Tax and compliance calendar for clinics, pharmacies and hospitals in India, 2026-27

A clinic in India files or pays something almost every week of the year: TDS by the 7th, GST returns from the 11th to the 24th, PF and ESI by the 15th, advance tax four times a year, and the annual returns and audits in between. Most of the dates do not move from year to year. What changes is the law behind them, and 2025 and 2026 changed a lot of it.

This calendar is for owners, administrators and accountants of clinics, hospitals, pharmacies and optical shops. It lists every recurring date, what each one needs, and the changes of the last eighteen months that an older checklist will get wrong. It is a summary as of October 2026, not tax advice. Due dates are extended by notification from time to time, so check anything that matters with your chartered accountant.

What changed recently

• A new Income-tax Act. The Income-tax Act, 2025 replaced the 1961 Act on 1 April 2026. “Tax year” replaces “previous year” and “assessment year”. Tax audit is now section 63 (was 44AB), presumptive taxation for professionals is section 58 (was 44ADA), and almost all TDS sits in one table in section 393. The quarterly TDS statements are Form 138 for salaries (was 24Q) and Form 140 for other payments to residents (was 26Q). Income for 2025-26 is still returned under the old Act and its forms.
• A later return date for practices that do not need an audit. From 2026, a person with business or professional income whose accounts do not need an audit files by 31 August, not 31 July.
• An extension for 2025-26 audit cases. CBDT Circular 07/2026 moved the 2025-26 audit report to 21 October 2026 and the return to 21 November 2026.
• New GST rates from 22 September 2025. Most medicines moved from 12% to 5%, and a list of life-saving drugs to nil. Spectacle lenses, frames, corrective spectacles and contact lenses moved to 5%; sunglasses stay at 18%. Medical devices, diagnostic kits and reagents moved to 5%. Health insurance for individuals became exempt.
• No late filing after three years. From the July 2025 tax period, the GST portal does not accept a return filed more than three years after its due date.
• The annual GST return below ₹2 crore. GSTR-9 is optional for businesses with turnover up to ₹2 crore, from 2024-25 onwards.

Every month

Date	What is due	Who it applies to
7th	TDS and TCS deducted last month deposited (for March, by 30 April)	Anyone deducting TDS: salaries, consultants’ fees, rent, contractors
11th	GSTR-1, outward supplies, for monthly filers	GST-registered pharmacies, optical shops, labs
13th	GSTR-1 for quarterly filers, in the month after the quarter; the optional Invoice Furnishing Facility in the first two months	Quarterly (QRMP) filers
14th	GSTR-2B generated: the credit available to you this month	Anyone claiming input tax credit
15th	EPF return (ECR) and contributions; ESI contributions	Employers registered with EPFO and ESIC
20th	GSTR-3B and tax payment for monthly filers	Monthly GST filers
22nd or 24th	GSTR-3B for quarterly filers, in the month after the quarter: the 22nd in Tamil Nadu and the other states of its group, the 24th elsewhere	Quarterly filers
25th	Tax payment (PMT-06) for the first two months of a quarter	Quarterly filers

Every quarter

• TDS statements: 31 July (April to June), 31 October (July to September), 31 January (October to December) and 31 May (January to March).
• Advance tax: 15% of the year’s tax by 15 June, 45% by 15 September, 75% by 15 December and all of it by 15 March, where the tax for the year is ₹10,000 or more. A professional under the presumptive scheme pays it all by 15 March.

The next twelve months

Date	What is due
21 Oct 2026	Tax audit report for 2025-26 (extended)
30 Oct 2026	LLP statement of accounts and solvency (Form 8)
31 Oct 2026	TDS statements for July to September
21 Nov 2026	Income tax return for 2025-26 for audit cases (extended)
30 Nov 2026	Last date to claim input tax credit on 2025-26 invoices, or the date you file the annual return if earlier
15 Dec 2026	Third advance tax instalment
31 Dec 2026	Annual GST return for 2025-26: GSTR-9 where turnover is above ₹2 crore, and GSTR-9C above ₹5 crore
31 Jan 2027	TDS statements for October to December
15 Mar 2027	Last advance tax instalment
31 Mar 2027	Financial year ends; second professional tax half-year ends
30 Apr 2027	TDS deducted in March deposited
30 May 2027	LLP annual return (Form 11)
31 May 2027	TDS statements for January to March
15 Jun 2027	First advance tax instalment for 2027-28
30 Jun 2027	Biomedical waste annual report (Form IV) to the State Pollution Control Board
31 Jul 2027	Income tax return for 2026-27 for people with no business or professional income
31 Aug 2027	Income tax return for 2026-27 for practices and businesses that do not need an audit
30 Sep 2027	Tax audit report for 2026-27; company annual general meeting; first professional tax half-year ends
30 Oct 2027	LLP statement of accounts (Form 8)
31 Oct 2027	Income tax return for 2026-27 for audit cases; TDS statements for July to September

Professional tax is set by each state and collected by local bodies, half-yearly in Tamil Nadu. In 2026 Greater Chennai Corporation asked employers to deduct the first half-year’s tax from August salaries and pay it by 30 September; check your own corporation’s notice for both half-years.

