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Rent Receipt (Kiraya Rasid)

At a glance

Price
Free, always.
Stamp duty
A rent receipt carries stamp duty of Re. 1, and the figure is the same in Ludhiana as it is in Sector 17.
Registration
Not registrable, and there is nowhere to take it.
Witnesses
None, and none should be added.

Free

Free, always.

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Also called

  • Kiraya Rasid
  • Kiraye Di Rasid
  • Kiraye Ki Rasid
  • Kiraya Di Rasid
  • Rasid
  • Bhada Rasid
  • Bhade Di Rasid
  • Makan Kiraya Rasid

Whether you can fill this in here

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You can fill this one in on this site, and read the whole draft on screen before you decide anything about it. It is a carefully drafted template; it is not advice about your own facts.

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Why you need it

When you need it

Use this when rent has been paid for a house, flat, floor, kothi, barsati, portion or room in Punjab or in the Union Territory of Chandigarh, and the person who received the money is putting that fact in writing. Two quite different readers need the same piece of paper. For a tenant, it is what a payroll desk asks for before allowing House Rent Allowance, and what an assessing officer asks for afterwards. For a landlord in Punjab whose letting is governed by the Punjab Rent Act, 1995, issuing it is not good practice but a statutory duty with a price attached: section 13(2) of that Act entitles a tenant who pays in cash to obtain a signed written receipt forthwith, and section 13(3) allows the Rent Authority, on an application made by the tenant within two months of the payment, to order the landlord to pay damages of up to double the rent received, plus the costs of the application, and to grant the tenant a certificate for the rent paid instead. Chandigarh works differently, and it is worth knowing which side of the line you are on. The East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949, as extended to the Union Territory by Central Act 54 of 1974, has no receipt provision at all — no duty to issue one, no penalty for refusing. There a receipt is contractual and evidentiary only. It is still the most useful single sheet a tenant can hold, because the commonest ground of ejectment under that Act is non-payment of rent under section 13(2)(i), and rent control in Chandigarh reaches every tenanted building whatever the rent: the Administrator's notification of 7 November 2002, which purported to exempt buildings let at more than ₹1,500 a month, was quashed by the Supreme Court in Vasu Dev Singh v. Union of India, Civil Appeals Nos. 4688-4694 of 2006, decided 7 November 2006. In Punjab the receipt is the same sheet of paper whichever Act applies, but the remedy behind it is not, and the dividing line is the date of letting. Premises let on or after 30 November 2013 are under the Punjab Rent Act, 1995, with the section 13 duty and the section 13(3) remedy. Premises let before that date stay under the 1949 Act, saved for them by section 76(2) of the 1995 Act — the provision numbered section 75 in the Gazette text and referred to as section 75 by the Punjab and Haryana High Court in Neeraj Malhotra v. Jaswant Singh, the numbering having moved when the section was substituted by Punjab Act 33 of 2013 — with neither the duty nor the remedy. But that saving has a hole in it, and it is the one most likely to be missed here. Section 76(2) saves the 1949 Act for cases and proceedings on premises let before commencement other than NRI-owned premises. Where the landlord is a non-resident Indian, the 1995 Act track applies whenever the premises were let, and sections 3(1)(a), 24(3) and 75 were harmonised to that effect in Krishan Kumar v. Kamla Devi, 2016(1) RCR (Rent) 525. So a tenant of an NRI landlord in Ludhiana whose tenancy began in 2010 is not outside the receipt duty at all: the section 13(2) entitlement and the section 13(3) application for double damages within two months may well be his, and the receipt he is being refused is one he can compel. Then section 3 of the 1995 Act pulls a large class back out again. Most importantly section 3(1)(c), which puts a building constructed on or after 30 November 2013 outside the Act for fifteen years from completion of its construction. A tenancy of a 2019 flat in Mohali or a 2021 floor in Ludhiana is outside rent control altogether: there is no statutory receipt duty and no damages remedy, and this receipt is worth exactly what the contract and the evidence make it worth. Section 3(1) also excludes government and local authority premises, premises let to a citizen of a foreign country or to an embassy, high commission, legation, commission or notified international organisation, premises of a notified religious, charitable or educational trust, and premises let out by a person to whom a development authority or other local authority allotted them on hire-purchase, lease or sub-lease before full ownership rights accrued — a PUDA, GMADA or GLADA allottee who has not yet taken a conveyance deed. And a letting in a village or panchayat area in Punjab, outside every municipal corporation, municipal council, nagar panchayat, cantonment board and notified urban area, is reached by neither rent statute and runs on the Transfer of Property Act, 1882 alone. Do not use this document: - as proof that a tenancy exists, or of what its terms are. A receipt proves a payment and nothing more. Where the Punjab Rent Act, 1995 applies, the tenancy itself must be in the Form set out in Schedule I to that Act and registered with the Sub-Registrar on the ₹1,000 fee fixed by section 4(2); where it does not, use the eleven-month residential rent agreement. Issuing receipts month after month does not create, extend, prove or register a tenancy; - for a security deposit, advance rent, a maintenance or association bill, an electricity or water payment, house tax, a repair reimbursement or brokerage. Use a plain money receipt or the relevant bill. Folding those figures in overstates the rent, and only the rent component counts for House Rent Allowance; - as a tax invoice for commercial premises. Letting a residential dwelling for use as a residence is exempt from GST, but a shop, office, showroom, godown, clinic or coaching centre — or a residential dwelling taken on rent by a person registered under GST — can attract GST or reverse charge, and that needs a tax invoice; - where the landlord is a non-resident, without taking tax advice first. Tax on rent paid to a non-resident is deducted under the non-resident provisions, on the whole rent, with no monthly threshold and with a different return and certificate; nothing in this document or its notes addresses that. Note that the same fact cuts the other way on rent control: an NRI landlord takes the tenancy out of the 1949 Act saving in Punjab and into the 1995 Act; - to paper over payments that were not in fact made. A run of receipts written up in one sitting in February, with no agreement behind them and no bank trail, is the exact pattern a House Rent Allowance claim is disallowed on.

