Your first year
New company? Here is every filing due in your first year.
A new Private Limited company has about seven filings in its first year. The dates count from your incorporation date, not the calendar year. Here they are in the order they usually fall due, and what each one is for.
In order, from your incorporation date
Seven filings, one after another.
This list is for a Private Limited company. If you registered an LLP or a One Person Company, the differences are lower down.
Within 30 days of incorporation
Appoint your first auditorADT-1
Your board appoints the company's first auditor within 30 days of incorporation. Form ADT-1 tells the ROC (the Registrar of Companies, the office every company files with) who it is. Miss the window and the appointment itself is out of order, on top of a late fee for the form.
Within 180 days of incorporation
Declare that business has startedINC-20A
Before a company can borrow money or start trading, it files a declaration that the owners have paid in the share capital and business has begun. Leave it unfiled long enough and the ROC can start removing the company from the register.
When you cross the limit
Register for GST, if it applies to you
Not every new company needs GST on day one. It depends on your sales. It also depends on whether you sell goods to another state or through an online marketplace. In those two cases the sales limit does not protect you. Trade without registering once you must, and you owe the tax anyway, plus a penalty and interest.
Your first salary or contractor payment
TDS starts
There is no form to start it and nobody tells you. The moment a payment crosses the limit for its type, you must cut tax from it. That covers salaries, contractor bills, professional fees and rent. You deposit the tax by the 7th of the next month and report it every quarter. Miss it and you owe the tax with interest, and the expense can be refused until it is paid.
15 June, 15 September, 15 December, 15 March
Your first advance tax payment
If your company's tax for the year will cross ₹10,000, you pay it in four parts through the year. Not one lump sum at the end. Interest builds on whatever is unpaid at each date. We tell you the amount before each one.
By 30 June, once every three years
Director KYCDIR-3 KYC
Every person with a director number files this once every three years, by 30 June. A change of mobile, email or home address is filed within 30 days. The rule changed on 31 March 2026. Before that it was every year. Miss it and the number is switched off until a flat fee is paid. This fee does not grow with time. The next one does.
After your first annual meeting
Your first annual accounts and annual returnAOC-4 and MGT-7
Every company files its accounts and its annual return with the ROC every year, even one with no sales. The accounts go in within 30 days of the annual meeting and the annual return within 60 days. This is where the late fee with no cap lives, so mark these two first.
The one number to remember
On the annual accounts and the annual return, the late fee is ₹100 per day per form, and it has no upper limit. File both a year late and that is about ₹73,000 in late fee alone, before any penalty on the company or its directors. Every other filing on this page has a fee that stops growing. This one does not. Nothing on any calendar reminds you. We do.
Different structure
Registered an LLP or a One Person Company instead?
LLP
A shorter list. There is no auditor to appoint in year one, so the first form above does not apply. GST and TDS work the same way. You still file two forms with the ROC every year, Form 8 for your accounts and Form 11 for your annual return. Both carry the same ₹100 a day fee with no cap. An LLP needs an audit only above a sales or contribution limit, so many first-year LLPs owe no audit at all.
One Person Company
Almost nothing changes. An OPC is a company. It owes the same audit and the same auditor appointment. It files the same declaration that business has started. It files the same annual accounts and return, with the same uncapped late fee. What is lighter: no annual general meeting and a simpler annual return. One thing is unique. You name a nominee at incorporation, and changing that person later is its own filing.
Questions
About your first year.
I incorporated more than a year ago. Is this still useful?
Yes. The yearly items still apply every year: director KYC, the annual accounts and the annual return. The two one-time items, appointing your first auditor and declaring that business has started, apply only once. If you are not sure whether you filed them, send us your incorporation date and we tell you.
My company has not started trading. Do I still owe these?
Yes, almost all of them. A company with no sales still appoints an auditor, still files its annual accounts and annual return, and still does director KYC every year. Not trading is not the same as being excused.
I think I already missed one. What now?
Send us your incorporation date and whatever you have filed so far. We tell you where you stand and what it takes to catch up. The first answer costs you nothing.
What does it cost to get this list?
Nothing. Send your incorporation date on WhatsApp and the list comes back the same working day. If you then want us to do the filings, we work as your finance team for one fixed monthly fee.
The first-year forms
Two ROC forms with short windows, explained.
Next step
Send your incorporation date. We map your first year.
One WhatsApp message. We send back every filing you owe in year one, with the date each one is due, and anything already past it.
Or fill in the short form and we reply the same way.
We reply the same working day. A real answer, not a calendar link.