LLP Form 8: Due 30 October 2026. Late Fee, Audit Limits & Filing Process

Form 8 is the Statement of Account and Solvency that every Limited Liability Partnership files with the Registrar of Companies each year. The rule is that it must be filed within 30 days from the end of six months of the financial year. For the usual 1 April to 31 March year, six months after year-end is 30 September, and thirty days after that is 30 October. For the year ended 31 March 2026, the due date is therefore 30 October 2026.

The countdown at the top of this page counts from today. If you are reading this in the last week, the sensible plan is to treat every day as expensive, because the additional fee starts the day after the due date and grows by slab. The sections below show what that costs, who must sign, what documents you need and how to file without surprises.

What about the new MCA circular? On 24 October 2026 the Ministry issued General Circular 05/2026, which allows companies to file AOC-4 and its variants up to 31 December 2026 and MGT-7 and MGT-7A up to 31 January 2027 without additional fees. The circular speaks of companies under the Companies Act, 2013. It does not mention LLPs or Form 8, and we are not aware of any similar relief for LLP forms this year. Relief for companies has not been extended to LLPs in past years either, so please do not assume that it will be. If you manage both a company and an LLP, our guide on the company circular shows what moved on the company side.

Since 1 April 2022, the MCA has charged an additional fee that is a multiple of the normal filing fee, and the multiple rises with the length of delay. A small LLP pays a lower multiple than other LLPs. Many older articles still quote a flat ₹100 per day. That was the earlier position and is no longer how the portal calculates the fee for LLP forms, so treat those figures with caution.

The normal fee itself depends on the LLP's contribution and is modest. The multiple is what makes a delay expensive. Use the calculator to pick a filing date, choose whether you are a small LLP and see the band you land in. The bars show how fast the multiple climbs.

Two points are easy to miss. First, the fee is charged per form. An LLP that is late with both Form 8 and Form 11 pays for each of them, which is why the calculator lets you switch to two forms. Second, beyond 360 days a further amount is added and the additional fee has no overall rupee ceiling, so a long default does not stop growing.

Separate penalties. In addition to the additional fee, the LLP Act provides for monetary penalties on the LLP and its designated partners for default. After the 2021 amendment replaced prosecution with penalties, these are reported at ₹100 per day, capped per form, with a lower amount for small LLPs. There is also a relief route where no penalty is imposed if the LLP files within a stated period after the adjudicating officer's notice. The exact figures and conditions are fixed by law and can change, so your CA should confirm them before you plan around them.

The larger risks of long default are not the fees. Designated partners can face DIN-related restrictions, banks and tender authorities can refuse to work with a defaulting LLP, and eventually the Registrar may start action to strike the LLP off the register. Clearing a default early is nearly always cheaper than clearing it later.

The accounts of an LLP must be audited by a Chartered Accountant if turnover exceeds ₹40 lakh or contribution exceeds ₹25 lakh in any financial year. If neither limit is crossed, the LLP is generally exempt from this audit, although the partners remain responsible for maintaining correct books. A tax audit under the Income-tax Act has its own thresholds and does not depend on this one.

The law also recognises a small LLP. Since 1 April 2022, an LLP qualifies as small if its contribution does not exceed ₹25 lakh and its turnover in the preceding financial year does not exceed ₹40 lakh. Small LLPs pay lower additional fees for late filing and face reduced penalties, so it is worth checking your status before you pay anything.

If the checker says your LLP is likely to need an audit and the audit is not yet done, that is the first thing to fix. The audit report is an attachment to the filing, and an audit started on 28 October will not finish on time. The limits can be revised by the government, so confirm them for the year in which you file.

The form is a web form on the MCA V3 portal. It has two broad parts, and both are declarations made by the designated partners, so they should rest on real books and not on estimates.

LLPs often confuse the two annual forms. Form 11 is about who the LLP is: its partners and their contributions. Form 8 is about how the LLP is doing: its accounts and solvency. Together they make up the LLP's annual ROC compliance, and every LLP files both, whether or not it did any business.

Because Form 11 is due first, file it first. The contribution figures in the two forms should agree, and a mismatch is a common reason for queries. If you have not filed Form 11 for this year yet, do it before or together with Form 8 and include its additional fee in your estimate. Our annual ROC compliance service handles both.

The process is simple when the books are ready and slow when they are not. Tick each step as you go. The progress ring tracks your position, and each step opens to show what to do.

Once filed, the form is processed by the Registrar. Keep the SRN receipt and the approved form safely, because they are your proof of filing and are often asked for by banks, investors and tender authorities. If the filing is rejected or sent back for correction, the clock does not stop, which is another reason not to file on the last day.

Gather these before you open the portal. A missing item on the final day is the most common cause of a late filing.

Check the validity of every DSC at the start of the week. An expired certificate is one of the most common reasons a filing stalls at the last minute, and renewal can take a day or more.

These are the errors we see most often, and each one is avoidable.

Form 8 is one part of a wider annual calendar. After filing it, complete the LLP's income tax return (ITR-5), whose due dates are set separately by the Income Tax Department and are sometimes extended by CBDT circulars. An MCA date and an income tax date are independent, so one never moves the other.

Designated partners should also confirm that their DIR-3 KYC is up to date, because a missed KYC can lead to DIN deactivation and a fee to reactivate it. If your LLP is registered for GST, keep your GST returns and annual return in step with the books you used for Form 8, since mismatches between GST and accounts attract questions.

Finally, keep a compliance folder with the filed forms, SRN receipts, the audit report and the financial statements. Banks, investors and tender authorities increasingly ask for the last two or three years' filings, and a tidy record saves days when they do. If you would rather hand the whole calendar to a CA team, that is exactly what our ROC service is for.