See stamp duty, registration and witnesses

What follows is written for Punjab and Chandigarh. It states the position there rather than describing how it varies, so the amounts below are the ones that apply — worth confirming at the sub-registrar’s office, because rates change. If the property is anywhere else in India, none of this is yours.

Stamp duty

A rent receipt carries stamp duty of Re. 1, and the figure is the same in Ludhiana as it is in Sector 17. Duty is charged under Article 53 of Schedule I to the Indian Stamp Act, 1899 on a receipt for an amount or value exceeding ₹5,000 — the threshold having been raised from ₹500 to ₹5,000 with effect from 10 September 2004. Below ₹5,000 no stamp is chargeable. Why neither jurisdiction can change that number. Duty on receipts is one of the few heads Parliament alone rates, under Entry 91 of List I of the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution, so it sits in Schedule I to the Act and not in a State schedule. Article 35, which prices the tenancy agreement itself, sits in Schedule I-A and does differ between Punjab and Chandigarh; Article 53 does not. Consistently with that, the Department of Revenue, Rehabilitation and Disaster Management's published "Document wise detail of Stamp Duty, Registration Fee and Facilitation charges" at revenue.punjab.gov.in carries no row for a receipt, and neither does the Revenue Department, Chandigarh Administration's "Stamp Duty & Registration Fees" at revenue.chd.gov.in/SRORegistrationFee.pdf. Both tables were read on 6 September 2026, and neither carries a date or a notification number of its own, so re-open them before relying on anything else in them. Punjab: Re. 1. Chandigarh: Re. 1. No facilitation charge, no cess and no pasting fee arise on either side, because those are charged on instruments presented for registration and this one is not presented anywhere. In practice the stamp is only used on cash. Buy the Re. 1 adhesive revenue stamp at a post office, or from a licensed stamp vendor at the tehsil complex of your district in Punjab or at the 30 Bays Building, Sector 17, Chandigarh. Affix it on the signature block and have the Landlord sign across it, so the signature runs partly on the stamp and partly on the paper — that is the cancellation section 12 of the Act requires, and section 12(3) treats an instrument bearing an uncancelled adhesive stamp as unstamped. Where the rent moved through a bank, UPI or a cheque, the payment record is itself the proof and a stamp is not usually asked for. Your right to a stamped receipt, and what a missing stamp costs. Section 30 entitles the person paying, on demand at the time of payment, to a duly stamped receipt; section 65 punishes a refusal or neglect to give one with a fine of up to ₹100. An unstamped receipt is not void: under proviso (b) to section 35 it is admitted in evidence against the person who gave it on payment of a penalty of Re. 1. So the missing stamp is a nuisance and not a disaster — but affix it anyway, because payroll desks refuse receipts without one and will not argue the point. Where tax has been deducted at source, stamp the sum the Landlord actually received. Article 53 charges duty on the amount acknowledged by the receipt. This receipt acknowledges the net figure, and it is the net figure that decides whether the ₹5,000 threshold is crossed. A gross rent of ₹60,000 net of ₹1,200 deducted still acknowledges ₹58,800, so the Re. 1 stamp is needed on a cash payment either way. Do not confuse this with the duty on the tenancy document, which is real money. An eleven-month letting in Punjab is charged under Article 35 of Schedule I-A at 4% of the annual rent, with a ₹500 facilitation charge and a ₹200 pasting fee; the same letting in Chandigarh falls in the "up to five years" row and is charged 2% on the annual average rent and 3% on the refundable security deposit — never on advance rent, verified at the Sub-Registrar, SAS Nagar (Mohali), September 2026. Issuing receipts does nothing to cure an under-stamped agreement, which remains liable to be impounded under section 33 and inadmissible under section 35 until the deficit and penalty are paid.

