The date on your Certificate of Incorporation is not just a birthday. It starts a 180 day countdown, and Form INC-20A must reach your Registrar of Companies before that clock runs out. Until the declaration goes in, the company can neither raise an invoice nor borrow a rupee. Most founders hear about the form for the first time in month five, usually from a worried accountant. This page covers the two things national guides skip for Mumbai: which of the city's two registrars takes your filing, and what Maharashtra quietly adds around it.
What is due inside 180 days, and what stays locked until you file?
INC-20A is a short declaration with one job. Every director confirms that each subscriber named in the memorandum has paid in the capital they committed, and that the money is visible in the company's bank account. That sequencing is the real trap. The account has to be opened and funded before you can file, so the practical window is tighter than 180 days. We tell founders to treat day 150 as the deadline, because slow bank KYC can eat a month on its own.
Here is the arithmetic the form runs on.
| What the clock decides | The figure that applies |
|---|---|
| Filing window | 180 days from incorporation |
| Late filing, on the company | ₹50,000 |
| Late filing, on each officer in default | ₹1,000 a day, capped at ₹1,00,000 |
| Our professional fee | ₹1,499, with the MCA fee on authorised capital extra |
| Working time once papers are complete | 3 to 5 days |
The wider national picture, including who is exempt and how the declaration is built, sits in INC-20A filing in India explained. What follows is the part specific to this city.
Which of the two registrars takes your declaration?
Since 16 February 2026, company filings here no longer sit with a single ROC Mumbai. The split arrived through MCA notification S.O. 4850(E), and the test is a clean two way one based on your registered office district. An office in Mumbai City or Mumbai Suburban district, which is exactly the BMC area, answers to ROC Mumbai-I. An office in Thane, Palghar, Raigad, Nashik, Dhule, Jalgaon, Nandurbar or Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar answers to ROC Mumbai-II at Navi Mumbai.
So a startup in Powai files with Mumbai-I, while a company registered in Panvel or Vasai Virar files with Mumbai-II. The form travels through the MCA V3 portal either way, and nobody stands at a counter. What changes is which registrar examines your declaration, and which one acts if you stay silent. Guides written before the split still describe a single registrar for the whole region, and companies relying on them address their follow up to an office that no longer holds the file.
What does missing the window actually cost?
The rupee penalties are the visible part. ₹50,000 falls on the company once the deadline passes, and every officer in default owes ₹1,000 a day until the ₹1,00,000 cap. The quieter risk is what silence looks like on the register. A company that never files the declaration reads as one that never received its capital. Voluntary closures moved to the centralised C-PACE registrar in 2023, but the power to strike off a silent company on the registrar's own motion stayed local, with Mumbai-I or Mumbai-II as the case may be. Undoing a strike off means the NCLT Mumbai Bench, and that route costs multiples of anything on this page. There is a commercial cost too. Investors running diligence on a young company ask for the SRN early, and a missing acknowledgement stalls a round faster than any penalty.
Which Mumbai companies get caught most often?
Four patterns cover most of the trouble we see in the city.
- A SaaS founder in Powai incorporates in a week, then spends two months on investor paperwork while the subscription money waits abroad. The 180 days keep running through all of it.
- A restaurant and retail brand owner in Bandra West pours attention into the fit out and the FSSAI file while the declaration waits. The outlet cannot lawfully bill a single customer until it goes in.
- A family business in Kalbadevi floats a private limited beside the old firm, assumes the incorporation accountant also handles whatever comes next, and nobody actually files.
- A company with its registered office in Thane or Navi Mumbai addresses its follow up to a single ROC Mumbai, because the guide it relied on predates the 2026 split.
How do we run the filing from our side?
The engagement runs in five moves across 3 to 5 working days.
- We read your incorporation certificate, count the days you have left, and fix your registrar from the registered office district, Mumbai-I or Mumbai-II, on day 1.
- We match the bank statement to the memorandum, subscriber by subscriber, so the money trail supports what the form declares.
- We draft the board resolution, prepare the declaration, and test every director's DSC before anything is signed.
- We file on the MCA V3 portal, watch the SRN, and answer any resubmission remark ourselves.
- You receive the acknowledgement the day it generates, with a short note on what falls due next in your first year.
What should you keep ready on your side?
Everything moves online, and the pile is small.
- Certificate of Incorporation, which carries the date the 180 days run from
- Memorandum and Articles, for the subscription amounts we verify against
- A bank statement showing each subscriber's money received in the company account
- A live DSC for every director, which we test before filing day
If any of these is missing, we tell you on day 1 rather than discovering it at the portal.
Does Maharashtra ask a new company for anything else this early?
Yes, and this is where national checklists go quiet. Every Maharashtra company takes PTEC on incorporation, a flat ₹2,500 a year handled on the mahagst portal, and each director enrols for a personal PTEC beside it. PTRC enters the picture only once staff go on payroll. A company opening an office or outlet also meets the state Shops and Establishments Act of 2017. Below 20 workers you file a simple intimation of commencement, and from 20 workers up you register in Form A. None of this waits for the commencement declaration, so we hand you the sequence, not just the form.
Why do Mumbai founders route this through LegalX India?
Because a ₹1,499 form is only cheap when it is filed once. Our CA and CS team submits commencement declarations on MCA V3 every week, for companies from Powai to Panvel, and routes each one to the registrar its district actually demands. Clients rate us 4.8 on Google across 2,500+ reviews, and the whole engagement runs online. Send over your certificate today, and an expert calls you back within 30 minutes with your exact day count and a checklist.