Private Limited Company Compliance Calendar FY 2026-27: Every Date That Matters

Private limited compliance fails not because any single filing is hard, but because the dates are scattered across the year and owned by nobody. The fix is administrative: put every date below into the company's calendar with a four-week reminder, name one owner, and treat the ₹100-per-day forms as the priority tier — those late fees have no cap and no mercy.

The calendar below assumes the standard April–March financial year and a company past its first year. First-year companies have three extra clocks: the first auditor appointed by the board within 30 days of incorporation, the declaration of commencement of business (INC-20A) within 180 days, and the first AGM within nine months of the end of the first financial year.

Every company must hold at least four board meetings a year with no more than 120 days between consecutive meetings; a small company (paid-up capital and turnover under the notified thresholds) may hold two, one in each half-year, at least 90 days apart. Minutes must be recorded and signed within the statutory timelines — these are the documents every diligence and inspection asks for first.

The statutory registers — members, directors and KMP, charges, related-party contracts — live continuously, not annually. Keep them current as events happen; recreating registers before a funding round is expensive archaeology.

The quarterly tax layer runs alongside: TDS returns (24Q/26Q) for each quarter by the month-end following it, advance tax in four instalments (June 15, September 15, December 15, March 15) if the company's tax for the year exceeds ₹10,000.

Event-based filings have their own short clocks that ignore the annual calendar entirely: DIR-12 within 30 days of any director appointment or resignation, PAS-3 within the prescribed window of any share allotment, CHG-1 within 30 days of creating or modifying a charge (with expensive condonation beyond 120 days), and INC-22 within 30 days of a registered-office shift. Treat every corporate event as a filing trigger and check before the month closes.

April 30: MSME-1 (half-yearly return of outstanding dues to micro and small enterprise suppliers beyond 45 days) for the October–March half. If you buy from Udyam-registered suppliers, this form is yours; the October 31 filing covers the April–September half.

June 30: DPT-3, the annual return of deposits and of amounts received that are not deposits — which in practice means most director loans and inter-corporate borrowings. Companies routinely miss DPT-3 because 'we take no deposits'; the form covers exempt receipts too.

September 30: DIR-3 KYC for every person holding a DIN as on March 31 — web-based verification if nothing changed, the full form for new DIN holders or changed particulars. Miss it and the DIN deactivates until filed with a ₹5,000 fee, taking the director's ability to sign filings down with it.

September 30 is also the outer date for the AGM (for other than first AGMs): the meeting must be within six months of the financial-year end, with not more than fifteen months between AGMs. The audited financial statements must be ready and approved by the board in time to issue the 21-clear-day notice. Practically, the audit must close by end-August for a September AGM — book the auditor's calendar in June, not September.

ADT-1 (auditor appointment or reappointment, where required) files within 15 days of the AGM.

AOC-4 (financial statements) is due within 30 days of the AGM — October 29 for a September 30 AGM. MGT-7 or MGT-7A (annual return; the A-variant for small companies and OPCs) is due within 60 days of the AGM — November 28 on the same assumption. Both carry the uncapped ₹100-per-day additional fee, which is why they head the priority tier.

October 31: the company's income-tax return (ITR-6) for the year, since companies are audit cases (November 30 where transfer-pricing report applies). Also October 31: the second MSME-1 half-yearly filing, and the tax-audit report under Section 44AB where turnover triggers it (filed by September 30).

December 31: GSTR-9, the GST annual return, for GST-registered companies above the exemption threshold (with GSTR-9C reconciliation where turnover requires certification). December also closes the belated/revised ITR window.

January to March is the quiet quarter — use it deliberately. The third and fourth advance-tax instalments fall due, the March 31 year-end closes the books that next year's whole calendar depends on, and any housekeeping that slipped (register updates, unfiled event forms, DSC renewals) is cheapest to fix now, before the new cycle's deadlines start stacking in April.

The penalty regime is asymmetric. AOC-4 and MGT-7: ₹100 per day each, no cap — a year's delay on both is over ₹70,000 before adjudication penalties. DIR-3 KYC: ₹5,000 and a deactivated DIN. DPT-3 and MSME-1: additional fees plus adjudication exposure. Persistent default escalates to director disqualification under Section 164(2) — three financial years of non-filing takes every director out of every board for five years.

The defence fits on one page: a compliance calendar with owners and reminders, the auditor engaged by June, the AGM planned for early September rather than the deadline day, and a standing monthly review of TDS and GST alongside. Companies that operationalise this spend a few thousand rupees a year on punctual filings; companies that improvise spend multiples of that on late fees — and their directors' time on regularisation.

Small companies and OPCs get real relaxations — two board meetings instead of four, MGT-7A instead of MGT-7, no AGM for an OPC — but note what is not relaxed: the audit, AOC-4, DIR-3 KYC, DPT-3 and the tax calendar apply in full. The relaxations trim the meeting machinery, not the filing machinery, so the calendar above shrinks by lines, not by risk.