Registration

Not registrable, and there is nowhere to take it. Section 17 of the Registration Act, 1908 lists the instruments whose registration is compulsory and a receipt for rent is not among them, whatever the amount and whatever the period it covers. Do not present it to the Sub-Registrar or Joint Sub-Registrar of the tehsil in which the premises fall in Punjab, and do not present it to the Sub-Registrar, UT Chandigarh, under the Deputy Commissioner, at the 30 Bays Building, Sector 17. No fee is payable on it at either counter, and no counter will take it. The tenancy behind the receipt is an entirely different question, and in Punjab it is the sharpest departure from the ordinary law in the country. For premises in Punjab to which the Punjab Rent Act, 1995 applies — broadly, a letting on or after 30 November 2013 of a building that section 3 does not exempt, and any letting at all of NRI-owned premises — section 4(1) requires the letting to be by an agreement in writing notwithstanding section 107 of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882, and section 4(2), as substituted by the Punjab Rent (Amendment) Act, 2013, requires that agreement to be in the Form specified in Schedule I to the Act and to be registered under and in accordance with the Registration Act, 1908 by the authority specified thereunder — the Sub-Registrar — on payment of a registration fee of ₹1,000, and says so notwithstanding anything in the Registration Act. The familiar eleven-month workaround is abolished for those premises. Note also that an appeal to the Appellate Authority under section 50 expressly does not lie in a matter concerning registration under section 4(2). One caution on the fee: section 4(2) fixes ₹1,000, while the Revenue Department's own document-wise table charges 1% of the annual rent on a pattanama or lease, and it is not settled which the counter applies to a Schedule I agreement. Ask at the Sub-Registrar's counter before you pay; NGDRS online registration runs in every Sub-Registrar office across the 22 districts of Punjab through revenue.punjab.gov.in. For premises in Chandigarh, and for Punjab premises outside the 1995 Act, the ordinary rule governs. A lease from year to year, for a term exceeding one year, or reserving a yearly rent is compulsorily registrable under section 17(1)(d) of the Registration Act, 1908, and section 49 makes an unregistered one inadmissible as evidence of the transaction — you cannot use it to prove the term, the rent or the right to stay. The East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949 prescribes no form of tenancy agreement and imposes no registration duty of its own. That Act is saved for Punjab premises let before 30 November 2013 by section 76(2) of the Punjab Rent Act, 1995 — the provision numbered section 75 in the Gazette text and cited as section 75 in Neeraj Malhotra v. Jaswant Singh, the numbering having moved on substitution by Punjab Act 33 of 2013 — but the saving reaches premises other than NRI-owned premises, so an NRI landlord's old tenancy in Punjab is on the Schedule I and ₹1,000 registration track, not the ordinary one. Appointments and e-registration payment for Chandigarh are taken online at revenue.chd.gov.in. A dated statement on the Chandigarh position, because it has been moving. As at 6 September 2026 the 1949 Act continues to operate in the Union Territory: on 29 May 2026 a Division Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court kept in abeyance a Ministry of Home Affairs notification of 6 May 2026 that had purported, under section 87 of the Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966, to extend a different tenancy statute to Chandigarh, and directed that the 1949 Act would continue, holding prima facie that section 87 confers no power to repeal an existing law. Nothing on that file after 30 May 2026 has been read here. Whatever the outcome, it does not make a rent receipt registrable. Registering the receipt would not fix anything the tenancy is missing. Months of receipts do not cure an unregistered Schedule I agreement in Punjab, and they do not cure an unregistered lease of more than a year in Chandigarh.

