What Actually Happens If You Ignore Your Annual Filings
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Yes — sustained non-filing of annual returns can lead to your company or LLP being struck off the register. For companies, this happens under Section 248 of the Companies Act, 2013. For LLPs, it happens via Form 24. This is a punitive, Registrar-initiated process — not the same thing as voluntarily closing an entity you no longer need, even though the paperwork uses overlapping vocabulary.
If you've missed an AOC-4, MGT-7A, Form 8, or Form 11 filing and you're wondering how bad it actually gets, the short version is: one missed year is a fee. Multiple missed years is a strike-off risk. Here's exactly how that process plays out, for both entity types — and the one distinction you need to hold onto so you don't confuse this with a founder choosing to shut their company down.
Pvt Ltd companies: Section 248 strike-off
Section 248 of the Companies Act, 2013 empowers the Registrar of Companies (ROC) to strike a company's name off the register — effectively dissolving it — where the ROC has reason to believe the company isn't carrying on business or is non-compliant. Sustained non-filing of AOC-4 and MGT-7/MGT-7A is a documented trigger the ROC's own systems flag on. The specific '2 or more consecutive years' threshold commonly quoted for this trigger is single-sourced in our research (⚠ UNVERIFIED) — the general principle that sustained non-filing creates strike-off risk is well established, but treat any exact year-count as indicative, not a guaranteed grace period.
How it plays out: STK-5 notice to STK-7 dissolution
ROC issues Form STK-5
A public notice that the company is being considered for strike-off.
30-day objection window
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