ITR Due Date for Companies and Firms/LLPs: Complete Guide for AY 2026-27
8/16/2026
If your business files as a company, partnership firm, or LLP, your income tax return (ITR) due date is not one fixed date — it depends on whether your accounts need a tax audit, and whether you deal in cross-border or specified domestic transactions. Get the wrong date and you're staring at a late fee, interest, and — worse — the loss of your right to carry forward business losses. Here's the current rule, confirmed against the Finance Act, 2026 amendment to Section 139(1), for Assessment Year (AY) 2026-27 (income earned in FY 2025-26).
Who This Applies To
This guide covers:
- Companies (private limited, public limited, OPC, Section 8) — file ITR-6 (or ITR-7 if claiming exemption under sections like 11).
- Partnership firms and LLPs — file ITR-5.
It does not cover individuals or HUFs filing ITR-1 through ITR-4 for salary, capital gains, or presumptive business income — that's a separate topic with its own due dates.
Tax Audit Applicability
Whether your entity needs a tax audit under Section 44AB determines which due date applies. The current thresholds:
- Businesses: Tax audit is mandatory once turnover exceeds ₹1 crore in the financial year. This limit is relaxed to ₹10 crore if both cash receipts and cash payments are each 5% or less of the respective totals for the year (i.e., your business is overwhelmingly digital/banking-channel based). Miss either the receipts test or the payments test, and you fall back to the ₹1 crore threshold.
- Professionals: Tax audit is mandatory once gross receipts exceed ₹50 lakh. There is no cash-transaction-based relief for professionals — the ₹50 lakh limit is flat regardless of how digital your receipts are.
- Companies are, in practice, almost always audited anyway (every company must get its accounts audited under the Companies Act, 2013, regardless of turnover), and — separately — every company is treated as an "assessee whose accounts are audited" for ITR due-date purposes irrespective of whether Section 44AB itself is triggered.
If your firm/LLP crosses these thresholds, or is otherwise required to get its accounts audited under any other law (e.g., certain LLP Act requirements), you fall into the "audit" due-date bucket below. If you don't, you're in the "non-audit" bucket.
Due Dates
The Finance Act, 2026 rewrote Explanation 2 to Section 139(1), and it changed one number that's easy to miss if you're going by memory: the non-audit due date moved from 31st July to 31st August, effective from AY 2026-27 onward. This is a permanent statutory change, not a one-off extension.
| Category | Due date (AY 2026-27) |
|---|---|
| Company (ITR-6/ITR-7) — always, regardless of turnover | 31 October 2026 |
| Firm/LLP subject to tax audit under Section 44AB (or any other law) | 31 October 2026 |
| Firm/LLP not subject to tax audit | 31 August 2026 |
| Any assessee (including firms, LLPs, companies) required to furnish a transfer pricing report in Form 3CEB under Section 92E, for international or specified domestic transactions | 30 November 2026 |
| Tax audit report itself (Form 3CA-3CD / 3CB-3CD), where audit applies | 30 September 2026 (one month before the ITR due date) |
A few things to note:
- If your firm/LLP has partners who are individuals, and the firm itself is subject to audit, the partners' personal ITR due date also moves to 31 October (not the standard 31 July/31 August that applies to non-partners).
- As of this writing, no CBDT extension has been notified for the AY 2026-27 audit-case deadlines (30 September / 31 October). The 31 July deadline for salaried individuals passed earlier this season without an extension. CBDT has a history of extending audit-related dates in some years (it did so for AY 2025-26, moving the audit report date from 30 September to 31 October 2025) — but this is never guaranteed. Check the Income Tax e-filing portal's news section closer to your due date before assuming an extension will happen.
Late Filing Fee and Interest
If you miss your due date, two separate costs apply:
- Late filing fee (Section 234F): ₹5,000, reduced to ₹1,000 if your total income for the year is ₹5 lakh or less. This is a flat fee for filing after the due date but before the belated-return deadline (31 December 2026 for AY 2026-27).
- Interest (Section 234A): Simple interest at 1% per month or part of a month on any unpaid tax, calculated from the due date until the date you actually file. This is separate from — and in addition to — the 234F fee, and it applies even if you file the belated return before 31 December.
Beyond the direct cost, filing late also blocks you from carrying forward most business losses (Section 139(3)) to set off against future profits — a much bigger hit for a growing company or firm than the fee itself.
How to File
- Get the tax audit done first, if applicable. Your chartered accountant needs to upload Form 3CA-3CD or 3CB-3CD (as applicable) by 30 September, before you can file the ITR referencing it.
- Log in to the income tax e-filing portal (incometax.gov.in) with your PAN and choose the correct form — ITR-6 for companies, ITR-5 for firms/LLPs.
- Fill in financials, tax computation, and audit report references, reconciling with your books and (for companies) financial statements filed with the MCA.
- Pay any self-assessment tax due before submitting, to stop the 234A interest clock.
- Submit and verify the return — companies and tax-audit cases must verify using a Digital Signature Certificate (DSC); non-audit firms/LLPs can typically use an Electronic Verification Code (EVC).
- Keep the acknowledgment (ITR-V) and audit report for your records.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: My firm's turnover is ₹80 lakh and it's not a professional firm — do I need a tax audit?
No. You're below the ₹1 crore threshold for businesses, so no Section 44AB audit is needed, and your due date is 31 August 2026 rather than 31 October.
Q: Is the 31 August non-audit due date new, or has it always been 31 August?
It's new for AY 2026-27. Until AY 2025-26, the non-audit due date was 31 July. The Finance Act, 2026 permanently moved it to 31 August for assessees with business/professional income (including non-audit firms and LLPs) not required to get their accounts audited.
Q: We're a company with a subsidiary abroad and have related-party transactions — which due date applies?
If you're required to furnish Form 3CEB under Section 92E (international or specified domestic transactions), your due date is 30 November 2026, not 31 October — even though you're a company.
Q: What if we miss 31 October — can we still file?
Yes, as a belated return under Section 139(4), up to 31 December 2026 for AY 2026-27, but you'll owe the Section 234F fee, Section 234A interest, and lose the ability to carry forward most business losses.