A bank asks for your Certificate of Incorporation, a vendor wants it before onboarding, or a prospective partner has sent you theirs and you are not sure it is real. The certificate is a one-page PDF, but a certificate of incorporation download from the MCA portal now means logging in to the MCA21 V3 system, picking the right service and, in most cases, paying a fee. Pick the wrong service and you either pay for nothing or wait weeks for a copy you never needed.
What a Certificate of Incorporation Actually Contains
The COI is issued under section 7(2) of the Companies Act, 2013 and rule 18 of the Companies (Incorporation) Rules, 2014. For companies formed through SPICe+ it is signed at the Central Registration Centre (CRC) in Manesar “for and on behalf of the jurisdictional Registrar of Companies”. A current certificate shows:
- The company’s full name and whether it is limited by shares or by guarantee
- The date of incorporation, written out in words
- The Corporate Identity Number (CIN)
- The company’s PAN and TAN, marked “as issued by the Income Tax Department” — SPICe+ applies for both during incorporation; the physical PAN card still arrives separately from the Income Tax Department
- The signing Registrar’s name, a Ministry of Corporate Affairs digital signature block with a timestamp, and the registered office as the “mailing address as per record”
- A disclaimer that the certificate “only evidences incorporation” and is “neither a license nor permission to conduct business”
Older certificates do not carry PAN or TAN: specimens from 2017 have neither, those from late 2018 onward have both. Either way, the MCA issues the COI only in electronic form; nobody is posted a paper original.
Two Routes to a Certificate of Incorporation Download on MCA V3
Both routes need an MCA V3 login. A free Registered User account is enough.
Route 1: Your Own Company’s COI (Free)
When SPICe+ is approved, the MCA emails the Certificate of Incorporation to the registered email ID of the user who filed it, with the CIN, PAN and TAN allotted at the same time. If that email is gone, the approval documents sit against the incorporation SRN in the filer’s account:
- Log in with the account that filed SPICe+, or ask the CA/CS who filed it to do this.
- Open My Application from the dashboard and filter by SRN, form type or filing date to find the SPICe+ entry.
- Scroll right on that row to the download options and Mini Dashboard; the approval documents, certificate included, are downloadable there once the status is Approved. If nothing is offered against the SRN, use Route 2.
No fee applies. If the company was not incorporated through your account (a founder who has since left, a firm that no longer answers), use Route 2.
Route 2: Any Company’s COI via View Public Documents (₹100)
Documents filed with the Registrar are open to public inspection under section 399 of the Act, the COI included:
- Log in, then go to MCA Services > Document Related Services > View Public Documents.
- Search by company name or CIN and select the company.
- Pick the document category and year of filing. Guides place the COI under both “Certificates” and “Incorporation Documents”, so check both; the fee covers the whole company either way.
- Add the company to the cart (up to five companies or LLPs per transaction) and pay ₹100 per company (₹50 for an LLP).
- After processing, open My Workspace > Documents and download the PDF.
Two clocks run on that ₹100. The company’s documents stay in My Workspace for 7 days from payment, and once you open the first document you have 3 hours to download everything for that company, so grab the COI, MoA and AoA in one sitting. Coverage is solid from 2006, when e-filing began, and patchier before that. Since at least 2024 the MCA has treated DIR-12 director-change forms as private, so they do not appear here; current directors are in master data instead.
When You Need a Certified Copy Instead
The PDF from either route carries the MCA’s digital signature and is what banks, GST registration and most counterparties accept, though each recipient sets its own rule. A certified copy is a copy attested by the ROC under section 399(1)(b), usually demanded in court proceedings, by some foreign banks and regulators, or where a stamped document is required.
The service is MCA Services > Document Related Services > Get Certified Copies. Search by CIN, choose “Certificate of Incorporation” and the filing year, enter the page range and number of copies, and the portal calculates the government fee plus state stamp duty. Requests appear under My Workspace > Certified Copies (some guides call it My Service Requests) after roughly 24 hours.
