---
title: "Every company status on the MCA register, and what each one actually means"
description: "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."
author: "Pradeep Vanga"
published: 2026-09-11
updated: 2026-09-11
category: "Guide"
tags: ["company-status", "mca-master-data", "strike-off", "cirp"]
canonical: https://entiva.in/blog/mca-company-status-list-explained/
publisher: "Entiva"
---

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

Most people think a company has about five possible states. Active, dormant,
struck off, in liquidation, and gone.

The register uses **twenty-three** strings in the status field. Some cite the
Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code rather than the Companies Act. One is the word
"Vanished". One is not a status at all, and it is the single most misread
thing on this page.

How many entities carry each value, including the spelling variants, is
counted in
[how many companies in India actually still exist](https://entiva.in/blog/how-many-companies-in-india-are-still-active/).
This page is the meanings: the law behind each string, and the
ACTIVE-compliance tag people keep mixing up with status.

The file covers companies and LLPs together. "Converted and Dissolved" and
"Converted to CMP and Dissolved" appear only against LLPs. "Dormant under
section 455" appears only against companies.

## Alive: Active

**Active means the registrar has not removed the company.** That is the whole
of it. Not that it trades, employs anyone, has money, or has filed anything
this decade.

What to do when you see it on a company you are about to pay or sign with is
in
[what a company's status actually means for you](https://entiva.in/blog/company-status-strike-off-meaning/).
The rest of this page is the rarer values, and the lookalike that is not a
status.

## The tag that is not a status: ACTIVE compliance

Here is the one that generates the most confused searching, because two
different things share a word.

Alongside Company Status, MCA's master data carries a separate field about
**ACTIVE compliance**, and a company can be flagged **"Active-non-compliant"**
there while its actual status is Active. People find that flag, search "company
status active non compliant", and get answers that conflate the two.

It comes from rule 25A of the Companies (Incorporation) Rules 2014, inserted by
the Companies (Incorporation) Amendment Rules 2019 dated 21 February 2019 and
effective from 25 February 2019. Every company incorporated on or before 31
December 2017 had to file e-Form ACTIVE, formally INC-22A, giving particulars
of the company and its registered office. The deadline landed at 15 June 2019
after an extension by the Fourth Amendment Rules of 25 April 2019, and the rule
then says:

> Provided also that in case a company does not intimate the said particulars,
> the Company shall be marked as "Active-non-compliant" on or after 16th June,
> 2019 and shall be liable for action under sub-section (9) of section 12 of
> the Act

Two consequences, and the second is the one nobody gets right.

**It blocks five event filings.** While a company is marked non-compliant the
registrar will not accept SH-7 (change in authorised capital), PAS-3 (change in
paid-up capital), DIR-12 (most director changes), INC-22 (change of registered
office) or INC-28 (amalgamation or de-merger).

**It does not block annual filings or charge filings.** MCA's own FAQ on the
form answers the question "whether a company which is ACTIVE non-compliant can
file the annual filing and charge related forms" with a single word: yes. So a
non-compliant company can still be filing its accounts perfectly well, and a
compliant one can have filed nothing for years. The flag and the filing history
are independent signals and you should read both.

Filing the form later restores standing, under sub-rule (2), on payment of a
fee of ten thousand rupees.

One honest note on presentation. MCA renders the tag "Active-non-compliant" in
the rule itself and "ACTIVE Non-compliant" in its own FAQ. There is no single
canonical casing, even inside MCA.

## On the way out: three stages, not one

Strike off is a process with visible stages, and the register names each.

**Under process of striking off** (27,194). The registrar has begun. Section
248(1) sets out the grounds, and they are worth knowing because they tell you
what the company is being accused of:

> (a) a company has failed to commence its business within one year of its
> incorporation; or … (c) a company is not carrying on any business or
> operation for a period of two immediately preceding financial years and has
> not made any application within such period for obtaining the status of a
> dormant company under section 455; or (d) the subscribers to the memorandum
> have not paid the subscription which they had undertaken to pay … or (e) the
> company is not carrying on any business or operations, as revealed after the
> physical verification carried out under sub-section (9) of section 12.

The company and its directors then get thirty days to make representations.

**Strike Off-AwaitingPublication** (83). A small number, and it marks a
genuinely important gap. Under section 248(5) the registrar strikes the name
off and publishes notice in the Official Gazette, and it is **on publication**
that the company stands dissolved. This status is the space between the
decision and the publication.

**Strike Off** (939,392). Gone. A quarter of the entire register, and the
ordinary way an Indian company ends.

Two things people get wrong about it.

