Pranav Singhal
What company registration actually costs in India, state by state
Government fees for incorporating a company are mostly identical across India. Stamp duty is not. Here is the state-wise arithmetic, with formulas instead of ranges.
- incorporation
- stamp-duty
- government-fees
- pvt-ltd
- llp
Registering a private limited company in India costs between roughly Rs 2,700 and Rs 16,300 in government and third party fees before any professional fee, and almost the entire spread comes from one line: stamp duty, which is set by the state your registered office sits in. Every other government fee is identical whether you incorporate in Mumbai or Imphal.
Most providers quote this as a range and move on. We think a range on a quote is a question nobody bothered to ask. Given your state and your authorised capital, the number is deterministic. This post shows the arithmetic, and the quote flow uses the same inputs.
The fees that do not vary
These are central government fees, the same in every state:
| Item | Fee | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| SPICe+ Part A name reservation | Rs 1,000 | |
| SPICe+ incorporation filing | Rs 0 | Zero up to Rs 15 lakh authorised capital |
| DIN for up to 3 directors | Rs 0 | Included in SPICe+ |
| PAN and TAN | Rs 0 | Auto-allotted |
| DSC (Class 3), per director | Rs 1,500 to 2,500 | Third party, vendor priced, not a government fee |
So the fixed floor for a two-director company is about Rs 4,000 to 6,000. Everything above that is stamp duty. Authorised capital is the other number that moves the stamp-duty line, and it is easy to confuse with subscribed capital, which is a real deposit obligation: authorised vs subscribed.
Stamp duty: a formula, not a range
Stamp duty on incorporation has three components: a small fixed duty on the SPICe+ form, a fixed duty on the Memorandum of Association (MoA), and a duty on the Articles of Association (AoA) that is usually linked to authorised capital. The third component is the one that moves.
Here are five major states, worked out at two capital levels:
| State | Form | MoA | AoA rule | Total at Rs 1 lakh capital | Total at Rs 10 lakh capital |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delhi | Rs 10 | Rs 200 | 0.15% of authorised capital (cap Rs 25 lakh) | Rs 360 | Rs 1,710 |
| Maharashtra | Rs 100 | Rs 200 | Rs 1,000 per Rs 5 lakh or part (cap Rs 50 lakh) | Rs 1,300 | Rs 2,300 |
| Karnataka | Rs 20 | Rs 1,000 | Rs 500 per Rs 10 lakh or part | Rs 1,520 | Rs 1,520 |
| Gujarat | Rs 20 | Rs 100 | 0.5% of authorised capital (cap Rs 5 lakh) | Rs 620 | Rs 5,120 |
| Kerala | Rs 25 | Rs 1,000 | Rs 2,000 up to Rs 10 lakh; Rs 5,000 to Rs 25 lakh; 0.5% above | Rs 3,025 | Rs 3,025 |
Two things fall out of this table that a range can never show you.
The cheapest state depends on your capital. Delhi is the cheapest at Rs 1 lakh authorised capital. Karnataka overtakes Gujarat somewhere around Rs 3 lakh. By Rs 10 lakh, Gujarat has become the most expensive of the five, at more than eight times Delhi’s cost at the Rs 1 lakh level.
You cannot shop for a state. Stamp duty follows your registered office, and a registered office is a real address where government post arrives. You will need a utility bill and a no-objection letter from the owner. A co-working desk or a home address is fine. Registering in a cheap state without a genuine presence there is not a strategy, it is a problem you are scheduling for later.
LLPs: a different schedule, a wilder spread
An LLP agreement is stamped under a different schedule from a company’s MoA and AoA, and the spread across states is larger. A few examples at two contribution levels:
| State | Rule | At Rs 1 lakh | At Rs 10 lakh |
|---|---|---|---|
| Assam, Himachal, most of the North East | Flat Rs 100 | Rs 100 | Rs 100 |
| West Bengal | Flat Rs 150 | Rs 150 | Rs 150 |
| Tamil Nadu | Flat Rs 300 | Rs 300 | Rs 300 |
| Uttar Pradesh | Flat Rs 750 | Rs 750 | Rs 750 |
| Haryana, Punjab | Flat Rs 1,000 | Rs 1,000 | Rs 1,000 |
| Delhi | 1% of contribution, cap Rs 5,000 | Rs 1,000 | Rs 5,000 |
| Maharashtra | 1%, minimum Rs 500, cap Rs 15,000 | Rs 1,000 | Rs 10,000 |
| Gujarat | 1%, cap Rs 10,000 | Rs 1,000 | Rs 10,000 |
| Rajasthan | Rs 2,000 per Rs 50,000 or part, cap Rs 10,000 | Rs 4,000 | Rs 10,000 |
| Kerala | Flat Rs 5,000 | Rs 5,000 | Rs 5,000 |
The identical legal document costs Rs 100 in Guwahati and Rs 5,000 in Kochi. Kerala is the most expensive place in India to sign an LLP agreement at low contribution; Maharashtra and Gujarat overtake it above roughly Rs 5 lakh.
A note on states we have left out. Published tables for Karnataka, Telangana, and Jammu and Kashmir contradict each other, sometimes by 5x. Most of the tables circulating online are copies of one another, so agreement between them is weak evidence. Where the sources disagree, we would rather tell you that than print a number we cannot stand behind. If you are registering in one of those states, the answer comes from the state’s Stamp Act schedule, and we will confirm it before you pay anything.
The LLP fee cliff almost nobody mentions
The MCA’s own LLP fees (FiLLiP for incorporation, Form 3 for the agreement) are both priced on the same contribution slab:
| Total partner contribution | FiLLiP | Form 3 | Both |
|---|---|---|---|
| Up to Rs 1,00,000 | Rs 500 | Rs 500 | Rs 1,000 |
| Rs 1,00,001 to 5,00,000 | Rs 2,000 | Rs 2,000 | Rs 4,000 |
| Rs 5,00,001 to 10,00,000 | Rs 4,000 | Rs 4,000 | Rs 8,000 |
| Above Rs 10,00,000 | Rs 5,000 | Rs 5,000 | Rs 10,000 |
Because both forms read the same slab, setting your contribution at Rs 1,00,001 instead of Rs 1,00,000 costs an extra Rs 3,000 in filing fees, plus additional stamp duty in the percentage states. One rupee, Rs 3,000. Contribution is a number you choose, and almost nobody tells founders it sits on a cliff.
Why quotes in this category are ranges
A range on an incorporation quote has exactly three possible causes. Either the provider has not asked you a question they could ask (your state and your capital pin down stamp duty exactly), or they have not done the research (the state schedules are public documents), or the price genuinely belongs to a third party (a DSC is vendor priced, and the fix is negotiating a fixed rate, which we did). There is no fourth case where a range is simply unavoidable.
That is why our incorporation quote shows three separate lines: government fees passed through at cost, third party fees passed through at cost, and our fee, which is the only line we earn on. When you tell us your state and your capital, the total is a number, not a range. The twelve months after filing are a different, larger number; that calendar is here.
Government fee schedules change. Figures above were verified against the state schedules and the Companies (Registration Offices and Fees) Rules, 2014 as of September 2026. Stamp duty is state law; always confirm against the current schedule for your state before filing.