Companies can file FY26 financial statements without additional fees until 31 December 2026, while the annual return deadline has moved to 31 January 2027 after continued MCA-21 technical problems.
India’s Ministry of Corporate Affairs has given companies extra time to complete annual compliance filings for financial year 2025-26, easing pressure on businesses grappling with persistent technical problems on the MCA-21 Version 3 portal. According to a circular cited by Free Press Journal, companies may now file financial statements without extra fees until December 31, 2026, while the deadline for annual returns has been pushed back to January 31, 2027. The relief applies to filings made through the various versions of Form AOC-4, including consolidated statements, XBRL submissions and forms used by non-banking financial companies. Annual returns filed through Forms MGT-7 and MGT-7A also fall under the extension. The move follows repeated complaints from company secretaries and other professionals about slow response times, login failures, session time-outs and other glitches on the government’s filing platform, which is used for statutory submissions, registrations and related compliance tasks. The Institute of Company Secretaries of India had urged the government to move the deadline to December 31, 2026 without additional charges, citing the same operational difficulties. The latest extension is the second round of relief for FY 2024-25 annual filings, after the ministry had already granted extensions in October and December 2025.
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