Notarisation

Not required, and not worth paying for. No statute in force in Punjab or in the Union Territory of Chandigarh requires a rent receipt to be notarised. Section 13(2) of the Punjab Rent Act, 1995 asks for a receipt "signed by the landlord or his authorised agent" and asks for nothing else — not attestation, not notarisation, not witnesses. The East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949 as it runs in Chandigarh asks for no receipt at all, so it can hardly demand a notarised one. No payroll desk and no assessing officer asks for a notarised rent receipt. Notaries appointed under the Notaries Act, 1952 practise at the district courts complexes across Punjab — Ludhiana, Amritsar, Jalandhar, Patiala, Bathinda, Mohali and the rest — and in Chandigarh around the District Courts at Sector 43 and near the 30 Bays Building at Sector 17. The notarial fee is fixed by the Notaries Rules, 1956 and is small; the service charge on top is not fixed. On a rent receipt you would be buying nothing, and you would need to do it twelve times a year. What to do instead, because the underlying worry is real. The worry behind "should I get it notarised" is that the receipt might be doubted later. Answer it the cheap way: pay through a bank, by UPI or by cheque, so that the payment exists independently of the Landlord's signature; take the receipt at the counter of payment where the rent is cash; number the receipts in sequence; date each one on the day it is actually signed and never earlier than the day the money came in; and keep them with the tenancy agreement rather than loose. If the Landlord refuses to sign at all, the remedy in Punjab under the 1995 Act is the section 13(3) application to the Rent Authority within two months, not a notary; in Chandigarh, remit by postal money order or bank transfer and keep the record. The one document in this chain that is genuinely worth notarising is the tenancy agreement itself, where it is not being registered — banks, employers, schools and utility offices in Punjab and Chandigarh routinely ask for a notarised copy of an unregistered rent agreement even though no law requires one.

Witnesses

None, and none should be added. Only the Landlord signs. The Tenant does not sign, and there is no attestation block, because a receipt is a unilateral acknowledgement by the person who received the money — adding a witness line invites someone to leave it blank, and a document with an empty signature block looks worse than one that never had it. Section 13(2) of the Punjab Rent Act, 1995 requires the receipt to be "signed by the landlord or his authorised agent" and requires nothing further. The East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949, which governs in Chandigarh and for Punjab premises let before 30 November 2013 where the landlord is not a non-resident Indian, requires nothing at all. Who may sign in the Landlord's place. An agent, caretaker, property manager or family member who actually collects the rent should sign in his or her own name and add "for and on behalf of" with the owner's name, and the Tenant should hold a copy of the written authority — a letter from the owner is enough, and where the collector acts under a power of attorney for property matters that instrument should itself be registered and produced. Sections 13(2) and 13(3) of the 1995 Act attach both the duty and the liability to "the landlord or his authorised agent", so authority is the thing that makes the signature worth having. Where the owner is a non-resident Indian the authority is the whole of it: the person at the counter is almost never the owner, and a receipt signed by a relative with nothing in writing behind him proves a payment to that relative. Joint owners. Where the premises stand in more than one name, the co-owner entitled to receive the rent should sign, or every co-owner should, showing their shares. In Chandigarh check the names on the Estate Officer's allotment file before deciding who signs, because for sector property that file is the title. The revenue stamp takes the place of the witness line. On a cash receipt for more than ₹5,000, affix the Re. 1 adhesive revenue stamp under the signature and have the Landlord sign across it so that the signature runs partly on the stamp and partly on the paper. That crossing is the cancellation required by section 12 of the Indian Stamp Act, 1899, and an adhesive stamp that has not been cancelled is treated as no stamp at all under section 12(3). Sign in ink, on the day, and never on a date earlier than the money. The Landlord should sign each receipt on or after the day the rent was received and should not sign a book of blank receipts in advance. A receipt dated before the payment it acknowledges is the single artefact that most reliably destroys a House Rent Allowance claim, because it can only have been written up afterwards; a sheaf of pre-signed receipts is worth less than a bank statement. The form asks for the payment date and the receipt date separately so that the two can be compared, and nothing in the form stops you entering them the wrong way round — that check is yours.

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Sample preview — placeholder answers, not your data

RENT RECEIPT
(Kiraya Rasid)
  • Date of this receipt: 3 April 2026
  • Receipt number: 07/2026-27
  • Place of issue: Ludhiana

RECEIVED with thanks from Harpreet Singh Gill ("the Tenant") the sum of ₹18,000 (Rupees Eighteen Thousand only), being rent (kiraya) for the period 1 April 2026 to 4 April 2026, both days included, in respect of the premises described in clause 1 below, the said sum being the net amount received by the Landlord after deduction of tax at source as set out in clause 3.

1. The Premises

X ("the Premises"), in Punjab.

