If your company has stopped filing with the Registrar at some point over the last few years, there is a window open right now that cuts the penalty by ninety per cent. It closes on 31 August 2026, and it is unlikely to come back.
Under CCFS-2026 a company pays normal filing fees plus only 10% of the accumulated additional fees on overdue annual forms. Dormant status costs half the usual fee, strike-off a quarter. The scheme ends 31 August 2026.
Additional fees under the Companies Act are the reason small lapses turn into large bills. They accrue daily, they do not stop, and there is no upper limit. A company that quietly skipped its AOC-4 and MGT-7 for three years can be looking at additional fees running into lakhs before anyone has issued a notice. The Ministry of Corporate Affairs opened the Companies Compliance Facilitation Scheme, 2026 to let those companies come back into compliance without the accumulated penalty deciding whether they can afford to.
The response has been substantial. By 13 July 2026 the MCA reported that 92,859 companies had used the scheme, of which 92,826 were Indian companies and 33 were foreign companies. Another 11,829 had filed for strike-off under it and 99 had applied for dormant status.
The bottom line
What it costs: normal fees, plus 10% of the additional fees you would otherwise owe. A 90% reduction.
What it covers: overdue annual filings, not every form. Cost audit forms, LLP forms, DIR-3 KYC and DPT-3 are outside it.
What it does not fix: director disqualification under Section 164(2). That runs its five years regardless.
Where the scheme comes from
The MCA notified CCFS-2026 through General Circular No. 01/2026 dated 24 February 2026, exercising its powers under Section 460 read with Section 403 of the Companies Act, 2013. The scheme came into force on 15 April 2026 and was originally to run until 15 July 2026.
It was then extended. General Circular No. 03/2026 dated 8 July 2026 pushed the closing date to 31 August 2026. The reason was practical rather than generous: a fire at the MCA21 data centre on 5 June 2026 forced an unscheduled switchover to the disaster recovery site, and several MCA21 services were partly unavailable for days during the heaviest filing period of the year. The same episode moved the DPT-3 deadline for FY 2025-26 from 30 June to 31 July 2026 and extended a set of name reservations.
That history matters for one reason. The extension was compensation for lost filing days, so treating it as a sign that further extensions will follow is a bad bet.
Which forms are covered
The scheme is built around annual filings. Under the Companies Act, 2013 it covers:
- MGT-7 and MGT-7A — annual return, and the abridged return for small companies and OPCs
- AOC-4 and its variants, including the XBRL and CFS versions — financial statements
- ADT-1 — auditor appointment
- FC-3 and FC-4 — annual accounts and annual return of a foreign company
Companies still carrying defaults from the previous statute are covered too. The old Companies Act, 1956 forms in scope include 20B, 21A, 23AC, 23ACA, 66 and 23B, along with their XBRL versions. A company that stopped filing more than a decade ago is therefore not shut out.
CSR-2 is handled through AOC-4 on the V3 portal, so it travels with the financial statements rather than separately.
Which forms are not covered
This is where most of the disappointment happens, so it is worth being blunt about it.
- Cost audit forms — CRA-2 and CRA-4 are outside the scheme.
- All LLP forms. CCFS-2026 is a companies scheme. Form 8 and Form 11 defaults get no relief, and no parallel LLP scheme has been notified. The last one was the LLP Settlement Scheme in 2020.
- DIR-3 KYC and DPT-3 do not appear in the eligible list.
- Filings for the current year that are not yet late, which need no relief anyway.
The three options, and what each costs
A company using the scheme is choosing between three destinations rather than one.
Option A: come back into compliance. File the overdue annual forms and pay normal fees plus 10% of the additional fees. This is the route for a company that intends to keep trading.
Option B: go dormant. File MSC-1 at 50% of the normal fee. This suits a company that is not doing business now but that the owners want to keep alive, perhaps to hold a name or a future idea. Dormant status has its own continuing obligations, so it is a change of gear rather than a stop.
Option C: close it. File STK-2 at 25% of the applicable fee. For a company nobody is using and nobody intends to use, this is usually the honest answer, and abandoning a company without striking it off leaves the directors exposed rather than free.
What immunity you actually get
The scheme grants immunity from penalty under Section 454(3) for defaults relating to Sections 92 and 137, which are the annual return and the financial statement filings. There is no separate immunity form. Filing the overdue form under the scheme is what triggers it.
