Who has to file GSTR-9 for FY 2025-26?

Every regular GST-registered taxpayer, except that filing is optional where aggregate annual turnover is up to ₹2 crore. GSTR-9C — the self-certified reconciliation statement between the annual return and the audited financials — applies where turnover exceeds ₹5 crore. Composition taxpayers file their own annual return in GSTR-4 instead.

What is the due date for GSTR-9 and 9C for FY 2025-26?

31 December 2026 for both. And under the three-year bar in section 44, an annual return more than three years past its due date can no longer be filed at all — pending GSTR-9s from old years need to be cleared now, not kept on the someday list.

What is the late fee for GSTR-9?

Turnover-linked: up to ₹5 crore, ₹50 per day (₹25 CGST + ₹25 SGST) capped at 0.04% of turnover in the state; ₹5–20 crore, ₹100 per day with the same 0.04% cap; above ₹20 crore, ₹200 per day capped at 0.5% of turnover. GSTR-9C has no separate late fee, but a 9-without-9C filing is treated as incomplete for those who need it.

Why is the FY 2025-26 annual return harder than usual?

Because the year contains two rate regimes: old-schedule rates up to 21 September 2025 and GST 2.0 rates from 22 September 2025. Sales, credit notes, advances and price revisions that straddle the switch date must be reported at the rate that applied at their time of supply, and rate-wise summaries no longer match a single schedule. Books that tagged supplies by date survive this easily; books that did not, need reconstruction.

Can I fix errors of FY 2025-26 in the annual return?

GSTR-9 reports; it does not amend. Corrections to FY 2025-26 supplies and credit notes had a window in the FY 2026-27 monthly returns up to the specified period (30 November 2026), and those spillover corrections are then disclosed in tables 10–13. Tax found short at annual-return stage is paid through DRC-03. Once filed, GSTR-9 cannot be revised — file it right the first time.

Is GSTR-9 worth filing if my turnover is below ₹2 crore?

Often yes. Filing crystallises your year — outward supplies, ITC and tax paid in one signed document — which is useful in due diligence, loan files and future notice defence. If your monthly returns are clean, the incremental effort is small; if they are not, better you discover that than the department’s analytics.

GSTR-9 & 9C for FY 2025-26: Annual Return, Twice the Rates

The annual return is where a year of monthly filings has to agree with itself — and with your books. Most years that is tedious. For FY 2025-26 it is genuinely tricky, because GST 2.0 switched the rate schedule on 22 September 2025, cutting the year into two regimes that both live inside one GSTR-9.

Who files what

Aggregate turnover (FY 2025-26)	GSTR-9	GSTR-9C
Up to ₹2 crore	Optional (often worth filing)	Not required
₹2 crore – ₹5 crore	Mandatory	Not required
Above ₹5 crore	Mandatory	Mandatory, self-certified

Composition taxpayers are outside this table — their annual statement is GSTR-4. And the deadline discipline has teeth now: under the three-year bar, an annual return left unfiled for three years past its due date is barred permanently.

The tables where the work lives

Tables 4–5 (outward supplies): your GSTR-1s consolidated, split across taxable, exempt and non-GST — this year, reconciled across two rate regimes.
Tables 6–8 (ITC): credit availed per 3B against what the system shows, with the gap explained. The IMS accept/reject trail makes this cleaner for FY 2025-26 than it was — if you actually used it.
Tables 10–13 (spillover): FY 2025-26 transactions corrected or credited in FY 2026-27 returns up to the specified period.
Table 17 (HSN): HSN-wise outward summary — four digits up to ₹5 crore turnover, six digits above.

The rate-switch reconciliation

The 22 September 2025 boundary creates four specific traps we are seeing in FY 2025-26 files:

Credit notes that cross the line. A note issued in October 2025 against an August 2025 invoice carries the old rate. Notes issued at the new rate against old-rate invoices create mismatches that surface only at annual-return stage.
Advances and time of supply. Advances received before the switch and adjusted after it follow time-of-supply rules, not invoice dates.
Price renegotiations. Contracts repriced “GST-neutral” in September–October 2025 often were not; the differential shows up as a rate-wise anomaly in table 4.
Stock and ITC assumptions. Slab changes altered the economics of inventory bought at old rates and sold at new ones — the books entry is fine, but the 9C reconciliation must explain the margin movement.

Late fees

Turnover	Late fee / day	Cap
Up to ₹5 crore	₹50	0.04% of state turnover
₹5–20 crore	₹100	0.04% of state turnover
Above ₹20 crore	₹200	0.5% of state turnover

A sensible timeline

September–October 2026: books-to-returns reconciliation, and any FY 2025-26 corrections pushed into monthly returns before the 30 November specified period closes.
November 2026: draft GSTR-9 tables, resolve ITC gaps, quantify any DRC-03 payments.
December 2026: file 9 and 9C with margin — not on the 31st, when the portal remembers it is a government portal.

How we can help

Our GSTR-9 and 9C service does the reconciliation, not just the form-filling: books to 3B to 1 to 2B, the rate-switch cut-over, spillover tables and the 9C statement. Retainer clients on our monthly GST filing get the annual return built from reconciliations that already exist — which is the cheap way to do this. If your FY 2025-26 monthly returns need repair first, start now; December queues are real.

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This article is general information, not tax advice. Thresholds and dates can change by notification; confirm specifics for your business before acting.

GSTR-9 and 9C for FY 2025-26: the annual return in the year GST changed mid-stream