The incorporation process, step by step

Seven steps, 34 to 44 working days, and nobody gets on a plane. The Ministry of Corporate Affairs runs the whole thing through its portal, and at the end it issues three documents that mean your company legally exists in India.

The order matters more than the effort. Two steps run in parallel, one cannot start until another finishes, and the single biggest cause of delay is a name that gets rejected.

Total elapsed

34 to 44 working days to the certificate of incorporation

Your time

Roughly two hours, spread across document collection and one 15-minute call

Travel required

None

You end up with

Certificate of Incorporation, PAN and TAN

What are the steps to incorporate in India?

1. 01

   Name reservation

   8 to 10 working days

   You submit up to four proposed names in order of preference, with a description of the business and a board resolution from the parent authorising the subsidiary. There is no instant approval in India, and approval is valid for 20 days with two 20-day extensions available.

   In our experience this is the top cause of delay in the whole process.

2. 02

   Document review

   3 to 5 working days

   Everything you have sent gets checked against what the MCA will accept. Think of it as a sanity check run by people who have had applications rejected before. The buffer is for corrections, and it is used more often than not.

3. 03

   Digital Signature Certificate

   1 working day

   Every director needs a DSC, a signature token used to sign filings to the MCA, the RBI and banks. Getting one takes a 15-minute call: you are asked to read out a series of one-time passcodes sent to your phone, and the certificate is issued.

   Block the 15 minutes and be reachable. Skip this step entirely if a director already holds a valid DSC.

4. 04

   Apostillation of foreign documents

   3 to 5 working days, runs alongside step 01

   Anything signed outside India has to be notarised and apostilled in the country where it was signed before the MCA will accept it. Notarisation confirms the document is genuine; the apostille is the government certification that makes it valid abroad. You need both.

   This runs concurrently with name reservation, so starting it immediately takes 3 to 5 working days off the total.

5. 05

   Incorporation documents prepared

   5 working days, after name approval

   The constitution of the company, the declarations from directors and subscribers, and the parent's authorisations. You do not draft any of it. You review and sign, and then these documents need apostilling too, which is why they cannot start before the name comes back.

6. 06

   Filing with the MCA

   1 to 2 days to file, 8 to 10 to process

   The forms go in, along with a government filing fee. The MCA then either approves or sends a remark asking for clarification.

   Most people read a remark as a rejection. It is a routine background check with a follow-up question attached, and every remark has a correct answer.

7. 07

   Approval and certificate of incorporation

   Issued with the approval

   The MCA issues three documents together: the Certificate of Incorporation carrying your Company Identification Number, a PAN, and a TAN. Your company legally exists. PAN and TAN arrive password-protected, and the passwords go to your filing agent.

How do you pick a company name India will approve?

Invent a word that is distinctive and tied to nothing that already exists. Swiggy, Meesho and Razorpay are the pattern. A made-up name is ownable, carries no prior baggage, and clears the registrar without an argument.

What gets rejected:

• Anything too close to an existing company. Phonetic similarity counts, and so do plurals, spellings and word order. "Green Technology" and "Greens Technologies" are treated as the same name.
• Regulated words without prior approval: Bank, Insurance, Venture Capital, Stock Exchange, Mutual Fund.
• Anything implying a government connection: National, Central, Federal, Republic, President.
• A vague business description. The name has to relate to what you actually do, and the description has to say what that is.

What documents do you need to incorporate in India?

Three sets: the foreign directors, the parent company, and the registered office. The resident director's documents come from whoever provides them, so if you are using a nominee director service you supply nothing for that person.

Four rules that get applications sent back

• No DigiLocker or masked copies of PAN or Aadhaar, at any stage. Original scans only.
• Every email address must be unique. The entity, Director 1, Director 2, the parent and the Authorised Representative all need a different one. Reusing an address fails the application.
• Documents must be legible. A blurry photograph of a passport or a cropped PAN card comes straight back.
• Address proof in the right name. A director's proof goes in the director's name and the office proof in the property owner's name. A spouse's name does not work.

What happens right after the certificate arrives?

The company exists and still cannot trade. Receiving the certificate of incorporation clears the first stage, not the last one: a set of post-incorporation filings has to be completed before the entity can legally commence business.

In rough order, and all of it covered in the sections that follow:

• First board meeting, within 30 days of incorporation
• Appoint the first auditor, within 15 working days of that meeting
• Open the bank account, then receive the share capital from the parent
• Issue share certificates, within 60 days
• File INC-20A to commence business, within 180 days
• Report the foreign investment to the RBI, within 30 days of the funds landing