The immunity has edges, and they are sharp:
- You get it if you file before an adjudicating officer issues a notice, or within 30 days of such a notice.
- You do not get it if an adjudication order has already been passed.
- You do not get it if a prosecution has already been filed, or where adjudication proceedings began before you filed.
- For ADT-1 and the FC forms, immunity depends on no prosecution or show-cause notice having come first.
So the value of the scheme falls sharply the moment the department moves first. If a notice has landed on your desk, the thirty-day clock is the whole game.
Who cannot use it
Five categories are excluded:
- Companies where the Registrar has already issued the final strike-off notice in Form STK-7.
- Companies with a strike-off application already pending.
- Companies with a dormant status application already pending.
- Companies being dissolved through amalgamation.
- Companies identified as vanishing companies.
The thing the scheme does not do
A director disqualified under Section 164(2) for failing to file financial statements or annual returns for three continuous financial years stays disqualified for the full five years. Using CCFS-2026 does not shorten that, reverse it, or wipe the record.
The scheme is financial relief. It reduces what you pay. It does not restore a director to eligibility, and anyone selling it as a way to fix a disqualification is describing something the circular does not say.
How to actually use it
There is no application form for the scheme itself, which surprises people who go looking for one. You file the overdue form the normal way on the MCA-21 V3 portal, and the reduced fee is calculated automatically at the payment stage.
The practical sequence for a company with several years of backlog:
- Pull the company's filing history from the MCA portal and list exactly which forms are missing, for which years.
- Get the accounts for those years audited and adopted. This is the step that takes real time, and it is the reason a company that starts on 25 August will not finish.
- Hold the board meetings and general meetings the filings depend on, and record the minutes properly.
- File in chronological order — the older years first, because later filings often depend on the earlier ones going through.
- Check the fee shown at payment reflects the 10% figure before you pay.
Worked example
A private limited company last filed for FY 2020-21. It has missed AOC-4 and MGT-7 for four financial years, and ADT-1 twice.
Additional fees on a delay of this length run at Rs 100 per day per form with no ceiling. On ten overdue forms with delays stretching past a thousand days on the oldest, the additional fees alone are comfortably into several lakhs.
Under the scheme the company pays the normal fee on each form, plus 10% of that additional-fee figure. If the additional fees came to Rs 6,00,000, it pays Rs 60,000 of them.
What the company still has to do is get four years of accounts audited and adopted before it can file anything. That is weeks of work, not days, which is why the useful deadline is not 31 August but whatever date the auditor needs to start.
Common mistakes
- Assuming LLPs are covered. They are not, and the list of eligible forms contains no LLP form.
- Waiting for another extension. The July extension replaced days lost to the data centre fire. That reason has expired.
- Starting in the last week. The audit and adoption work sits ahead of the filing, and no scheme shortens it.
- Reading it as a disqualification amnesty. Section 164(2) is untouched.
- Ignoring a notice already received, when responding inside 30 days is the difference between immunity and none.
- Filing out of order, when later years frequently depend on earlier filings being accepted first.
- Choosing Option A for a company nobody will use again, when strike-off at 25% is cheaper and ends the obligation.
Frequently asked questions
What is the last date for CCFS-2026? 31 August 2026, extended from 15 July 2026 by General Circular No. 03/2026.
How much do I actually save? You pay 10% of the additional fees instead of 100%, so the saving is 90% of the penalty component. Normal filing fees are unchanged.
Does it cover LLPs? No. It applies to companies only, and there is no LLP equivalent notified for 2026.
Do I need to submit a separate application? No. File the overdue form on MCA-21 V3 and the reduced fee is applied at the payment stage.
Will it remove my director disqualification? No. Disqualification under Section 164(2) runs its five-year course independently.
An adjudication order has already been passed against my company. Can I still use it? You can still file and pay the reduced fee, but the immunity from penalty is not available once an order has been passed.
My company received a strike-off notice in STK-7. Am I eligible? No. A final strike-off notice puts the company outside the scheme.
Can I use it to close a company instead of reviving it? Yes, through STK-2 at 25% of the applicable fee, which is often the sensible answer for a company nobody intends to trade again.