2. Received by

Manjit Kaur Sidhu ("the Landlord"), of X, who receives the said sum either as the owner of the Premises or as the agent authorised by the owner of the Premises to receive rent on the owner's behalf.

3. How the rent was paid

Mode of payment: Cash

Date the rent was actually received: 2 April 2026

Payment reference (cheque number, UPI transaction identifier or bank reference): UPI 428913665201

Deduction of tax at source. Gross rent for the period stated above: ₹60,000 (Rupees Sixty Thousand only). Tax deducted at source by the Tenant and payable to the Central Government on the Landlord's account: ₹1,200 (Rupees One Thousand Two Hundred only). Net amount actually received by the Landlord, being the sum acknowledged at the head of this receipt: ₹18,000 (Rupees Eighteen Thousand only). The Tenant is answerable for depositing the amount deducted within the time allowed, against the Landlord's Permanent Account Number, and for furnishing the Landlord with the certificate of deduction. The Landlord's credit for that amount comes from that deposit and from the certificate, and not from this receipt.

4. What this amount covers, and what it does not

This sum is rent for the Premises for the period stated above and nothing else. It is not, and does not include, any charge for electricity, water, gas, sewerage, maintenance, common-area or association charges, parking, house tax or property tax, and it is not a security deposit, advance rent, interest on late payment, brokerage or any payment on account of repairs. Where any such amount was also paid, it has been receipted separately.

5. The Landlord's Permanent Account Number

PAN of the Landlord: ABCPD1234E

The Landlord confirms that the Permanent Account Number stated above, if any, is correct and is the Landlord's own. Where no number is stated above, the Landlord declares that no Permanent Account Number has been allotted to the Landlord; the Tenant must in that case obtain from the Landlord a separate signed declaration to that effect, giving the Landlord's name and address, before claiming House Rent Allowance.

6. Relationship between the Landlord and the Tenant

Relationship of the Landlord to the Tenant: Not related to the Tenant

Why the receipt asks. The statement a salaried employee gives an employer to claim House Rent Allowance — Form No. 124 under rule 205 of the Income-tax Rules, 2026, read with section 392(5)(b) of the Income-tax Act, 2025, which took the place of Form No. 12BB with effect from 1 April 2026 — now requires the employee to disclose the relationship with the landlord as well as the landlord's name, address and Permanent Account Number. Rent genuinely paid to a parent, a spouse or another relative is not disallowed for that reason alone, but it is examined closely, and what is written here must match what is told to the employer.

What this document is for

A landlord in Punjab or Chandigarh uses this to put a rent payment in writing once it has actually been received, and a tenant relies on it afterwards — most often to support a House Rent Allowance claim at work, and later to an assessing officer if the claim is questioned. It records the rent for one period only: who paid, who received it, how much, for what dates, and how it was paid.

It exists because an HRA claim needs month-by-month proof of rent actually paid, not just an agreement stating what rent is due, and because a tenant who has paid in cash has nothing else in writing to show for it unless the landlord signs something. This receipt is that record, issued once for each month’s rent rather than as one document covering a whole year.

Before you rely on this — Chandigarh and Punjab do not treat a refused receipt the same way

In the Union Territory of Chandigarh, the rent law that applies there gives a tenant no statutory right to a receipt and sets no penalty for a landlord who refuses one — a receipt is useful evidence of payment, not something the law entitles a tenant to demand. In Punjab, a more recent Rent Act gives many tenants a real statutory right to a signed receipt on request, with a remedy if the landlord refuses.

Broadly, that stronger Punjab right reaches a letting that began on or after 30 November 2013, and, separately, any tenant of a landlord who is a non-resident Indian regardless of when the letting began — older Punjab lettings with a resident landlord, along with certain other exempted categories such as newer buildings, sit closer to the Chandigarh position instead. Exactly which position covers a given tenancy can turn on fine detail, so a tenant being refused a receipt is better off raising it with the Rent Authority or a local advocate than assuming either position from this note alone.

Stamp paper and registration

Stamp paper needed

Depends

Typical stamp duty — Punjab

Re. 1, and only where the rent was paid in cash and the receipt is for more than Rs 5,000 — under Article 53, Schedule I to the Indian Stamp Act, 1899, a subject only Parliament rates, so the figure does not vary by state. Where rent moves by bank transfer, UPI or cheque, the payment record itself is the proof and a stamp is not usually asked for. This is a separate, much smaller charge from the stamp duty owed on the rent agreement itself — see the FAQ on that below.

