the only option is paying the full computed figure. It publishes a top defaulter list for each of the five corporations for FY 2025-26, so an old default is public. And under Circulars and Orders it publishes a Government Order notifying a One Time Settlement scheme for payment of all arrears and revised property tax, G.O. No. UDD 18 BBS 2024 (E)(P-2), dated 22 February 2024. That order is published in Kannada and its terms are not summarised here. Read it, or have someone read it for you, before paying a large arrears figure in full.
Objections and appeals against property tax show-cause notices now run through the BBMP Court Case Monitoring System at BBMPeNyaya.karnataka.gov.in.
FAQ
Do NRIs pay a different rate of property tax in Bengaluru? No. Municipal property tax attaches to the property, not to the owner's residency. There is no NRI rate, no exemption and no surcharge. What moves the rate is the zone, the use, and self-occupied against tenanted.
When was the 2026-27 rebate? The portal's Dates to Remember panel gives the rebate period for assessment year 2026-27 as 1 April 2026 to 30 April 2026. Blogs reporting an extension to 31 May 2026 are not reflected on the portal.
When do interest and penalty start? First half interest from 1 June 2026. Penalty from 29 November 2026. Second half interest from 1 December 2026. They are separate charges.
How many times can I change the registered mobile number? The portal states the online change is allowed one time only. Where the old number is unavailable, there is a separate grievance route at Forms/MobileGrievanceReq.aspx.
Is e-khata needed to pay property tax? No. e-khata is a different portal, bbmpeaasthi.karnataka.gov.in, and it matters for registration, loans and resale rather than for paying the tax.
Which corporation am I in now? Use the Know Your New Corporation lookup linked from the tax portal. Ward boundaries moved into five corporations, and grievances are handled per corporation.
Can my tenant pay it for me? Anyone can make the payment. The Section 24 deduction belongs to the owner who bore the cost, so keep the trail if a tenant pays and you adjust it against rent.
I have lost every receipt. What now? Search your PID on the portal and use Receipt Print. History returns against the identifier, with no need for whoever made the payment. The PID is printed on any old receipt and on the khata.
If you would rather not do this every year
66 MG Road pays municipal property tax for owners living abroad, in Bengaluru and seven other cities, and files the receipt where you can find it at sale. It is part of property management in Bangalore, and it is one of the items checked in the ₹20,000 Property Health Check, alongside khata status, encumbrance and who is occupying the property. We charge for that. The guides above cost nothing.
If your bill is small and your family is reliable, do it yourself with the steps on this page. Fix the mobile number in April, bookmark the portal, keep the PDFs.
Sources
Read in full on 8 September 2026.
- Bengaluru City Corporations property tax portal, Dates to Remember for assessment year 2026-27, the five corporations and their defaulter lists, the SAS identifier rule, the one-time mobile change, the auto-refund and grievance statements, and the Circulars and Orders list: https://bbmptax.karnataka.gov.in/
- Portal FAQ on property tax payment, for the Unit Area Value method, six value zones, built-up area from the schedule to the sale deed, car park at 50%, vacant against tenanted status, and the 5% early payment discount: https://bbmptax.karnataka.gov.in/documents/FAQs.pdf
- Government Order notifying the One Time Settlement scheme, G.O. No. UDD 18 BBS 2024 (E)(P-2) dated 22 February 2024: https://bbmptax.karnataka.gov.in/documents/OTS.pdf
- Standard Operating Procedure circular for assessment, recovery and management of property tax, No. CH.COMM/PSR(G)/2281/23-24 dated 6 December 2023: https://bbmptax.karnataka.gov.in/documents/SOPofPT.pdf
- Know Your New Corporation lookup, linked from the tax portal, host unreachable from outside India when tested on 8 September 2026: https://bbmp.gov.in/KnowYourNewCorporation/index.html
- BBMP Court Case Monitoring System for objections and appeals: https://BBMPeNyaya.karnataka.gov.in
- BDA property tax portal: https://propertytax.bdabangalore.org/
- e-khata portal: https://bbmpeaasthi.karnataka.gov.in/
Saurabh Garg, founder, 66 MG Road