What a company files in India [IN]
Every entry below is the rule as India publishes it. It is a reference, not a calendar: where a deadline runs from something only you know, this page says so instead of showing a date.
A template, not your deadline
This is the rule as published by the registry, checked against the primary source on the date shown. It is not your filing date. Where a deadline runs from incorporation, from a fiscal year the company itself elects, or from an event only you know about, no date can be derived here at all — the figure you see is the formula, not the answer. Extensions, transitional regimes and entity-specific exemptions are not reflected. Confirm with the registry before you rely on a date.
How the financial year is set — Fixed by statute
India fixes the financial year by statute. Section 2(41) of the Companies Act, 2013 provides that «financial year», in relation to any company or body corporate, «means the period ending on the 31st day of March every year, and where it has been incorporated on or after the 1st day of January of a year, the period ending on the 31st day of March of the following year». One narrow exception survives: a holding, subsidiary or associate company of a company incorporated outside India which is required to follow a different financial year for consolidation abroad may apply to the Central Government, which may allow any period as its financial year. Income tax runs on the same clock under a new name: section 3(1) of the Income-tax Act, 2025, in force from 1 April 2026, defines «tax year» as «the twelve months period of the financial year commencing on the 1st April». GST also works on the financial year. Two of the deadlines below are not counted from the year end at all. The annual return and the financial statements are counted from the annual general meeting actually held. Section 96(1) requires every company other than a One Person Company to hold that meeting within six months from the close of the financial year, within nine months in the case of the first annual general meeting, with not more than fifteen months between one meeting and the next, and the Registrar may for special reason extend any meeting other than the first by up to three months. Move the meeting and both filing dates move with it.
Annual general meeting
Formula, not a date
Filed to
Nothing is filed: the meeting is held by the company itself. The Registrar of Companies appears only where an extension of time is sought under the third proviso to section 96(1).
Who it applies to
Every entity in the jurisdiction
Section 96(1) applies to every company other than a One Person Company. This entry is here because it is the anchor for the two Registrar filings below: both of them run from the date of this meeting, not from the financial year end.
Deadline
Within 6 months after the end of the financial year.
Extensions and exceptions: Two things make this a formula rather than a date. The first annual general meeting is held within nine months from the closing of the first financial year, not six. And the third proviso to section 96(1) lets the Registrar, for any special reason, extend the time for any annual general meeting other than the first by a period not exceeding three months.
If missed
Section 99 provides that if any default is made in holding a meeting in accordance with section 96, the company and every officer of the company who is in default «shall be punishable with fine which may extend to one lakh rupees and in the case of a continuing default, with a further fine which may extend to five thousand rupees for every day during which such default continues». Both figures are ceilings set by the court, not fixed amounts, which is why no number is carried in the numeric fields of this record.
Proof of filing
The minutes of the annual general meeting, and the date of that meeting, which is what the two Registrar filings below are counted from.
Annual return to the Registrar of Companies
Formula, not a date
Filed to
Registrar of Companies, Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA21 portal).
Who it applies to
Every entity in the jurisdiction
Section 92(4) says «Every company shall file with the Registrar a copy of the annual return». Where no annual general meeting was held in a year, the same sixty days run from the date on which it should have been held, and a statement specifying the reasons for not holding it is filed together with the return.
Deadline
Counted from an event, not from the calendar.
No date can be derived here. This deadline runs from something this page does not know — the financial year the company itself elects, or an event only you can date. What is published is the rule, not the day.
If missed
Section 92(5): if a company fails to file its annual return before the expiry of the period specified in sub-section (4), «such company and its every officer who is in default shall be liable to a penalty of ten thousand rupees and in case of continuing failure, with a further penalty of one hundred rupees for each day after the first during which such failure continues, subject to a maximum of two lakh rupees in case of a company and fifty thousand rupees in case of an officer who is in default». The numeric fields below carry the company's figures; the officer's cap is fifty thousand rupees.
Proof of filing
The MCA21 service request number and the acknowledgement generated when the annual return is taken on record by the Registrar.
Filing of the financial statements with the Registrar (form AOC-4)
Formula, not a date
Filed to
Registrar of Companies, Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA21 portal).
Who it applies to
Every entity in the jurisdiction
Section 137(1) covers every company: a copy of the financial statements, including the consolidated financial statement if any, duly adopted at the annual general meeting, is filed within thirty days of the date of that meeting. Three cases run differently and are in the statute itself. Financial statements not adopted at the meeting are still filed within thirty days and the Registrar takes them as provisional until the adopted version is filed within thirty days of the adjourned meeting. A One Person Company files within one hundred eighty days from the closure of the financial year. Where no annual general meeting was held, the statement of facts and reasons is filed within thirty days of the last date before which the meeting should have been held.
Deadline
Counted from an event, not from the calendar.
No date can be derived here. This deadline runs from something this page does not know — the financial year the company itself elects, or an event only you can date. What is published is the rule, not the day.
If missed
Section 137(3): the company «shall be liable to a penalty of ten thousand rupees and in case of continuing failure, with a further penalty of one hundred rupees for each day during which such failure continues, subject to a maximum of two lakh rupees», and the managing director and the Chief Financial Officer, failing them the director charged by the Board with compliance, failing him all the directors, are liable to a penalty of ten thousand rupees with a further one hundred rupees for each day after the first, subject to a maximum of fifty thousand rupees. The numeric fields below carry the company's figures.
Proof of filing
The MCA21 acknowledgement for form AOC-4. The form number is taken from the Ministry's own notice of 30 October 2024 on the MCA portal, which speaks of «additional fee logic changes in AOC-4 forms»; the filing obligation itself is section 137(1).
