What is 12AA registration, and does it still exist?
- 12AA ceased1 April 2021
- Final migration date30 June 2024
- Now governed bySection 332
- AuthorityCIT (Exemptions), Andhra Pradesh
Section 12AA was introduced by the Finance (No. 2) Act, 1996 to give a proper procedure to what had until then been a loose registration under Section 12A. Once granted, the registration ran indefinitely. There was no expiry date, no renewal, and for most trustees in Amaravati no further contact with the exemption regime at all unless something went wrong.
That model ended. The Finance Act, 2020 introduced Section 12AB with effect from 1 April 2021, making every future registration time-limited and renewable, and requiring every organisation already registered under Section 12A or 12AA to apply again. An entity that did not re-register simply fell out of the regime. The deadline was extended several times, and the last of those extensions, under CBDT Circular 7/2024 dated 25 April 2024, set the final date at 30 June 2024.
Then the ground moved again. The Income-tax Act, 1961 was repealed with effect from 1 April 2026, and the non-profit regime was rewritten into Part B of Chapter XVII of the Income-tax Act, 2025. Registration now sits in Section 332 and the donor-side approval in Section 354. An organisation that had migrated properly carried its registration across without doing anything. An organisation that had not, had nothing to carry.
For the current rules on a live registration see 12A and 80G registration in Amaravati, or the national 12AA status page. If you are not sure what you hold, read on.
Legal framework
Section 12AA introduced by: Finance (No. 2) Act, 1996 | Ceased to operate: 1 April 2021 | Final re-registration date: 30 June 2024, CBDT Circular 7/2024 | Current law: Income-tax Act, 2025, Sections 332 to 355, in force from 1 April 2026 | Authority:Commissioner of Income Tax (Exemptions) for Andhra Pradesh | Government fee: Nil
Do you actually hold a live registration?
This is the only question on this page that matters. It takes ten minutes to answer properly, and guessing it either way is expensive.
| What is in your file | Your position | What to do next |
|---|---|---|
| A 12A or 12AA certificate from before 2021 and nothing else | Not registered. The migration was never completed | Re-register now in Form 105; establish the exposure for the intervening years |
| A Form 10AC order with a URN, still within its validity | Registered, carried over into the new Act | Check whether it is provisional; if so, the Form 105 conversion deadline may already have passed |
| A Form 10AD order, still within its validity | Registered and regular | Diarise the expiry; renew in Form 105 at least six months before it |
| A Form 10AC order that has expired | Not registered. Provisional registration ran out | Apply in Form 105; the failure to convert in time may raise Section 352 |
| A Form 107 order | Registered under Section 332 | Nothing to do beyond ordinary annual compliance and the renewal date |
| An application filed before 30 June 2024 with no order | Unresolved | Check the portal for a rejection or a pending notice; a rejection needs a fresh application |
| A rejection order | Not registered | A fresh, correctly framed Form 105 application; the Circular 7/2024 relief has closed |
| Nothing at all | Never registered | Apply in Form 105 if activities have commenced, Form 104 if they have not |
How to check it yourself from Amaravati, in ten minutes
Log in to incometax.gov.in with the organisation's PAN, not a trustee's. Look at the filed forms record for a Form 10A or Form 10AB submitted between 2021 and 30 June 2024, and for the order that followed it. Then look at the registration details on the profile for a Unique Registration Number and a validity period. Two rules make sense of whatever you find: an application is not a registration, and a paper certificate with no corresponding order and no URN is not a registration either. It is all online, so nothing about this requires a visit to an office in Amaravati.
Practitioner insight (IncorpX NGO tax team)
The most common failure we see is not an organisation that ignored the migration. It is one that filed the wrong form under the wrong clause, received a rejection, and never realised it. The rejection lands in the portal, not in the post, and if nobody logs in for a year it goes unnoticed. The second most common is an organisation that took fresh provisional registration in 2021 instead of re-registering as an existing entity, then never converted it, so a three-year provisional registration quietly expired. Both look identical from the outside: an office in Amaravati that believes it is registered, and a portal that says otherwise.
