Ask any founder what keeps them up at night around tax season, and “which form was due when” is usually near the top of the list. Compliance deadlines in India aren’t complicated individually, but they’re scattered across different departments — the Income Tax Department, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, GST authorities — and missing even one can mean late fees, interest, or in some cases penalties that compound daily. Here’s a clear, no-jargon rundown of the deadlines that matter most for FY 2025-26.
Income Tax Return (ITR) Deadlines for AY 2026-27
Your income tax filing deadline depends on what kind of taxpayer you are and whether your accounts need to be audited.
If you’re an individual or HUF filing ITR-1 or ITR-2 and don’t need an audit, your due date is 31 July 2026. If you’re a business or professional filing ITR-3 or ITR-4 without an audit requirement, you also have until 31 August 2026. Where a tax audit applies — typically businesses crossing prescribed turnover thresholds — ITR-3 and ITR-4 are due by 31 October 2026. If your business has international or specified domestic transactions requiring a transfer pricing report, your deadline extends to 30 November 2026. And if you miss your original deadline, a belated return can still be filed up to 31 December 2026, though it comes with interest and, in most cases, a late fee under Section 234F.
The safest habit is to treat the earliest applicable deadline as your real deadline — waiting for the audit-extended date when you don’t actually need an audit is a common and entirely avoidable mistake.
GST Registration and Ongoing Compliance
If you’re crossing the threshold for GST registration, the limits differ by what you sell and where you’re based. For suppliers of goods, registration becomes mandatory once turnover crosses ₹40 lakh in most states, or ₹20 lakh in special category states. For service providers, the threshold is lower — ₹20 lakh in normal category states and ₹10 lakh in special category states. These limits have been unchanged for goods and services respectively since 2019, so if you’re already registered, nothing changes here — but if you’re approaching these numbers, it’s worth registering proactively rather than waiting to be flagged. Once registered, GST comes with its own rhythm of monthly or quarterly return filings, so build that into your regular bookkeeping cycle rather than treating it as a once-a-year task.
ROC Annual Filing: AOC-4 and MGT-7
If you run a private limited company or an LLP structured as a company for filing purposes, ROC annual filings are non-negotiable — and they’re where a lot of founders lose track, because the due dates are anchored to your AGM date rather than a fixed calendar date.
Companies are required to hold their Annual General Meeting (AGM) within six months of the financial year closing — so for a company with a 31 March year-end, that means the AGM must happen by 30 September. From there:
AOC-4 (filing your financial statements — balance sheet, P&L, auditor’s report) is due within 30 days of the AGM. For an AGM held by 30 September, that puts your AOC-4 deadline around 30 October.
MGT-7 or MGT-7A (your annual return) is due within 60 days of the AGM, which works out to around 29 November for the same timeline.
Miss these, and the penalty is steep: ₹100 per day, per form, with no upper cap — which means a filing that’s a few months late can rack up thousands of rupees in penalties for what should have been a routine submission.
A Simple Way to Stay Ahead
The easiest way to avoid last-minute scrambles is to work backward from your financial year-end and block these dates on a shared compliance calendar the moment the year closes, rather than waiting for a reminder email in the month a filing is due. Pair that with a CA who tracks these dates on your behalf, and “deadline anxiety” mostly disappears.
Justsetu tracks your ITR, GST, and ROC deadlines for you as part of a single fixed-fee compliance plan — no more piecing together due dates from five different websites.