How the copy reaches you is where sources disagree. MCA General Circular 05/2014 and older guides say the jurisdictional ROC posts a physical copy to the address on the challan within 15 to 20 days; several 2025-2026 guides say a digitally signed PDF appears in My Workspace. Assume the postal timeline and do not order one on a deadline expecting an instant PDF.
MCA Fees for COI Downloads and Certified Copies
The section 399 charges come from the Companies (Registration Offices and Fees) Rules, 2014:
| What you want | Service on V3 | Fee and notes |
|---|---|---|
| Your own company’s COI | My Application (incorporation SRN) or the approval email | Free From the account that filed SPICe+ (some guides: any company-linked login) |
| Any company’s COI, digitally signed PDF | View Public Documents | ₹100 per company (₹50 per LLP) All categories for that company; 7 days, 3-hour window |
| Certified copy of the COI | Get Certified Copies | ₹100 per copy, plus state stamp duty and court fee (a 2019 worked example for Delhi added ₹15) Posted by the ROC in about 15-20 days under the older guidance |
| Certified copy of any other document (MoA, AoA, forms) | Get Certified Copies | ₹25 per page, plus state charges You pay per page, so set the page range carefully |
| Checking CIN, date, status and directors | Master data or a third-party search | Free See the verification section |
Lost, Never Received, or Older Than E-Filing
There is no “duplicate COI” form. If the certificate is lost or the incorporation email never arrived, use the routes above: My Application if you filed it, View Public Documents if you did not.
Companies incorporated before MCA21 went live at every ROC in September 2006 are the hard case: older paper files were digitised in bulk at the time and coverage is uneven. Practitioners’ advice is to pay for public inspection and a certified copy on the portal, then take the challans (and, where the ROC insists, a ₹100 stamp paper) to the jurisdictional ROC office and apply from the physical file. Call the ROC first; each office runs its counter differently. Practitioners treat a certified copy issued this way as standing in for the original.
How to Verify a COI Someone Hands You
A PDF is easy to edit, and the disclaimer on every genuine COI tells you where to check: registration status “can be verified on www.mca.gov.in”. Do four checks.
- Match the CIN and name against master data. The 21-character CIN encodes the state, year of incorporation and ROC registration number; the year must match the certificate date and the name must match exactly. MCA company master data shows this, and because MCA’s own lookup has at times sat behind a login (it did from December 2025), the quickest check that never needs one is WeeDoo’s free company search.
- Check the status. A real certificate for a company that is now struck off or in liquidation is still real, but it is not a company you should be paying. See our guide to company status values.
- Check the directors. The person signing your contract should be a current director or hold an authorisation from one.
- Click the signature block in a proper PDF reader. A genuine COI is signed by a Ministry of Corporate Affairs certificate (“DS MINISTRY OF CORPORATE AFFAIRS”) dated on or a few days after the incorporation date. No signature at all, or metadata saying the file was last saved in Word or Photoshop, points to a forgery. “Validity unknown” by itself usually means your reader does not trust the Indian certifying authority.
Visual tells help too: mixed fonts, a PAN that does not follow the five-letters, four-digits, one-letter pattern, a missing section 7(2) and rule 18 reference, or a regional ROC signature on a recent certificate, which should have come from the CRC. If the counterparty objects to you pulling the certificate yourself for ₹100, that objection is the finding.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is a certificate of incorporation download from MCA free?
Only for your own company, through the account that filed the incorporation. Any other company’s COI costs ₹100 through View Public Documents.
Is the downloaded PDF legally valid, or do I need a certified copy?
The PDF carries the MCA’s digital signature and is the certificate. Ask for a certified copy only when a court, regulator or foreign institution specifically requires an ROC-attested copy.
How long do I have to download after paying?
Seven days from payment to open the company in My Workspace, then 3 hours from the first document you view. Miss either window and you pay again.
Before You Pay the Fee
Decide what you actually need. For the certificate itself, use My Application for your own company or ₹100 on View Public Documents for anyone else’s. Order a certified copy only when someone has named it in writing. If all you need is to confirm a company exists, when it was incorporated, whether it is active and who runs it, search the company on WeeDoo first — free, no login, and it answers most due-diligence questions before the MCA fee is worth paying.