A company files its financial statements (AOC-4) within 30 days of its annual general meeting and its annual return (MGT-7) within 60 days. A director’s KYC is now filed once every three years, by 30 June after the third year; directors who are already up to date next file by 30 June 2028.

Thresholds worth knowing

Rule	Threshold
Tax audit for a profession (section 63)	Gross receipts above ₹50 lakh in the tax year
Tax audit for a business such as a pharmacy	Turnover above ₹1 crore, or above ₹10 crore if cash receipts and cash payments are each no more than 5%
Presumptive taxation for professionals (section 58)	Receipts up to ₹50 lakh, or ₹75 lakh if cash receipts are no more than 5%; profit taken as 50% of receipts
TDS on professional fees	10%, above ₹50,000 paid to one person in the year
TDS on rent of a building	10%, above ₹50,000 a month
TDS on contractors	1% to an individual or HUF, 2% to others
GST e-invoicing	Turnover above ₹5 crore in any year since 2017-18; at ₹10 crore and above, each invoice must be reported within 30 days
GST annual returns	GSTR-9 above ₹2 crore; GSTR-9C above ₹5 crore
GST on hospital rooms	5%, without input tax credit, on a non-ICU room charged above ₹5,000 a day per patient
ESI	Employees earning up to ₹21,000 a month; 0.75% from the employee and 3.25% from the employer
GSTR-3B late fee	₹50 a day, or ₹20 a day for a nil return, plus 18% a year interest on tax paid late

The EPF wage ceiling was raised from ₹15,000 to ₹25,000 a month from 17 September 2026. Check that your payroll calculates contributions on the new ceiling, and confirm with your CA how the change applies to your staff.

Records: how long to keep them

• GST: accounts and records, including stock, for 72 months from the due date of the annual return for the year.
• Companies: books of account, including the edit log your accounting software must keep since April 2023, for eight financial years.
• Drugs Rules: the Schedule H1 register for three years, and most other pharmacy records for at least two years from the last entry.
• Biomedical waste: records for five years.
• Patient records: see our article on storing patient records.

Where two rules apply to the same paper, keep it for the longer period.

Licences and registrations

These do not fall due every year, which is why they are missed. Keep one list with the renewal or fee date of each:

• Retail drug licences (Forms 20 and 21): valid without renewal, provided the retention fee is paid before each five-year period from the date of issue. Miss it by more than six months and the licence is treated as cancelled.
• Clinical establishment registration under your state’s law.
• Biomedical waste authorisation from the State Pollution Control Board.
• Fire safety certificate, PCPNDT registration for ultrasound, AERB licence for X-ray, and the GST, professional tax, EPF and ESI registrations themselves.

Three habits that keep the dates easy

1. Let the books accrue the dues. When bills, purchases and payroll post as they happen, the GST, TDS, PF and ESI due each month are already known on the 1st.
2. Record every deposit against its due. A challan paid but not matched to the liability looks like an unpaid due at the audit.
3. Look two weeks ahead, every Monday. Most penalties are for dates that arrived unnoticed, not for money that was not there.

Our article on continuous audit sets out the rest of the monthly close.

Where 92health fits

In 92health, the money side of a clinic, hospital, pharmacy or optical shop is written by the day’s work, so the dues are known before they fall due:

• GST on every bill, sale and purchase, split into its legs, with GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B exports and GSTR-2B matching;
• a statutory dues board that shows GST, TDS, PF and ESI as they accrue, and nets each deposit against the period it pays;
• an eight-week view of what is coming due: statutory dues, loan instalments, recurring costs, supplier bills and the next payroll;
• payroll that calculates PF, ESI and professional tax and prepares the statutory files;
• read-only access for your CA firm, which can track every filing on a calendar and send both of you a note of filings due in the next few days.

If you would like to see your own month on it, book a demo.

Sources

• Income-tax Act, 2025, sections 58, 63, 393, 404 and 408; CBDT FAQs on the transition from the 1961 Act; the e-filing form mapping guide; Finance Act, 2026; CBDT Circular 07/2026, 28 September 2026.
• Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017, sections 16, 36, 39, 44 and 50; CGST Rules, 2017, rules 56 and 80; Notification 15/2025-Central Tax; GST portal user guides for GSTR-1, GSTR-2B and GSTR-3B and the QRMP advisory; GSTN advisory on the three-year limit for returns.
• Notification 12/2017-Central Tax (Rate), entry 74, as amended by Notifications 03/2022 and 04/2022-Central Tax (Rate); Notification 9/2025-Central Tax (Rate) and the GST Council’s press release of September 2025.
• Companies Act, 2013, sections 92, 96, 128 and 137; Companies (Appointment and Qualification of Directors) Amendment Rules, 2025; Limited Liability Partnership Rules (Forms 8 and 11).
• EPFO employer information booklet; ESIC contribution rules; S.O. 5109(E), 17 September 2026 (EPF wage ceiling), as reported by the Ministry of Labour and Employment and law-firm alerts.
• Drugs Rules, 1945, Rules 63 and 65; Bio-Medical Waste Management Rules, 2016, Rules 13 and 14; Greater Chennai Corporation, professional tax.