Private Limited company annual compliance is the set of filings every Private Limited Company must complete each year with the Registrar of Companies and the income tax department. Miss them and the penalty is 100 rupees per day per form with no upper cap, so the cost climbs quietly until you fix it. Here is exactly what falls due, in what order, and by when.

The first job after incorporation

Two things start the clock the day your company is registered.

Appoint your first auditor within 30 days of incorporation. The board does this, and the company then files Form ADT 1 with the ROC to record the appointment.
Open the statutory registers and start maintaining them, the register of members, directors, charges and so on.

Founders often forget the auditor deadline because the company has no revenue yet. Appoint anyway. A late or missing ADT 1 is the first crack in your compliance record.

Board meetings through the year

A Private Limited Company must hold at least 4 board meetings in a year, with the gap between two meetings not exceeding 120 days. A small company or a One Person Company needs fewer meetings. Keep proper minutes for every meeting. The minutes are not a formality. They are the record auditors and the ROC rely on, and they support the resolutions behind your filings.

The Annual General Meeting

Every Private Limited Company holds an Annual General Meeting, the AGM, each financial year. The AGM is where shareholders adopt the financial statements. Two of your biggest filings are timed off the AGM date, so this is the anchor of the whole calendar. Hold the AGM on time and the rest of the year falls into place.

AOC 4, the financial statements

After the AGM, file Form AOC 4 with the ROC within 30 days of the AGM. AOC 4 carries your audited financial statements, the balance sheet, the profit and loss account, and the related reports. This is how the company places its accounts on the public record.

MGT 7 or MGT 7A, the annual return

File the annual return within 60 days of the AGM.

Most Private Limited Companies file Form MGT 7.
A small company and a One Person Company file the shorter Form MGT 7A.

The annual return is a snapshot of the company, its shareholding, its directors and key changes during the year. It is separate from AOC 4, and both are due, so do not treat one filing as covering the other.

DIR 3 KYC for every director

Every director who holds a DIN must file DIR 3 KYC by 30 September each year. This is a personal filing for the individual, not the company, and it is easy to overlook because it sits outside the AGM cycle. The cost of missing it is steep. The DIN gets deactivated, the director cannot sign filings, and reactivation carries its own late fee. If your company has 2 directors, that is 2 separate KYC filings every year.

The income tax return

The company files its income tax return by the due date for the assessment year. This is a separate track from the ROC filings and the two do not replace each other. A Private Limited Company also needs a statutory audit regardless of turnover, so plan the audit early enough that the accounts are signed before AOC 4 and the tax return fall due.

The year at a glance

Within 30 days of incorporation: appoint the first auditor and file ADT 1.
Through the year: at least 4 board meetings, with minutes.
Each financial year: hold the AGM.
Within 30 days of the AGM: file AOC 4.
Within 60 days of the AGM: file MGT 7 or MGT 7A.
By 30 September: every director files DIR 3 KYC.
By the due date: file the company income tax return.
All year: maintain the statutory registers.

What it costs to slip

The headline penalty for a late ROC filing is 100 rupees per day per form, with no upper cap. Two late forms running for a few months can grow into a real number, and the amount only stops when you file. A missed DIR 3 KYC deactivates the DIN. None of this is hard to avoid. It is a calendar problem, and a calendar problem has a calendar solution.

A practical tip. Build your year backwards from the AGM date. Once the AGM is fixed, AOC 4 and MGT 7 dates are fixed too, and you can book the audit work to land before them rather than scrambling at the end.

If you are still choosing a structure, our guide on how to register a Private Limited Company in India covers the setup before this calendar begins.

Startup Savera runs annual compliance for Private Limited Companies in Ahmedabad and across India, so the auditor appointment, the AGM, AOC 4, MGT 7 and every director KYC are filed on time and you never see a 100 rupee a day penalty. We track your deadlines and remind you before each one. See company registration in Ahmedabad, browse our services, or talk to us.

Private Limited company annual compliance checklist for 2026