Typical stamp duty — Chandigarh

Re. 1, on the identical basis and the identical Rs 5,000 cash threshold as Punjab — Article 53 sits in the Central Schedule I, not in either State’s own schedule, so Chandigarh cannot charge a different figure for a receipt even though it does charge differently for the rent agreement behind it.

Registration at the Sub-Registrar

No — Not registrable anywhere — section 17 of the Registration Act, 1908 does not list a rent receipt, whatever the amount or the period it covers. This is entirely separate from the tenancy agreement itself, which in Punjab can need its own Schedule I registration and in Chandigarh needs ordinary lease registration once the term runs over a year — issuing receipts, however many, does nothing to cure either.

Notary or witnesses

Not required. Only the landlord, or someone actually authorised to collect rent on the landlord’s behalf, signs — the tenant does not sign, and there is no witness line at all.

What you will need before you start

  • Whether the property is in Punjab or in Chandigarh, since this receipt is drafted to name whichever applies
  • The property address, and the landlord’s and tenant’s full names — the landlord’s own address and PAN as well, if annual rent will cross Rs 1,00,000
  • The rent actually received for the period, kept to rent alone — no maintenance, electricity, deposit or other charges folded in
  • The exact period the rent covers, the date it was actually received, and how it was paid
  • If tax was deducted at source, the gross rent and the amount deducted, so the receipt can show gross, tax and net separately
  • A revenue stamp worth Re. 1, kept ready for any cash payment over Rs 5,000

Common mistakes

  • Dating a receipt before the rent it acknowledges was actually received — the single artefact most likely to make a whole year’s receipts look manufactured to an assessing officer.
  • Folding maintenance, electricity, deposit or other charges into the rent figure instead of issuing a separate receipt for them, which overstates the rent that actually counts for HRA.
  • Confusing this receipt’s own small, flat stamp duty with the separate, much larger stamp duty owed on the rent agreement itself, which this receipt does nothing to cure.

Questions people ask before using this document

Does a rent receipt need a revenue stamp, and when?

Only when the rent was paid in cash and the receipt is for more than Rs 5,000 — then a Re. 1 adhesive revenue stamp goes on the signature block, with the landlord signing across it so the signature runs partly on the stamp and partly on the paper. Where rent was paid by bank transfer, UPI or cheque, that payment record already proves the payment and a stamp is not usually asked for.

Do I need to register or notarise a rent receipt?

No, neither. A rent receipt does not appear on the Registration Act’s list of documents requiring registration, whatever the amount, and no law in Punjab or Chandigarh requires one to be notarised either. Paying by bank, UPI or cheque, and keeping receipts numbered and dated correctly, does far more for its credibility than a notary’s stamp would.

Is the stamp duty on this receipt the same as the stamp duty on my rent agreement?

No, and they should not be confused. This receipt’s own duty is a flat Re. 1, charged only on a cash payment over Rs 5,000. The rent agreement behind the tenancy is a completely separate, much larger charge — in Chandigarh, for instance, it includes a distinct 3% charged on the refundable security deposit specifically, never on advance rent, verified at the Sub-Registrar, SAS Nagar (Mohali), September 2026 — and issuing this receipt does nothing to satisfy or reduce that separate duty.

Is my landlord legally required to give me a receipt?

It depends on which rent law covers the tenancy. In Chandigarh, no — a receipt is good evidence but not something the law entitles a tenant to demand. In Punjab, many tenants under the state’s more recent Rent Act do have a real statutory right to one, with a remedy if it is refused, though exactly which tenancies that covers can turn on detail worth checking with the Rent Authority or a local advocate rather than assumed.

How much rent needs a PAN declaration for an HRA claim, and what if my landlord has none?

Once the total rent paid in the tax year crosses Rs 1,00,000, the landlord’s PAN has to be reported to the employer. If the landlord genuinely has no PAN, that field is left blank on the receipt, which then reads as a declaration that none has been allotted — the tenant then also needs a separate signed no-PAN declaration from the landlord for the employer’s records.

Related documents, and when you would need them

Questions about this document

Does the Rent Receipt (Kiraya Rasid) need stamp paper or stamp duty in Punjab and Chandigarh?

A rent receipt carries stamp duty of Re. 1, and the figure is the same in Ludhiana as it is in Sector 17. Duty is charged under Article 53 of Schedule I to the Indian Stamp Act, 1899 on a receipt for an amount or value exceeding ₹5,000 — the threshold having been raised from ₹500 to ₹5,000 with effect from 10 September 2004. Below ₹5,000 no stamp is chargeable.

