What happens if you miss a compliance deadline?

If you miss a compliance deadline, you pay late fees (₹100 a day per form for company forms, with no upper limit; for LLP forms, a multiple of the normal filing fee that rises with the delay), interest on tax paid late, and a ₹5,000 fee to reactivate a DIN. After long defaults, directors can be disqualified for five years and the company can be struck off.

Penalties in Indian compliance are designed to grow with time. A small delay is cheap; a long one is not.

What is the late fee for ROC filings?

• Company forms such as AOC-4 and MGT-7: additional fee of ₹100 per day, per form, with no upper limit.
• LLP Form 8 and Form 11: since 1 April 2022, an additional fee per form that is a multiple of the normal filing fee, rising with the delay — up to 15 times for small LLPs and 30 times for other LLPs within a year, plus a daily amount beyond 360 days. A separate penalty of ₹100 per day can also apply, capped at ₹1 lakh for the LLP and ₹50,000 per designated partner.
• INC-20A not filed: penalty on the company and its officers, and possible removal of the company's name.

The additional fee is on top of the normal government filing fee. So a company that is one year late on both AOC-4 and MGT-7 owes roughly ₹73,000 in additional fees alone. For INC-20A, the penalty is ₹50,000 on the company and ₹1,000 a day on each officer in default, up to ₹1,00,000. The MCA sometimes runs short, time-bound schemes that reduce these fees, as it did in 2026, but no one can plan on the next one. Check current fees on the MCA portal.

What happens to directors?

• DIN deactivation — if DIR-3 KYC is not filed, the DIN is deactivated; reactivation costs ₹5,000.
• Disqualification — a director of a company that has not filed its financial statements or annual returns for three continuous financial years is disqualified from being appointed a director of any company for five years.

A deactivated DIN does not remove the person as director, but they cannot sign or file forms until KYC is done, so the company's own filings get stuck. Disqualification under Section 164(2) of the Companies Act, 2013 is more serious: the director must also vacate office in other companies, apart from the defaulting company. This is why one neglected company can affect every other business its directors are part of.

What are the penalties for late GST returns?

• Late fee for each day of delay — including on nil returns.
• Interest on tax paid late.
• Registration can be cancelled for continued non-filing.

Default	Consequence
GSTR-3B or GSTR-1 filed late	₹50 a day (₹20 a day for a nil return), subject to a cap based on turnover
Tax paid late	Interest at 18% a year
Returns not filed for six months (monthly filers)	The officer can cancel the GST Registration
Return not filed within three years of its due date	The portal no longer accepts it

Current rules are on gst.gov.in. The GST Registration topic covers GST returns in detail.

What happens if income tax or TDS is late?

• Interest and late fees for late returns and late TDS deposits.
• Losses may not be carried forward if the return is filed late.

For TDS, interest is 1.5% a month when tax deducted is deposited late, and a late TDS return costs ₹200 a day, capped at the TDS amount. For the income tax return, a late fee applies and interest runs on unpaid tax. Most importantly, a business loss can be carried forward to future years only if the return was filed by the due date.

Can the Registrar strike off my company?

A company or LLP that stays inactive and does not file for years can be struck off by the Registrar. Bringing it back needs an application to the Tribunal — far more expensive than the filings would have been.

Strike off means the Registrar removes the name from the register and the entity stops existing. Restoration is sought from the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) under Section 252 of the Companies Act, 2013, and needs all pending filings, fees and costs to be cleared.

What should you do if you have already missed a deadline?

1. List every pending filing across ROC, GST, TDS and income tax, with its original due date.
2. File the oldest and most costly ones first — forms with daily fees and no cap grow fastest.
3. Pay the late fee and interest as shown on the portal; they usually cannot be waived by asking.
4. If a DIN has been deactivated, file DIR-3 KYC first so directors can sign the remaining forms.
5. If the business has stopped, plan a formal closure instead of letting the defaults grow.

Key takeaways

• Late fees grow every day and have no cap on some forms.
• Long defaults disqualify directors across all companies.
• A missed DIR-3 KYC blocks a director from signing any form.
• Filing late is always cheaper than not filing.