**The directors are not off the hook.** Section 248(7):

> The liability, if any, of every director, manager or other officer who was
> exercising any power of management, and of every member of the company
> dissolved under sub-section (5), shall continue and may be enforced as if the
> company had not been dissolved.

**And the assets remain available.** Section 250 cancels the certificate of
incorporation "except for the purpose of realising the amount due to the
company and for the payment or discharge of the liabilities or obligations of
the company".

So a struck-off debtor is a serious problem and not automatically a dead end.

**Coming back.** Section 252 provides two routes with two very different
clocks. Under section 252(1), a person aggrieved by the registrar's order may
appeal to the Tribunal **within three years**. Under section 252(3), the
company, a member, a creditor or a workman may apply **before the expiry of
twenty years** from the Gazette publication. Where restoration is ordered, the
registrar issues a fresh certificate of incorporation.

## Insolvency: four statuses, and two of them cite the wrong Act on purpose

**Under CIRP** (1,944). A corporate insolvency resolution process has begun
under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code 2016. Two provisions change everything
about dealing with the company. Section 14(1) declares a moratorium prohibiting

> the institution of suits or continuation of pending suits or proceedings
> against the corporate debtor including execution of any judgement, decree or
> order …

along with any action to enforce security and any recovery of property by an
owner or lessor. And section 17 provides that on the interim resolution
professional's appointment "the powers of the board of directors … shall stand
suspended and be exercised by the interim resolution professional".

Whoever you were dealing with no longer has authority. There is somebody else
to talk to, and the register's master data carries their details.

**Under Liquidation** (8,515). A liquidator controls the assets.

**Dissolved (Liquidated)** (11,970). Finished.

**Dissolved under section 54** (507) and **Dissolved under section 59(8)**
(983). These look like Companies Act references and they are not. Both are
sections of the **Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code**, and the Code itself
explains why they reach the register. Section 54 covers dissolution once a
liquidation is complete, and section 54(3) requires a copy of the order to be
forwarded to the authority the corporate debtor is registered with within seven
days. Section 59 covers **voluntary** liquidation, and section 59(9) requires
the same within fourteen days.

So the distinction is real and useful: **section 54 is dissolution after a
compulsory liquidation, section 59(8) is dissolution after a voluntary one.**
One company was wound up because it had to be, the other because its members
decided to.

## Reorganised out of existence

**Amalgamated** (40,195). The company merged into another and was, in the
statute's phrase, dissolved without winding up. Section 232(3)(d) empowers the
Tribunal to provide for exactly that, and section 232(4) vests the property and
liabilities in the transferee. Everything you were dealing with, including any
litigation and any debt owed to you, has moved to a different company. Your
job is to find out which.

**Converted to LLP** (29,512). The company became a limited liability
partnership. Different Act, different filings, and
[the register shows less about an LLP](https://entiva.in/blog/how-to-check-an-llp-india/) than
it does about a company.

**Converted and Dissolved** (1,953) and **Converted to CMP and Dissolved**
(981). LLP-side conversions, the second being an LLP that became a company.

## Deliberately asleep: Dormant under section 455

Only 2,595 entities, which is seven in every ten thousand. Dormancy is a
formal, deliberate choice and almost nobody makes it. Companies that stop
trading overwhelmingly just stop filing and wait to be struck off.

Section 455 lets a company formed for a future project, or to hold an asset or
intellectual property, apply for dormant status, and it defines the
alternative route in:

> "inactive company" means a company which has not been carrying on any
> business or operation, or has not made any significant accounting transaction
> during the last two financial years, or has not filed financial statements
> and annual returns during the last two financial years

The application is Form MSC-1, and it needs a special resolution or the consent
of three-quarters of shareholders by value. A dormant company then files a
return of dormant company annually in Form MSC-3.

**One widely repeated error worth correcting.** Section 455(4) says that where
a company has not filed financial statements or annual returns for two
consecutive financial years, the registrar issues a notice and enters its name
in the **register maintained for dormant companies**. That is not a strike off.
And section 455(6) says the registrar shall strike a dormant company's name off
**the register of dormant companies** where it fails to comply with the
section, which means it loses dormant status rather than ceasing to exist.
Removal from the main register is a different provision, section 248(1)(c).

Two registers, two consequences, routinely conflated.

## The leftovers

**Inactive for e-filing** (10,261). Larger than Under Liquidation, and rarely
discussed. **Inactive** (202). **Not available for efiling** (13). These flag
that the entity cannot transact on the portal, and they are not statements
about the company's legal existence in the way the strike-off family is. If you
meet one on a company that matters to you, treat it as a reason to look at the
filing history rather than as an answer in itself.

**Unclassified** (1). **Vanished** (1). MCA separately publishes a list of
vanishing companies, historically those that disappeared after raising money
from the public. Exactly one entity in 3.7 million carries the word in this
field, and we are not going to name it.