Why neither jurisdiction can change that number. Duty on receipts is one of the few heads Parliament alone rates, under Entry 91 of List I of the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution, so it sits in Schedule I to the Act and not in a State schedule. Article 35, which prices the tenancy agreement itself, sits in Schedule I-A and does differ between Punjab and Chandigarh; Article 53 does not. Consistently with that, the Department of Revenue, Rehabilitation and Disaster Management's published "Document wise detail of Stamp Duty, Registration Fee and Facilitation charges" at revenue.punjab.gov.in carries no row for a receipt, and neither does the Revenue Department, Chandigarh Administration's "Stamp Duty & Registration Fees" at revenue.chd.gov.in/SRORegistrationFee.pdf. Both tables were read on 6 September 2026, and neither carries a date or a notification number of its own, so re-open them before relying on anything else in them. Punjab: Re. 1. Chandigarh: Re. 1. No facilitation charge, no cess and no pasting fee arise on either side, because those are charged on instruments presented for registration and this one is not presented anywhere.

In practice the stamp is only used on cash. Buy the Re. 1 adhesive revenue stamp at a post office, or from a licensed stamp vendor at the tehsil complex of your district in Punjab or at the 30 Bays Building, Sector 17, Chandigarh. Affix it on the signature block and have the Landlord sign across it, so the signature runs partly on the stamp and partly on the paper — that is the cancellation section 12 of the Act requires, and section 12(3) treats an instrument bearing an uncancelled adhesive stamp as unstamped. Where the rent moved through a bank, UPI or a cheque, the payment record is itself the proof and a stamp is not usually asked for.

Your right to a stamped receipt, and what a missing stamp costs. Section 30 entitles the person paying, on demand at the time of payment, to a duly stamped receipt; section 65 punishes a refusal or neglect to give one with a fine of up to ₹100. An unstamped receipt is not void: under proviso (b) to section 35 it is admitted in evidence against the person who gave it on payment of a penalty of Re. 1. So the missing stamp is a nuisance and not a disaster — but affix it anyway, because payroll desks refuse receipts without one and will not argue the point.

Where tax has been deducted at source, stamp the sum the Landlord actually received. Article 53 charges duty on the amount acknowledged by the receipt. This receipt acknowledges the net figure, and it is the net figure that decides whether the ₹5,000 threshold is crossed. A gross rent of ₹60,000 net of ₹1,200 deducted still acknowledges ₹58,800, so the Re. 1 stamp is needed on a cash payment either way.

Do not confuse this with the duty on the tenancy document, which is real money. An eleven-month letting in Punjab is charged under Article 35 of Schedule I-A at 4% of the annual rent, with a ₹500 facilitation charge and a ₹200 pasting fee; the same letting in Chandigarh falls in the "up to five years" row and is charged 2% on the annual average rent and 3% on the refundable security deposit — never on advance rent, verified at the Sub-Registrar, SAS Nagar (Mohali), September 2026. Issuing receipts does nothing to cure an under-stamped agreement, which remains liable to be impounded under section 33 and inadmissible under section 35 until the deficit and penalty are paid.

Does the Rent Receipt (Kiraya Rasid) need registration in Punjab and Chandigarh?

Not registrable, and there is nowhere to take it. Section 17 of the Registration Act, 1908 lists the instruments whose registration is compulsory and a receipt for rent is not among them, whatever the amount and whatever the period it covers. Do not present it to the Sub-Registrar or Joint Sub-Registrar of the tehsil in which the premises fall in Punjab, and do not present it to the Sub-Registrar, UT Chandigarh, under the Deputy Commissioner, at the 30 Bays Building, Sector 17. No fee is payable on it at either counter, and no counter will take it.

The tenancy behind the receipt is an entirely different question, and in Punjab it is the sharpest departure from the ordinary law in the country. For premises in Punjab to which the Punjab Rent Act, 1995 applies — broadly, a letting on or after 30 November 2013 of a building that section 3 does not exempt, and any letting at all of NRI-owned premises — section 4(1) requires the letting to be by an agreement in writing notwithstanding section 107 of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882, and section 4(2), as substituted by the Punjab Rent (Amendment) Act, 2013, requires that agreement to be in the Form specified in Schedule I to the Act and to be registered under and in accordance with the Registration Act, 1908 by the authority specified thereunder — the Sub-Registrar — on payment of a registration fee of ₹1,000, and says so notwithstanding anything in the Registration Act. The familiar eleven-month workaround is abolished for those premises. Note also that an appeal to the Appellate Authority under section 50 expressly does not lie in a matter concerning registration under section 4(2). One caution on the fee: section 4(2) fixes ₹1,000, while the Revenue Department's own document-wise table charges 1% of the annual rent on a pattanama or lease, and it is not settled which the counter applies to a Schedule I agreement. Ask at the Sub-Registrar's counter before you pay; NGDRS online registration runs in every Sub-Registrar office across the 22 districts of Punjab through revenue.punjab.gov.in.

