---
title: "You're dealing with an LLP, not a company. Here's what the register shows"
description: "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."
author: "Pradeep Vanga"
published: 2026-09-11
updated: 2026-09-11
category: "Guide"
tags: ["llp", "llp-master-data", "due-diligence", "form-8"]
canonical: https://entiva.in/blog/how-to-check-an-llp-india/
publisher: "Entiva"
---

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

The invoice says LLP. You went to check them the way you would check a company,
and half the fields you expected are missing. No shareholders. No AOC-4. No
MGT-7. A number called "total obligation of contribution" that you have never
seen before.

An LLP is a different animal, governed by a different statute, filing different
forms. Most of what people know about checking Indian companies transfers
across. The bits that do not transfer are exactly the bits that matter.

## There are more of them than you think, and they look healthier

On the register as we last read it, **more than 550,000 entities carry an LLP
identifier** rather than a 21-character company CIN. That is about
one in seven of everything on the register.

And they present very differently:

| | LLPs | Companies |
| --- | ---: | ---: |
| Active | 90.35% | 67.24% |
| Strike Off | 8.51% | 28.57% |
| Under process of striking off | 0.19% | 0.85% |

Nine in ten LLPs are Active against roughly two in three companies. Before you
conclude that LLPs are better run, note the obvious confounder: **the form is
much younger.** The LLP Act came into force in 2009, so there is no cohort of
1990s LLPs sitting on the register having quietly stopped filing two decades
ago. Companies have that history and LLPs do not.

The form is also growing fast. LLP registrations in the snapshot run 50,982 in
2023, 64,725 in 2024 and 86,707 in 2025, with 49,950 already recorded for 2026
by the eighth of September. Whoever you are dealing with, the odds that it is an
LLP rather than a private limited company are rising every year.

For how the whole register breaks down, we have written up
[how many companies in India actually still exist](https://entiva.in/blog/how-many-companies-in-india-are-still-active/).

## The free layer, and what the fields mean

MCA publishes LLP master data the same way it publishes company master data:
free, under MCA Services. You search by name or by **LLPIN**, the
LLP's identifier, which is short and alphanumeric rather than the
[21-character CIN](https://entiva.in/blog/how-to-read-a-cin-number/) a company carries.

What you get:

| Field | What it tells you |
| --- | --- |
| LLPIN | The stable identifier. Use it, not the name |
| Status | Same vocabulary as companies: Active, Strike Off, Under process of striking off |
| Date of incorporation | How long it has existed |
| Registered office | State, and the address |
| Total obligation of contribution | The partners' committed contribution |
| Designated partners | The individuals legally answerable for compliance |

**Two of those need translating.**

**"Total obligation of contribution" is not paid-up capital.** In a company,
paid-up capital is money shareholders actually put in. In an LLP, contribution
is what the partners have *agreed* to contribute under the LLP agreement, and
it can be committed rather than paid, and it can include things that are not
cash. Read it as a stated commitment, not as a bank balance.

**"Designated partners" are not all the partners.** An LLP must have at least
two designated partners, and they are the ones who carry the compliance
obligations and hold a DPIN. There can be other partners who are not
designated, and the master data does not necessarily give you the full partner
list. If you want everyone, you need the annual return.

## The two filings, and which one is worth reading

An LLP files two things a year, and they are not the ones a company files.

**Form 11, the annual return, under rule 25.** Section 35(1) requires it
"within sixty days of closure of its financial year". It covers the year ended
the previous 31 March, and it is where the partner list lives, along with
contribution details and the LLP's own summary of itself.

**Form 8, the Statement of Account and Solvency, under rule 24.** Rule 24(4)
sets the deadline at "thirty days from the end of six months of the financial
year" to which it relates. This is
the financial one. It carries the statement of assets and liabilities, the
income and expenditure, and, distinctively, **a declaration by the designated
partners about whether the LLP is able to pay its debts as they fall due.**

That solvency declaration is the most interesting single thing in the LLP
filing regime and almost nobody looks at it. A company's directors make no
equivalent standalone public declaration. Here two named individuals put their
signatures to a statement about solvency, annually, on a public file.

Neither deadline is written as a calendar date. Both are counted from the
close of the financial year, which section 2(1)(l) fixes at 1 April to 31
March, and **30 May and 30 October are the arithmetic rather than the rule**.
That matters for a young LLP: one incorporated after 30 September may run its
first financial year to the 31 March of the *following* year, so its first due
dates will not fall where you expect.

Note the asymmetry too. **Form 11 lands in May and Form 8 in October**, so
the identity information and the financial information reach the register five
months apart. If you check in June, the partner list is current and the
accounts are a year and a half old.

## The gap that matters most: most LLP accounts are not audited

This is the difference that changes how you read the numbers.

Section 34(4) of the LLP Act 2008 sends the question to the rules, and rule
24(8) of the LLP Rules 2009 frames it as an exemption rather than a
requirement:

> The accounts of every limited liability partnership shall be audited in
> accordance with these rules: Provided that a limited liability partnership
> whose turnover does not exceed, in any financial year, forty lakh rupees, or
> whose contribution does not exceed twenty-five lakh rupees shall not be
> required to get its accounts audited

Read it carefully, because the "or" sits inside the exemption and that inverts
the usual summary. On the literal wording, an LLP escapes audit if **either**
test is satisfied, which means audit bites only where turnover exceeds ₹40 lakh
**and** contribution exceeds ₹25 lakh. Most practitioners apply the stricter
reading, that crossing either threshold triggers an audit, and we could find no
MCA circular resolving it. The drafting is genuinely ambiguous and we are not
going to pretend otherwise.

