Tax Rebate on Investment in Bangladesh 2026-27: How Much Savings Certificates, DPS and Insurance Save You

In this guide: What counts as eligible investment · A worked example, old rules against new · Savings-certificate interest is no longer "final" tax · Claiming the rebate on the e-return, and the clawback

The short answer

Resident individuals and non-resident Bangladeshis may deduct from their tax a rebate equal to the lowest of three figures: 3% of total income (excluding exempt, reduced-rate and final-tax income), 10% of the eligible investment made in the income year, and Tk 7,50,000. Section 78 of the Income Tax Act 2023 was amended to these figures by the Finance Act 2026 with effect from 1 July 2026; until last year the rate was 15% and the cap Tk 10 lakh. The rebate cannot take your tax below the minimum tax, and it cannot create a refund on its own.

What counts as eligible investment

The list is in Part 3 of the Sixth Schedule. The items our clients use, with the limits that apply to each:

Bank FDRs, land, gold, a flat and unlisted shares do not qualify. Nor does an investment made after 30 June 2026 — that belongs to next year’s return.

A worked example, old rules against new

A teacher with total income of Tk 9,00,000 buys Tk 3,00,000 of savings certificates and pays Tk 60,000 in DPS during the year. Eligible investment: Tk 3,60,000.

For this taxpayer nothing changed, because the 3%-of-income leg was already the binding one. The cut bites people who invest heavily relative to income — someone earning Tk 9 lakh who invested Tk 2 lakh gets Tk 20,000 instead of Tk 27,000 (the 15% leg would have given 30,000, capped by 3% at 27,000; now the 10% leg gives 20,000). The arithmetic favours spreading investments across years rather than making one large purchase.

Savings-certificate interest is no longer "final" tax

Until tax year 2025-26, the 10% deducted at source on savings-certificate profit was the final tax on that income: you could neither pay more nor get any of it back. Section 163 as substituted by the Finance Act 2026 ends that from 1 July 2026. Now you show the gross profit under “income from financial assets”, compute tax at your slab rates, and credit the 10% deducted (5% where your total holdings are Tk 5 lakh or less, nil on pensioner certificates up to Tk 5 lakh, under NBR’s February 2026 clarification).

For a retiree whose only income is certificate interest below the tax-free limit, that means a refund of the whole deduction; NBR’s own example is Tk 50 lakh of certificates producing Tk 5 lakh of profit, Tk 50,000 deducted, Tk 40,000 of tax due and Tk 10,000 back. The refund is claimed on the online form inside the e-return with your bank details. For a higher-rate taxpayer it means more tax, not less. The same change applies to FDR and treasury-security interest.

Claiming the rebate on the e-return, and the clawback

1. Open the Rebate section of the return and enter each investment — life insurance, DPS, savings certificates, shares — with the amount and date. Savings-certificate figures can be pulled from the income section with “Sync from Income”.
2. Keep the evidence: certificate purchase receipts, the insurer’s premium receipt, the DPS statement, the BO account statement. The circle can ask for any of them.
3. Check the computed rebate against the three legs. The portal applies the lowest automatically; an error usually means a date outside the income year or an issue date that does not match the certificate.

The new clawback. From 2026-27 an investment on which rebate was claimed must be held to maturity. If a certificate, DPS or policy is encashed or surrendered early, the rebate attributable to it is repaid as additional tax in the year of withdrawal, pro-rated. Before you break a five-year certificate in year two, ask what the rebate cost was.

Late filers. Under the old law a late return forfeited the rebate. The 2026 amendments replaced the late regime with filing windows (see our return filing guide); whether a return filed after 30 June 2027 still loses the rebate is a point we are confirming against the Paripatra 2026-27. Two other 2026 points: provident-fund contributions count only if the fund is recognised, and premature withdrawal triggers a pro-rated additional tax; donations to the Centre for Zakat Management are deductible, and donations to eleven named charitable bodies carry a rebate until 30 June 2030. File in time and the question does not arise.