SECP annual filing calendar: Form A, Form 29 and fees

Registering a company with SECP is a one-time event; keeping it compliant is an annual obligation that never stops. A great many Pakistani companies form cleanly and then drift into non-compliance simply because nobody owns the recurring filing calendar. The filings themselves are straightforward — the problem is forgetting them. This guide sets out the recurring SECP filings a company must make, when they fall, and what late filing costs, so the calendar can be diarised and dispatched routinely.

The recurring obligations

Beyond one-off filings for specific corporate actions, a company faces a core set of recurring returns:

• Annual return (Form A / the prescribed annual return): a yearly confirmation of the company's particulars — shareholding, directors, registered office and similar — filed once each year within the statutory window.
• Form 29: filed whenever there is a change in directors, chief executive, secretary, auditors or their particulars. It is event-driven, not annual.
• Audited financial statements: companies required to have their accounts audited must file them with SECP within the timeline after the AGM, alongside the annual return in many cases.
• Other event filings: changes to capital, registered office, or the memorandum and articles each carry their own form and deadline.

The distinction between the annual and the event-driven filings is the key organising idea: Form A comes round once a year like clockwork; Form 29 fires whenever the board changes. A company that treats both as "annual" will miss the Form 29 that was due when a director resigned in the middle of the year.

Timing the filings

Most of the annual timeline hangs off the annual general meeting. The AGM has to be held within the period the Companies Act specifies after the financial year end; the audited accounts are laid before it; and the annual return is filed within the window that follows. Form 29, by contrast, runs from the date of the change it reports, with its own filing period. Because the exact periods are set by the Companies Act and SECP rules and vary by company type — a single-member company, a private company and a public company are not identical — confirm the specific deadlines for your company against SECP rather than relying on a remembered figure.

Filing fees and the cost of delay

SECP charges a fee to file, and the fee structure is the reason timeliness matters financially. Normal filing fees are modest and are set out in SECP's fee schedule, with online filing generally cheaper than physical. The critical feature is the late filing fee: it escalates with the length of the delay, so a return filed shortly after its deadline costs far less than one filed months late. Confirm the current fees against the SECP schedule, because they are revised periodically. The economic logic is simple — the fee to file on time is small and fixed, while the cost of delay grows the longer it is left, so there is never a financial case for filing late.

Consequences of non-filing

Beyond the escalating fee, sustained non-filing has real consequences. The company can be marked as non-compliant, which affects its standing and can complicate banking, financing and contracting. Officers can face action for persistent default. And a company that has fallen years behind faces a larger remediation exercise — multiple back-filings, accumulated late fees — than if it had simply filed each year. The compliance record is also something counterparties increasingly check, so a clean SECP filing history has value beyond avoiding penalties.

How it fits with the rest of compliance

The SECP calendar does not stand alone. The audited accounts it requires depend on the statutory audit requirement, the company itself was formed through SECP company registration or the private limited company route, and a business weighing whether the corporate form is worth this recurring burden should read across to AOP versus company, where the lighter compliance of an AOP is one of the trade-offs. For a company that has chosen the corporate form, though, the annual calendar is simply part of the deal — manageable once owned, damaging once ignored.

Sources

This guide is written against the official and clearly labelled professional references below. Rates, thresholds and portal procedures change between reviews, so open the primary source before relying on a figure.

• Company Registration (SECP)
• Company Incorporation Fee Calculator (SECP)
• Start Your Company (SECP)

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