Guides

How India’s corporate registry actually works

What each MCA filing tells you, where the records fall short, and how to work from primary documents instead of second-hand summaries.

Guide 27 Oct 2026

MCA's View Public Documents is missing or erroring during the day

MCA has made View Public Documents unavailable from 10 am to 6 pm IST until 31 January 2027. What the error means, what still works, and what to do if you have paid.

A woman with a cup of tea watches a small folded-paper helper on a step ladder hold open one bookmarked folder from her shelf, while a heap of loose paperwork lies ignored.

Product 7 Oct 2026

How to ask ChatGPT or Claude about an Indian company's MCA filings

What ChatGPT or Claude can and cannot tell you about an Indian company from its MCA filings, why answers should cite the filing, and how to connect yours.

Analysis 6 Oct 2026

Tata Sons and the listing question: what the RBI, the articles and the register actually say

Why the RBI's September 2026 letter reopened the Tata Sons listing question, how Article 121 frames the board fight, and what the register shows.

Guide 28 Sept 2026

The document hidden inside an MCA PDF

An MCA eForm PDF can hold a document outside its visible pages. Learn how to find embedded attachments, open them and read filled XFA forms.

A woman in a records room holds one ledger crowded with a hand-drawn plot map and handwriting, while three identical ledgers lie open beside her with completely blank pages.

Guide 22 Sept 2026

What does this company own? The register answers a different question

India has no register of what a company owns. Here is what its filings do show about its property, where the detail is startling, and where ownership actually lives.

A man crouching at a heavy workshop machine has stopped to read a small paper tag tied to it with string, marked with a red seal.

Guide 18 Sept 2026

Buying a machine or a vehicle from a company? Check the charges first

A used machine or truck can already be pledged to a bank. You take it subject to that claim, and the law treats you as knowing. What to check, and what to demand.

A woman at a desk turns away from a thick bundle of finished work tied with string to study a single small card held up in her hand.

Guide 18 Sept 2026

How to check a client before you take the work

You do the work now and get paid later, which makes you an unsecured lender. What the register shows about a client, and why the first register to check is your own.

A woman on a short ladder looks up at a grid of shelves, most of the cells on her side empty while the far half stays packed with green ledgers.

Analysis 17 Sept 2026

How long does an Indian company actually last?

Of the 14,75,643 companies and LLPs registered in India before 2015, 7,31,186 have since been struck off. Survival rates by year and state, from the register.

A woman on a ladder before a wall of green files compares a full column of folders against a neighbouring column whose shelves stand empty.

Analysis 17 Sept 2026

Which kinds of Indian company are struck off most often?

An analysis of 14,44,721 older Indian companies finds computer-related businesses were struck off more often than their age alone predicts.

A man at a registrar's counter holds a long ruled return that unfolds to the floor, his finger resting on one row partway down, while a clerk behind him stamps a separate pile.

Regulatory 16 Sept 2026

The filing where your buyer names you, and says what it owes you

MSME Form I is the half-yearly return where a buyer names its micro and small suppliers, the amounts outstanding past 45 days, and its own reason for the delay.

A man holds up a pair of brass balance scales: a fat envelope tied with gold ribbon sits on one pan, outweighed by a single thin sheet of paper on the other.

Guide 11 Sept 2026

How to check a company before you accept a job offer

Before you resign, spend ten minutes on the public record. The entity on your offer letter, its filings, and the EPFO check most candidates never do.

A man slides an envelope across a wooden counter towards an outstretched hand, unaware that the papers in front of him are tied with green string while the stack the hand reaches from is tied with red.

Guide 11 Sept 2026

Before you pay a deposit: how to check the company taking your money

A deposit is an unsecured loan you make to a stranger. Match the bank account to the contracting entity, then check paid-up capital, charges and RERA before the money leaves.

A man reaches towards a conspicuous empty slot in a long shelf of identical bound annual volumes, with an hourglass standing beside the gap and a clerk working on unbothered behind him.

Regulatory 11 Sept 2026

The annual filing calendar, and what a missing year actually means

AOC-4 and MGT-7 have precise deadlines. Knowing them tells you whether a company's missing year is late, alarming, or not yet due at all.

A man holds a large ledger upside down over a desk and shakes it, and a single coin has fallen out onto the wood beside one unpaid sheet of paper.

Guide 11 Sept 2026

A customer has stopped paying. What the filings tell you about whether they can

Before you write it off or escalate, the register answers one question: are they in trouble, or just squeezing you? Here is how to read the filings for it.

