What Is Udyam Registration and Do You Need It?
Need help with msme? We can handle it for you.
Udyam Registration is the current (since 1 July 2020) government registration that formally recognises a business as a Micro, Small, or Medium Enterprise (MSME) in India. It is free, entirely self-declared on the official portal, and takes about 5-10 minutes once you have your Aadhaar, PAN, and (if applicable) GSTIN ready.
If you've been searching "do I need Udyam registration" or "what is MSME registration," the short answer is: it's not legally mandatory to run a business, but it's the single cheapest, fastest registration available to an Indian founder — and skipping it usually just means leaving benefits on the table, not avoiding any obligation.
What Udyam Registration Actually Is
Udyam Registration is a self-declaration-based registration on the official portal, udyamregistration.gov.in, that classifies your business as Micro, Small, or Medium based on your investment in plant/machinery/equipment and your annual turnover. There are no documents, certificates, or proof uploads required — you enter your Aadhaar, PAN, and GSTIN (where applicable), and the portal auto-fetches your investment and turnover figures from your PAN-linked ITR and GSTIN-linked GST returns. The result is an instant Udyam Registration Number (URN) and a downloadable certificate, issued the same session with no waiting period.
Registration is confirmed fee-free on the official portal itself ("Zero cost, No Fee and Free Registration of MSMEs"). The portal's own homepage carries a specific warning: if any webpage asks for payment right after Aadhaar OTP validation or PAN entry, that page is not part of the official scheme. Treat any "registration fee" request as a red flag.
Who This Is For
Udyam Registration is open to proprietorships, partnership firms, LLPs, private and public companies, cooperative societies, and trusts — effectively any legal structure running a business activity within the current Micro/Small/Medium investment and turnover limits. There's no separate eligibility gate beyond fitting inside those thresholds (covered in detail in our companion guide on classification limits) — no minimum age of business, no mandatory prior GST registration, and no sector restriction beyond the government's excluded-activity list.
From the blog
Legal basis
PPP-MSE government tender set-aside
Central ministries/departments/CPSEs must source at least 25% of annual procurement value from Micro/Small Enterprises, with sub-targets for women- and SC/ST-owned MSEs — eligibility is tied to Udyam Registration.
CGTMSE — collateral-free lending for MSEs (name-check only)
Government-backed credit guarantee scheme letting banks/NBFCs lend to Micro/Small Enterprises without collateral — specific coverage figures are unverified and out of scope for this pass.
"MSME registration" vs "Udyam registration" vs "Udyog Aadhaar" — naming history, not three different schemes
All three names refer to sequential stages of the same evolving government registration regime; only Udyam Registration is currently valid, and Udyog Aadhaar certificates are no longer accepted as proof.
Trademark/patent filing fee rebate for Udyam-registered entities
Udyam-registered entities get a 50% rebate on trademark and patent filing fees — a distinct benefit from the general (non-Udyam-specific) presumptive taxation scheme, which should not be marketed as an Udyam-exclusive perk.
Learn the details
Guides that walk through every step.
Guide
buildwright.co.in
Udyam Registration Process: What You Need (Self-Serve, Free)
A step-by-step walkthrough of the free, self-declared Udyam Registration process on the official portal — the Aadhaar/PAN/GSTIN inputs, the one detail that varies by entity type, and how to spot fake fee-charging lookalike sites.
Guide
buildwright.co.in
GST Registration: Do You Need One? (Threshold & Eligibility Explained)
The verified GST registration threshold for Indian businesses — ₹40 lakh for goods, ₹20 lakh for services, special-category state exceptions, and the mandatory-registration categories that apply regardless of turnover. Clarifies the ₹75 lakh figure that gets wrongly cited as a registration threshold.
Get new templates and compliance updates by email.