What is not ambiguous is the consequence for you as a reader. **A large number
of small LLPs file accounts that nobody independent has checked**, and where
the figures are unaudited they were prepared and signed by the designated
partners themselves.

For a small company, an auditor has at least looked. For a small LLP, the
figures on the public record are the partners' own. That is not a reason to
disbelieve them. It is a reason to weight them differently, and to lean harder
on the things that are not self-reported: the status, the filing history, and
whether anyone has registered a charge.

## What is the same as a company

Usefully, quite a lot.

**Strike off works the same way from outside.** An LLP that stops filing gets
removed, and the status field says so in the same words, so
[what each status means](https://entiva.in/blog/company-status-strike-off-meaning/) reads across
unchanged. So does the
[two-minute check on whether an entity is real](https://entiva.in/blog/how-to-check-if-a-company-is-real/).

**Charges are on the same register.** MCA's index of charges accepts an LLPIN
as well as a CIN, so you can check for nothing whether a lender has a
registered claim over the LLP's assets.

**Documents come through the same door.** View Public Documents covers
Company/LLP alike, with the same seven-day window, the same three-hour download
clock and the same `.OCT` archives. The
[full route through the portal](https://entiva.in/blog/how-to-download-mca-documents/) applies
unchanged.

**Late filing is expensive, in two separate ways.** Since the LLP (Amendment)
Rules 2022, in force from 1 April 2022, the additional fee for a late form is
graded by how late it is and by whether the LLP is a small LLP, running from
one times the normal fee for a fortnight's delay up to fifty times beyond a
year. Separately, sections 34(5) and 35(2) impose a penalty of ₹100 for each
day the failure continues, capped at ₹1 lakh for the LLP and ₹50,000 for each
designated partner. The amount matters less than the direction: a multi-year
gap is a decision somebody took while two meters were running.

## What the LLP record will not tell you

**Who really controls it.** The LLP agreement governs profit shares, voting,
and management rights, and it is not a public document. Two partners with equal
contribution can have entirely unequal say, and you cannot see it.

**What each partner is worth to you.** Liability in an LLP is limited, which is
the point of the form. A partner's personal assets are not standing behind the
LLP's debts in the way they would in an ordinary partnership.

**Whether the numbers were checked.** See above, and check the thresholds
before you trust a figure.

**And it is a record, not the truth.** Filings lag. A partner can leave months
before the register catches up.

## How to check one, in order

1. **Get the exact name and the LLPIN**, from the agreement or the invoice.
2. **Look up master data.** Status, date of incorporation, contribution,
   designated partners. Free.
3. **Check the index of charges** using the LLPIN. Free.
4. **Check whether Form 11 and Form 8 were filed for the last two years.** A
   gap here is the loudest free signal you will get.
5. **Retrieve Form 8 if the amount at stake justifies it**, and read the
   solvency declaration as well as the numbers.
6. **Ask whether the accounts were audited.** For a small LLP, assume not
   until you see otherwise.
7. **Write down what you found and when.**

The short version: an LLP is easier to check than a company for existence and
status, and harder to check for substance. Free layer first, Form 8 second,
and read the numbers knowing who signed them.

If you would rather have the filings than the fields,
[what a retrieval covers](https://entiva.in/what-you-can-find/) is the same for an LLP as for a
company.

*Written by the Entiva team, who read Indian company and LLP filings for a
living. Not legal advice.*

## Frequently asked

### What is LLP master data on the MCA portal?

It is the free summary record MCA holds for a limited liability partnership: its LLPIN, name, date of incorporation, registered office state, status, total obligation of contribution, and its designated partners. There is no fee for it.

### Are LLP accounts audited in India?

Often not. Rule 24(8) of the LLP Rules 2009 frames it as an exemption: an LLP whose turnover does not exceed ₹40 lakh, or whose contribution does not exceed ₹25 lakh, is not required to get its accounts audited. The 'or' sits inside the exemption, so the literal reading and the common practitioner reading differ, and the drafting has never been clarified. Either way, a great many small LLPs file a Statement of Account and Solvency that no auditor has checked.

### What are Form 8 and Form 11 for an LLP?

Form 11 is the annual return, due within sixty days of the close of the financial year under section 35(1), which for a 31 March year end works out at 30 May. Form 8 is the Statement of Account and Solvency, due within thirty days of the end of six months from the close of the year under rule 24(4), which works out at 30 October. Form 8 carries a declaration by the designated partners about whether the LLP is able to pay its debts.

## Related reading

- [How to check if a company is real before you give them money](https://entiva.in/blog/how-to-check-if-a-company-is-real/): A quarter of the entities on India's companies register no longer legally exist. Here is how to check the one in front of you, free, in about two minutes.
- [How to download a company's documents from the MCA portal, and what it actually costs you](https://entiva.in/blog/how-to-download-mca-documents/): The MCA charges ₹100 to see a company's filings. Here is the full route through View Public Documents, the four limits nobody warns you about, and when it is worth it.
- [What a company's status actually means: Active, Strike Off, Dormant](https://entiva.in/blog/company-status-strike-off-meaning/): A company's status on the register is one word that changes everything about whether you should sign. Here's what each one means, and what to do next.

_Published by Entiva (https://entiva.in/), which retrieves documents from the Ministry of Corporate Affairs' View Public Documents service on a customer's behalf. Entiva is not affiliated with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs and does not resell another provider's database. Free lookups use MCA company master data._