A shopkeeper in spectacles leans over an open ledger on a counter, measuring across its ruled page with a tape, a small open cash box beside him.

Guide 11 Sept 2026

Giving a new customer credit for the first time

A new customer wants 30 days. Before you agree, size the line against paid-up capital and charges, then buy the accounts if the exposure would hurt.

Rows of tall shelves packed with identical green box files recede into the distance, with a whole block of empty slots where files are missing and one small figure on a ladder looking at the gap.

Analysis 11 Sept 2026

How many companies and LLPs are registered in India?

Our July 2026 snapshot counts 3,123,764 companies and 550,550 LLPs. See the Active and Strike Off totals, with the dataset's limits.

A man stands between two open filing drawers, the left packed with uniform folders in neat order and the right holding only a few of different shapes with wide gaps between them.

Guide 11 Sept 2026

You're dealing with an LLP, not a company. Here's what the register shows

LLPs file different forms, disclose less, and mostly aren't audited. What LLP master data shows, what Form 8 and Form 11 contain, and where the gaps are.

A man holding one form looks along a long wooden wall of identical service hatches, each with its own bundle of papers waiting on the ledge beneath it.

Guide 11 Sept 2026

How to download MCA documents from the V3 portal

Download MCA public documents from the V3 portal: fees, steps after payment, access windows and how to open .OCT files and PDFs.

A man holding a small fan of five index cards looks in dismay at a long card catalogue drawer packed end to end with far more tabbed dividers than he expected.

Guide 11 Sept 2026

Every company status on the MCA register, and what each one actually means

The register uses 23 status values, not five. Here is every one, the section of law behind it, and the ACTIVE-compliance tag that is not a status at all.

A professional in spectacles reads an open company file at a long table in a records room, writing a report by hand on plain ruled paper beside it, with no printed form anywhere.

Guide 11 Sept 2026

What an ROC search report is, who actually needs one, and what it should contain

An ROC search report is a professional's signed reading of a company's registry file. Here is the checklist it should cover, and where the ₹100 documents end and the fee begins.

An oversized bound ledger with a red wax seal stands at the head of a queue in a registrar's office, ahead of four waiting people, with a supplier holding a single sheet of paper at the back.

Guide 11 Sept 2026

MCA index of charges: how to check and read it

Find a company's index of charges on MCA, read open and satisfied entries, and learn why the charge amount is not the outstanding loan balance.

A woman holds up a very small brass key in front of a tall wall of filing cabinet drawers, where only one tiny drawer near the bottom stands open holding a single index card.

Guide 11 Sept 2026

Reading a DIN: what a director identification number does and does not prove

How to find a director's DIN on MCA, free, and what the DIN search actually returns: a lifetime identity key, not a licence, and not a list of the person's companies.

A man searches through a card index drawer while, on the desk directly behind him, a large open bound volume holds the folded sheet he is looking for.

Guide 11 Sept 2026

Who owns this company? What the annual return shows about shareholding, and what it hides

Shareholding in an Indian private company is public, once a year, in an attachment to the annual return. Here is where to find it and the three things it will not tell you.

A clerk presses a red rubber stamp onto a file at a wooden counter while, through the window behind him, a brightly lit shop carries on trading with customers inside.

Guide 9 Sept 2026

What a company's status actually means: Active, Strike Off, Dormant

Strike Off means the company has been removed from the MCA register and no longer legally exists. What Active, Strike Off and Dormant mean, and what to do next.

A man leans in through the service hatch of a smart, freshly painted office front, and the room beyond is almost bare apart from one shelf holding a single thin file.

Guide 9 Sept 2026

How to check if a company is real before you give them money

Verify an Indian company for free. A quarter of the entities on the register no longer legally exist, so here is how to check the one in front of you in about two minutes.

A man lifts the lid of a small iron strongbox with its padlock hanging open, and finds inside an ordinary bound ledger rather than anything valuable.

Guide 9 Sept 2026

How to find out what a private Indian company earns

Find a private Indian company's revenue in its filed financial statements. Learn how to download the balance sheet and read revenue from operations.

A person at a lamplit desk studies one small index card through a magnifier, while rows of shelves stacked with ledgers and box files recede into the dark behind them.

Guide 9 Sept 2026

How to read a CIN: what those 21 characters tell you

A Corporate Identity Number isn't a random string. Each block of it tells you something real about a company, before you open a single filing.

Reading about filings is not the same as holding them

Entiva gets you every public MCA document for a company, checked file by file.

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