DIN eKYC (DIR-3 KYC)

DIR-3 KYC is the identity verification every holder of a Director Identification Number must complete with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. Until FY 2025-26 it was an annual filing due by 30 September. The Companies (Appointment and Qualification of Directors) Amendment Rules, 2025 — notified on 31 December 2025 and effective from 31 March 2026 — replaced it with a KYC intimation once in every three consecutive financial years, due on or before 30 June of the year following the third financial year of the cycle.

It applies whether or not you are currently a director of anything. If a DIN was ever allotted to you and it has not been surrendered, you file. Dormant DINs, DINs held by people who resigned years ago, DINs allotted for a company that was never incorporated — all of them are inside the three-year cycle.

The old eForm and the WEB re-verification have been merged into a single Form DIR-3 KYC Web. The same form is used for the three-yearly KYC (free if filed on time) and for the new event-based intimation: any change in your personal mobile number, email address or residential address must be filed within 30 days of the change, with the prescribed fee, wherever you are in the cycle. Directors who completed KYC for FY 2025-26 are next due by 30 June 2028.

PAN name mismatch

The name in the form is validated character by character against the income-tax database. A missing middle name, an initial where the database holds a full name, or a spelling variation causes outright rejection. We verify this first, because a rejection close to the deadline is how directors end up paying ₹5,000.

Mobile and email must be unique to you

The system will not accept a mobile number or email address already used for another director’s KYC. Company secretaries who filed several directors using an office email address discover this immediately. Each director needs their own personal contact details.

An expired DSC on the day of filing

The form must be signed with the director’s own valid Class 3 certificate. Directors who sign nothing else all year routinely find their DSC expired. Getting a fresh one takes about half an hour, but only if you discover it before the deadline rather than on it.

Resigned directors still have to file

Resigning from a company does not surrender your DIN. Unless you formally surrender it in Form DIR-5, the KYC obligation continues for every cycle. This is the most common source of unexpected ₹5,000 demands.

There is no partial relief

The fee is ₹5,000 whether you are one day late or eleven months late, and it applies to each director individually. The Ministry has not offered a general amnesty for DIR-3 KYC in recent cycles, so it should not be planned for.

Filings are made on the Ministry of Corporate Affairs portal under Rule 12A of the Companies (Appointment and Qualification of Directors) Rules, 2014.

Nothing is lost permanently. You file Form DIR-3 KYC Web with the ₹5,000 fee and the DIN is reactivated, usually within a day or two of approval. The number itself never changes.

What needs checking is what the deactivation blocked in the meantime. If annual filings fell due while the DIN was inactive, those are now late and carry their own per-day penalties. If a director was appointed or resigned during the period, the DIR-12 may have failed. We review the knock-on effects as part of restoration rather than fixing them one demand at a time.

If you genuinely no longer need the DIN — you are not a director anywhere and do not intend to be — surrendering it in Form DIR-5 ends the obligation for good.