A subsidiary that collects its Certificate of Incorporation cannot start invoicing until INC-20A, the declaration for commencement of business, is filed, and that form is due within 180 days. Until it sits on the MCA V3 record the company cannot begin business or borrow, and the registrar may start proceedings to remove the name. Foreign parents rarely hear about it, because the adviser who filed the incorporation had closed the file. We treat the Certificate of Incorporation as the halfway mark on a Pune subsidiary, not the finish.
Which entry route does the foreign parent have to settle first?
The decision is which structure you are asking for, because the options behave very differently once you are trading.
A wholly owned subsidiary is a private limited company under the Companies Act 2013. The foreign parent holds almost the whole share capital and a second shareholder holds one share, since a private company needs two members. A joint venture splits that shareholding with an Indian partner and brings a shareholders agreement with it. A branch or liaison office is not a company at all, needs Reserve Bank clearance through an AD bank, and in the liaison case cannot earn income here.
Two questions settle the route quickly. Does your activity sit under the automatic foreign investment route or does it need government approval, which turns on the sector and not on the amount? And do you have a director who will be resident in India for at least 182 days in the financial year, because the company needs one from the day it exists?
Answer both before a name is reserved. Changing structure afterwards costs far more.
Which papers travel from abroad, and which are gathered in Pune?
Split the file into three piles: the parent's papers, the individuals' papers, and the Pune address.
- From the parent: Certificate of Incorporation, charter documents and a board resolution naming the subscriber and the authorised signatory, each attested abroad.
- Apostille where the home country is in the Hague convention, consularisation where it is not.
- From each director and subscriber: passport, recent address proof, photograph, and an email and mobile that will receive the MCA one time passwords.
- From the Indian side: the resident director's PAN and Aadhaar, plus a digital signature for everyone who signs a form.
- For the registered office: a utility bill under two months old, the owner's no objection letter and the registered agreement for the premises.
The last line is where Pune applications stall. Section 55 of the Maharashtra Rent Control Act 1999 makes a leave and licence document compulsorily registrable, and the statute puts that duty on the landlord, not on the licensee. A serviced desk in Kharadi or Baner works perfectly well as a registered office, but only if the operator will issue the no objection letter in the proposed company name. Ask before you pay for the desk.
What does an Indian subsidiary cost in Pune?
Our fee is ₹24,999 and you see it before we start. What sits around it is not ours, so we show it separately.
| Cost head | What it covers | What you pay |
|---|---|---|
| LegalX India fee | Name reservation, SPICe+, MOA and AOA, PAN and TAN | From ₹24,999 |
| Attestation abroad | Apostille or consularisation of the parent's papers | Charged in the home country |
| Digital signatures | One class 3 signature for each proposed director | At cost, per person |
| MCA charges | Filing fees and stamp duty on the authorised capital | At cost against the MCA challan |
| Maharashtra follow on | PTEC and PTRC where they apply, plus the Shops Act filing | Quoted after we see your headcount |
No page can print your Maharashtra stamp duty as a single figure. The instrument you execute and the value it carries set it, so we work the number out on your own papers before signing. Two costs foreign parents forget. The attestation queue at home often runs longer than the Indian filing. And an Indian bank account will not open until the incorporation papers and the director KYC agree.
How the filing runs, from name reservation to INC-20A
- We check the proposed name against the MCA database and the trade mark register, then file the reservation with the parent's name embedded.
- Class 3 digital signatures are issued while the foreign papers are being attested, because a mismatch between passport and resolution is the commonest rejection we see.
- SPICe+ goes in with MOA, AOA, PAN, TAN and the linked labour registrations, all in one integrated filing on the MCA V3 portal.
- The registrar issues the Certificate of Incorporation digitally, and the CIN of a Pune company carries the state code MH.
- The parent remits the subscription money, the AD bank reports the inward remittance to the Reserve Bank, and INC-20A goes in inside the 180 day window.
Which office receives the application, and where does the Pune company sit afterwards?
A company whose registered office is in Pune district is registered by ROC Pune. MCA's registrar page lists Pune as a Maharashtra registrar in its own right. The restructuring that commenced on 16 February 2026 left Pune alone, so nothing changed for this district. Every filing runs on MCA V3, which matters when your signatories sit in three time zones.
Above the registrar, Pune sits under the Regional Director, Western Region Directorate II, headquartered at Navi Mumbai. An application that needs the Regional Director goes there, not to your registrar. Company petitions and insolvency go to the NCLT Mumbai Bench, which covers the State of Maharashtra and the State of Goa. A refused or disputed share transfer goes to the same bench under sections 58 and 59, not to the High Court.
What does a new Pune subsidiary owe in its first months?
Incorporation opens a compliance calendar, and the Maharashtra part of it is what catches foreign parents out.
The first auditor is appointed within 30 days of incorporation. A Maharashtra GSTIN begins with state code 27 and registration runs on the national portal. Profession tax then arrives as two certificates, never as one. The subsidiary's own annual liability sits on PTEC, while the authority to deduct profession tax from its salaries sits on PTRC, and we obtain whichever of them applies to you. Maharashtra raised the Shops Act registration threshold to twenty workers with effect from 1 October 2025, and below that an establishment files an intimation instead. Both go online to the Facilitator appointed by the State Government, with the Inspector of Shops as designated officer.
Payroll thresholds run in a direction that surprises people. EPF coverage begins at twenty employees and ESI at ten or more, so a Pune office of fifteen people is inside one and outside the other. Pune has four EPFO regional offices rather than one. A half yearly contribution under the Maharashtra Labour Welfare Fund Act 1953 sits alongside those, and its due dates go into the compliance calendar we hand over. The four labour codes are in force while Maharashtra's own rules under them are still being framed.
Then the annual set: AOC-4 and MGT-7 with ROC Pune, DIR-3 KYC for every director, the income tax return, and transfer pricing documentation where the subsidiary deals with its parent.
Who is registering an Indian subsidiary in Pune right now?
- A design and architecture practice in Kothrud whose overseas partner firm wants to own the Indian office outright instead of running it on a referral arrangement.
- A European software company opening a product engineering centre at Hinjawadi Rajiv Gandhi Infotech Park, hiring twelve people in the first year.
- A component maker's foreign parent taking a plot in the Chakan industrial area, where we sequence the incorporation so the entity name matches on every document.
- A services group leasing a floor at Kharadi as its registered office, where the licence agreement has to be registered before the address proof will hold.
Two patterns repeat. A Kothrud conversion needs care with the existing practice's contracts and staff, because the subsidiary is a new legal person. A Hinjawadi greenfield centre needs the payroll registrations lined up before the first offer letter.
Why LegalX India for a Pune subsidiary?
We run the whole engagement online with a CA and CS team, and one person holds your file from the attestation checklist to INC-20A. Our Pune team works out of Yerwada, though your registrar follows the registered office you choose and never our address.
The incorporation is priced at ₹24,999, quoted before we start, with government charges shown at cost. Typical timeline is 20 to 30 days from a complete document set. More than 15,000 businesses have used us across India, and the same team handles the Maharashtra layer that cross border advisers hand back.
If you want the statutory background first, read how Indian subsidiary registration works across India, then call us with your parent company's details. You get a callback within 30 minutes.