For premises in Chandigarh, and for Punjab premises outside the 1995 Act, the ordinary rule governs. A lease from year to year, for a term exceeding one year, or reserving a yearly rent is compulsorily registrable under section 17(1)(d) of the Registration Act, 1908, and section 49 makes an unregistered one inadmissible as evidence of the transaction — you cannot use it to prove the term, the rent or the right to stay. The East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949 prescribes no form of tenancy agreement and imposes no registration duty of its own. That Act is saved for Punjab premises let before 30 November 2013 by section 76(2) of the Punjab Rent Act, 1995 — the provision numbered section 75 in the Gazette text and cited as section 75 in Neeraj Malhotra v. Jaswant Singh, the numbering having moved on substitution by Punjab Act 33 of 2013 — but the saving reaches premises other than NRI-owned premises, so an NRI landlord's old tenancy in Punjab is on the Schedule I and ₹1,000 registration track, not the ordinary one. Appointments and e-registration payment for Chandigarh are taken online at revenue.chd.gov.in.

A dated statement on the Chandigarh position, because it has been moving. As at 6 September 2026 the 1949 Act continues to operate in the Union Territory: on 29 May 2026 a Division Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court kept in abeyance a Ministry of Home Affairs notification of 6 May 2026 that had purported, under section 87 of the Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966, to extend a different tenancy statute to Chandigarh, and directed that the 1949 Act would continue, holding prima facie that section 87 confers no power to repeal an existing law. Nothing on that file after 30 May 2026 has been read here. Whatever the outcome, it does not make a rent receipt registrable.

Registering the receipt would not fix anything the tenancy is missing. Months of receipts do not cure an unregistered Schedule I agreement in Punjab, and they do not cure an unregistered lease of more than a year in Chandigarh.

What does the Rent Receipt (Kiraya Rasid) cost on Kaagazaat?

Free, always.

Does the Rent Receipt (Kiraya Rasid) need witnesses?

None, and none should be added. Only the Landlord signs. The Tenant does not sign, and there is no attestation block, because a receipt is a unilateral acknowledgement by the person who received the money — adding a witness line invites someone to leave it blank, and a document with an empty signature block looks worse than one that never had it. Section 13(2) of the Punjab Rent Act, 1995 requires the receipt to be "signed by the landlord or his authorised agent" and requires nothing further. The East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949, which governs in Chandigarh and for Punjab premises let before 30 November 2013 where the landlord is not a non-resident Indian, requires nothing at all.

Who may sign in the Landlord's place. An agent, caretaker, property manager or family member who actually collects the rent should sign in his or her own name and add "for and on behalf of" with the owner's name, and the Tenant should hold a copy of the written authority — a letter from the owner is enough, and where the collector acts under a power of attorney for property matters that instrument should itself be registered and produced. Sections 13(2) and 13(3) of the 1995 Act attach both the duty and the liability to "the landlord or his authorised agent", so authority is the thing that makes the signature worth having. Where the owner is a non-resident Indian the authority is the whole of it: the person at the counter is almost never the owner, and a receipt signed by a relative with nothing in writing behind him proves a payment to that relative.

Joint owners. Where the premises stand in more than one name, the co-owner entitled to receive the rent should sign, or every co-owner should, showing their shares. In Chandigarh check the names on the Estate Officer's allotment file before deciding who signs, because for sector property that file is the title.

The revenue stamp takes the place of the witness line. On a cash receipt for more than ₹5,000, affix the Re. 1 adhesive revenue stamp under the signature and have the Landlord sign across it so that the signature runs partly on the stamp and partly on the paper. That crossing is the cancellation required by section 12 of the Indian Stamp Act, 1899, and an adhesive stamp that has not been cancelled is treated as no stamp at all under section 12(3).

Sign in ink, on the day, and never on a date earlier than the money. The Landlord should sign each receipt on or after the day the rent was received and should not sign a book of blank receipts in advance. A receipt dated before the payment it acknowledges is the single artefact that most reliably destroys a House Rent Allowance claim, because it can only have been written up afterwards; a sheaf of pre-signed receipts is worth less than a bank statement. The form asks for the payment date and the receipt date separately so that the two can be compared, and nothing in the form stops you entering them the wrong way round — that check is yours.

Often needed with this document

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