The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) has extended the deadlines for companies to file financial statements and annual returns for the financial year 2025-26, allowing them additional time to complete statutory compliances without paying additional fees.
Under the revised schedule, companies can submit financial statements through various versions of Form AOC-4, including consolidated financial statements, XBRL-format filings and applicable forms for non-banking financial companies, by December 31, 2026, without additional fees.
The deadline for filing annual returns through Forms MGT-7 and MGT-7A has been extended to January 31, 2027, according to an MCA circular.
The ministry’s decision follows representations from stakeholders seeking an extension to complete the mandatory filings. The move comes amid concerns over technical issues affecting the MCA-21 Version 3 portal, the online platform used by companies to submit statutory documents and access corporate compliance services.
The Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI) had also requested an extension until December 31, 2026, without additional fees. The institute cited frequent portal outages, slow response times, session timeouts and automatic logouts during form preparation and submission. Other reported difficulties included login problems, delays in profile updates and user access management, as well as errors in pre-filled information and inconsistencies in data retrieval.
Form AOC-4 is used to submit a company’s financial statements to the Registrar of Companies, while Form MGT-7 is used for annual returns. Form MGT-7A applies to one-person companies and small companies.
The ministry had also extended annual filing deadlines for the previous financial year, 2024-25, through circulars issued in October and December 2025. The latest relief provides companies and compliance professionals additional time to complete FY26 filings while addressing challenges associated with the online filing system.
-IANS