## What no status tells you

**Whether the company is solvent.** Active is not a credit opinion.

**Whether it is trading.** No status field means "operating".

**Whether the record is current.** The register holds what was filed and
processed. A company that collapsed last month still says Active. For anything
beyond the status field you need the filings themselves, and
[what a retrieval covers](https://entiva.in/what-you-can-find/) sets out which of the eight
categories holds what.

**Or whether you are looking at the right company.** Near-identical names
across states are the commonest error in this whole exercise. Confirm by CIN
before you conclude anything, which is the first move in the
[two-minute check on whether a company is real](https://entiva.in/blog/how-to-check-if-a-company-is-real/).

## The one-line version

Meanings only. What to do when the word is on a company you are about to pay
or sign with is in
[what a company's status actually means for you](https://entiva.in/blog/company-status-strike-off-meaning/).

| If you see | What it is |
| --- | --- |
| Active | The registrar has not removed it. Not a health check |
| Active, flagged ACTIVE non-compliant | A separate compliance tag. Annual filings and charges are unaffected |
| Under process of striking off | The registrar has begun a section 248 removal |
| Strike Off, Strike Off-AwaitingPublication | Dissolved, or about to be, on Gazette publication. Directors and assets still reachable |
| Under CIRP | Insolvency has begun. Board powers sit with the insolvency professional. A moratorium applies |
| Under Liquidation | A liquidator controls the assets |
| Dissolved, in any form | It has ended. How and when changes the remedy |
| Amalgamated | Merged into another company. The transferee now holds the property and the liabilities |
| Converted to LLP | Same people, different Act, thinner disclosure |
| Dormant under section 455 | Deliberately not trading. Rare enough to be a considered decision |
| Inactive for e-filing, Inactive | Cannot transact on the portal. Not, by itself, a statement about legal existence |

## Where these numbers come from

- **Source:** the MCA company master, as the ministry publishes it.
- **Snapshot:** taken 2026-09-08, stated at source as last updated 2026-07-22,
  3,674,314 rows, which matches the source's own reported total.
- **What that check does and does not prove.** The row-count match means the
  copy agrees with the total published alongside it. That is worth less than it
  sounds: a copy of this register can match its own stated total and still be
  missing an entire state, which is a thing we have since found. It is not a
  per-value confirmation either, so each string below is counted from the file
  rather than re-queried one value at a time.
- **Method:** a value count over the `status` column, unmodified. Strings are
  printed exactly as the file spells them, duplicates and casing variants
  included. The table of those counts, the cohort rates, and the listed versus
  unlisted split live on
  [how many companies in India actually still exist](https://entiva.in/blog/how-many-companies-in-india-are-still-active/),
  not here.

Statuses are free to check and they are the cheapest thing you will ever do
before signing something. They are also one word standing in for a legal
position that occasionally runs to several sections of two different Acts. Both
of those things are true at once, which is why this page exists.

*Written by the Entiva team, from the register we keep and the statutes behind
it. Not legal advice.*

## Frequently asked

### What does ACTIVE non-compliant mean on the MCA portal?

It means the company did not file e-Form ACTIVE (INC-22A). Rule 25A of the Companies (Incorporation) Rules 2014 required every company incorporated on or before 31 December 2017 to file it by 15 June 2019, and provides that a company that did not is marked Active-non-compliant from 16 June 2019. It can restore compliant standing by filing, on payment of a ₹10,000 fee. It is a compliance tag, not the company's status.

### What does company status Under CIRP mean?

A corporate insolvency resolution process under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code 2016 has begun. Under section 14 a moratorium prohibits suits, enforcement of security and recovery of property against the company, and under section 17 the board's powers are suspended and management vests in the insolvency professional. In our snapshot of the register, 1,944 entities carried this status.

### What does Dissolved under section 59(8) mean?

It refers to section 59(8) of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code 2016, not the Companies Act. It is dissolution following a voluntary liquidation, ordered by the adjudicating authority once the affairs are wound up. Dissolved under section 54 is the equivalent after a compulsory liquidation.

### Can a struck-off company be restored?

Yes, and there are two routes with different limits. Section 252(1) allows an appeal to the Tribunal against the Registrar's order within three years. Section 252(3) allows the company, a member, a creditor or a workman to apply within twenty years of the strike-off notice being published in the Official Gazette.

## Related reading

- [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.
- [How many companies in India actually still exist?](https://entiva.in/blog/how-many-companies-in-india-are-still-active/): More than 3.7 million entities sit on India's companies register. Only 70.7% are Active, and more than a quarter have been struck off. Here is the full status breakdown.
- [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.

_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._