Return of income (corporate income tax)
Fixed date
Filed to
Income Tax Department, Central Board of Direct Taxes (e-filing portal).
Who it applies to
Every entity in the jurisdiction
Section 263(1) of the Income-tax Act, 2025 requires every person listed in it, companies among them, to furnish a return for a tax year on or before the due date. The due date is «the date of the financial year succeeding the relevant tax year» taken from a table: 31 October for a company, and 30 November instead for an assessee who must furnish the report referred to in section 172, which is the transfer pricing report. A company with related party transactions caught by section 172 therefore has 30 November, not the 31 October shown here.
Deadline
31 October, every year. A calendar date fixed by statute, independent of the financial year.
Extensions and exceptions: The date falls in the financial year succeeding the tax year: for the tax year running 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027, it is 31 October 2027. The Income-tax Act, 2025 came into force only on 1 April 2026 and its first filing cycle has not yet run; administrative extensions of the filing date by the Board have been routine in India in the past and would not show in the text of the section.
If missed
Not collected. The sections of the Income-tax Act, 2025 that carry the late-filing fee and the interest for a return furnished after the due date were not read at the primary source, and the figures of the repealed Income-tax Act, 1961 must not be carried over to a statute whose numbering and amounts changed. No amount is stated here.
Proof of filing
The acknowledgement generated by the Income Tax Department's e-filing portal when the return is furnished and verified.
Tax audit report (Form No. 26)
Formula, not a date
Filed to
Income Tax Department, Central Board of Direct Taxes (e-filing portal).
Who it applies to
Only above a threshold — turnover > 10,000,000 INR
Section 63 of the Income-tax Act, 2025 requires accounts to be audited where total sales, turnover or gross receipts from business «exceed one crore rupees in any tax year». The section raises that limit to ten crore rupees where the conditions it specifies are met. For a profession the trigger is gross receipts exceeding fifty lakh rupees in the tax year. The figure in the machine field is the one crore rupees business limit; the ten crore and fifty lakh cases are not expressible in a single threshold and must be read from the section. Note that this is the income tax audit. Company law audit in India has no threshold at all: every company registered under the Companies Act, 2013 is audited.
Deadline
30 September, every year. A calendar date fixed by statute, independent of the financial year.
Extensions and exceptions: Section 63 states no calendar date at all. It fixes the deadline as «the date one month prior to the due date for furnishing the return of income under section 263(1)», and the Department's own note on Form No. 26 repeats that it is furnished «generally one month prior to the due date prescribed under Section 263(1), unless extended by the Board». Thirty September is that date only for a company whose return is due on 31 October. A company that must furnish the section 172 transfer pricing report files its return on 30 November, so its audit report is due on 31 October. The date is shown as indicative because it is derived, not written.
If missed
Not collected. The penalty provision of the Income-tax Act, 2025 for failure to get the accounts audited or to furnish the report was not read at the primary source. The amounts of the repealed Income-tax Act, 1961 are not carried over here.
Proof of filing
Form No. 26, the audit report and statement of particulars prescribed under section 63 of the Income-tax Act, 2025 read with rule 47 of the Income-tax Rules, 2026, uploaded by the accountant and accepted on the e-filing portal.
GST annual return (FORM GSTR-9)
Fixed date
Filed to
Goods and Services Tax authorities, through the common portal, either directly or through a Facilitation Centre notified by the Commissioner.
Who it applies to
Only registered foreign entities
Rule 80(1) covers every registered person other than an Input Service Distributor, a person paying tax under section 51 or section 52, a casual taxable person and a non-resident taxable person; a person paying tax under section 10 files FORM GSTR-9A instead. Registration itself starts, under section 22(1) of the CGST Act, where aggregate turnover in a financial year exceeds twenty lakh rupees, or ten lakh rupees for supplies made from a special category State; the third proviso lets the Government, at a State's request, raise the twenty lakh figure to not more than forty lakh rupees for a supplier engaged exclusively in the supply of goods, subject to conditions to be notified — the notification itself was not read here. Two further points. A registered person whose aggregate turnover in the financial year exceeds five crore rupees must also furnish a self-certified reconciliation statement in FORM GSTR-9C by the same date, under rule 80(3). And the first proviso to section 44 lets the Commissioner exempt classes of registered persons from the annual return by notification; such exemptions have been issued for small turnovers in past years and must be checked for the year concerned.
Deadline
31 December, every year. A calendar date fixed by statute, independent of the financial year.
Extensions and exceptions: Read the date in the rule, not in the Act. Since 1 August 2021 section 44(1) of the CGST Act says only that the annual return is furnished «within such time and in such form and in such manner as may be prescribed»; the older wording that carried «the thirty-first day of December following the end of such financial year» survives on the CBIC page as a footnote to the superseded text. The operative date is rule 80(1) of the CGST Rules: «on or before the thirty-first day of December following the end of such financial year». Rule 80(1A) shows how this moves in practice — for the financial year 2020-2021 the date was pushed to 28 February 2022.
If missed
Section 47(2) of the CGST Act: a registered person who fails to furnish the return required under section 44 by the due date «shall be liable to pay a late fee of one hundred rupees for every day during which such failure continues subject to a maximum of an amount calculated at a quarter per cent. of his turnover in the State or Union territory». The cap is a percentage of turnover, so no absolute figure is carried in the cap field. This is the central levy only; the corresponding State or Union territory GST Act carries its own, and that Act was not read here. Reduced late fees for smaller taxpayers have been notified in past years and were not read either.
Proof of filing
The acknowledgement reference number issued by the common portal for FORM GSTR-9, and for a turnover above five crore rupees the self-certified reconciliation statement in FORM GSTR-9C filed with it.