Short answer: for FY 2025-26 (AY 2026-27), the tax audit report is due by 30 September 2026 and the return for audit cases by 31 October 2026. Late filing of the audit report attracts a penalty under Section 271B of 0.5% of turnover, capped at ₹1,50,000 — subject to relief for reasonable cause.
With the salaried filing season closed, this is the window that matters for businesses and professionals.
The dates for this season
| Obligation | Due date |
|---|---|
| Return — ITR-1 / ITR-2 filers | 31 July 2026 |
| Return — ITR-3 / ITR-4 filers not liable to audit | 31 August 2026 |
| Tax audit report — Form 3CA or 3CB with 3CD | 30 September 2026 |
| Return of income, audit cases | 31 October 2026 |
| Transfer pricing report, where applicable | 31 October 2026 |
| Return where transfer pricing applies | 30 November 2026 |
| Belated return under Section 139(4) | 31 December 2026 |
| Revised return under Section 139(5) | 31 March 2027 — fee under new Section 234-I for revising late in the window: ₹1,000 if income ≤ ₹5 lakh, else ₹5,000 |
The 31 August date is statutory and permanent, and it applies to this year.
The Finance Act 2026 substituted Explanation 2 to Section 139(1) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 with effect from 1 March 2026, replacing the single 31 July date with a four-tier table:
| Person | Due date |
|---|---|
| Where transfer pricing under Section 92E applies | 30 November |
| Company, or assessee whose accounts require audit, or partner of such a firm | 31 October |
| Business or profession income, accounts not requiring audit | 31 August |
| Any other assessee | 31 July |
Because the amendment took effect on 1 March 2026, it governs AY 2026-27 — the year being filed now. It is a statutory change, not a departmental extension, so it recurs every year rather than lapsing.
The same structure has been carried into the new code: the Finance Act 2026 substituted an identical table in Section 263(1)(c) of the Income-tax Act, 2025 for tax year 2026-27 onwards, reading Section 172 in place of Section 92E. So the position is the same under both Acts, and will not change when the 2025 Act takes over.
What decides which row applies is audit liability under Section 44AB, not the form number. An ITR-3 filer liable to audit follows 31 October.
Extensions are sometimes granted by the Board close to a deadline. Planning around one is a poor strategy — the extension, if it comes, arrives too late to be useful to anyone who was relying on it.
Whether audit applies to you
The thresholds under Section 44AB:
- Business — turnover exceeding ₹1 crore, extended to ₹10 crore where cash receipts and cash payments are each 5% or less of the total. Most businesses operating digitally satisfy that test comfortably.
- Profession — gross receipts exceeding ₹50 lakh. This is a flat limit; the digital-receipts relaxation that raises the business threshold does not apply to it.
- Presumptive opt-out — a taxpayer who used Section 44AD and then declares income below the presumptive rate, while exceeding the basic exemption limit, can be brought into audit. The presumptive taxation guide sets out that trap and the five-year lock-in that goes with it.
Applicability is decided on the numbers rather than assumed from last year — a business that was outside the threshold in the previous year can be inside it now. The audit and assurance page covers the wider position, including statutory and internal audit.
What late filing actually costs
Section 271B provides a penalty of 0.5% of total sales, turnover or gross receipts, capped at ₹1,50,000.
Two points are worth knowing:
It is not automatic. Section 273B allows the penalty to be dropped where there was reasonable cause. Serious illness, records seized in a search action, and delay attributable to a previous auditor have been accepted in practice. But reasonable cause must be pleaded and evidenced — it is not applied on its own.
File the report even if you are late. The audit report and the return are separate obligations. Getting the report on record limits exposure under 271B even where the return slips, and treating them as one deadline is a common and costly error.
Separately, a return filed after the due date loses the ability to carry forward business losses, which for a loss-making year is frequently a larger consequence than the penalty itself.
From tax year 2026-27 the consequence changes shape entirely. Under the Income-tax Act 2025, audit is Section 63, and failing to get accounts audited and furnish the report stops being a discretionary penalty and becomes a graded fee under Section 428(c) — ₹75,000 where the failure runs up to one month, and ₹1,50,000 thereafter. A parallel fee under Section 428(d) applies to the accountant's report under Section 172 (₹50,000, then ₹1,00,000).
That is a materially different regime. The 0.5%-of-turnover formula is gone, so a small business no longer benefits from the percentage cap being lower than the ceiling — a one-month slip is ₹75,000 regardless of turnover. And because it is a fee rather than a penalty, the Section 273B "reasonable cause" relief that applies to the 271B penalty does not obviously carry across. For AY 2026-27, though, the 1961 Act still governs and Section 271B is the correct provision.