Four changes in thirty years
The phrase "12AA registration" has outlived the section by five years and the statute by one. Here is the sequence, so you can place your own certificate on it.
| From | Provision | What changed | What it means for a certificate of that era |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1961 | Section 12A | The original condition for exemption, with a bare registration requirement | Superseded twice over; had to be re-registered by 30 June 2024 |
| 1996 | Section 12AA | A formal procedure: examination of objects and genuineness, order by the Commissioner, indefinite validity | The certificate itself is now historical; it evidences approval once given, not current status |
| 1 Apr 2021 | Section 12AB | Registration became time-limited and renewable; provisional then regular; every existing holder had to re-register | A Form 10AC or 10AD order from this era, still within its validity, is a live registration |
| 30 Jun 2024 | CBDT Circular 7/2024 | The last extension of the date for filing Form 10A and Form 10AB to complete the migration | After this date, an unmigrated 12A or 12AA registration is simply gone |
| 1 Apr 2025 | Finance Act, 2025 | Regular validity extended from five years to ten for organisations under the ₹5 crore income threshold | Renewals from this point may carry a ten-year period |
| 1 Apr 2026 | Section 332, Income-tax Act, 2025 | The 1961 Act repealed; 12A, 12AA, 12AB and 10(23C) consolidated into one registration; forms renumbered | A live registration carried over automatically and keeps its original expiry date |
Why the phrase survives when the section does not
Trustees, funders, auditors and grant forms in Andhra Pradesh all still say "12A and 12AA registration", because for twenty-five years that was simply what the thing was called and because a registration granted once was never revisited. The vocabulary is harmless. The assumption underneath it is not. An organisation formed in Amaravati in 2004, granted 12AA in 2005 and never audited on the point since, can quite reasonably believe it holds a permanent exemption. Since 1 July 2024, unless it re-registered, it does not.
What is actually different in Amaravati
The registration is central, so the rules are the same everywhere. What varies is your own file, and on a re-registration that matters more than usual.
| Element | Central or local | What it means for an NGO in Amaravati |
|---|---|---|
| Governing statute | Central | The Income-tax Act, 2025 applies identically in Amaravati |
| The 30 June 2024 deadline | Central | It was the same date across India; no state extension existed |
| Application forms | Central | Form 104 and Form 105; no Andhra Pradesh specific form exists |
| Filing portal | Central | incometax.gov.in, filed online with no office visit |
| Government fee | Central | Nil everywhere, including Amaravati |
| Validity and renewal | Central | Five tax years, or ten under Section 332(5) |
| Deciding authority | Local | The Commissioner (Exemptions) charge covering Andhra Pradesh |
| Your constitution | Local | Drafted and registered in Andhra Pradesh, often decades ago, and frequently missing a required clause |
| Amending the deed or rules | Local | A trust deed goes back to the Sub-Registrar; a society amends under the Andhra Pradesh societies law |
| Activity evidence | Local | Your programme records from work actually done in Amaravati |
Where the local part actually bites
A trust deed or set of society rules drafted in Andhra Pradesh in the 1990s was drafted against a registration that never expired and was rarely re-examined. Those documents frequently lack one of the four clauses the current conditions expect, and the usual gap is the dissolution clause: older deeds often returned assets to the settlor, or said nothing at all. Fixing it means going back to the Sub-Registrar or through the society's own amendment procedure, which takes time and has to start before the application, not after the Commissioner raises it. That is the one part of this process where being in Amaravati genuinely changes what you do.
Status first, filing second Find out what you hold before you file anything
An unnecessary application muddies a clean record, and an unnoticed lapse compounds every month it runs. The portal settles the question in ten minutes, and we run that check at no charge.
- An application is not a registration
- A certificate with no order behind it is not one either
- The URN and its validity period are what funders verify
What a lapse actually costs, and the way back
Being unregistered is not a paperwork problem. It changes the tax position of the organisation and of everyone who has given it money since.
| What is affected | Consequence | Can it be fixed by re-registering? |
|---|---|---|
| The organisation's income | Taxable for every year outside the regime, including donations and grants | No. Re-registration operates prospectively only |
| Your donors | 80G receipts issued while unregistered give the donor nothing | No. Those specific donations cannot be rescued |
| CSR funding | CSR-1 eligibility fails; corporate diligence catches it quickly | Yes, once the registration and 80G approval are restored |
| FCRA | A lapsed tax registration weakens an application or a renewal | Yes, though FCRA is decided separately by the MHA |
| Government grant schemes | Central and Andhra Pradesh schemes generally require a valid registration | Yes, going forward |
| Accreted income | Section 352 may charge tax at the maximum marginal rate in defined situations | It depends on the facts; it needs assessing, not assuming |
| The entity itself | Unaffected. The trust, society or company in Amaravati continues to exist | Not applicable; only the exemption lapsed |
The route back is a single filing, but not a light one. An organisation that has lost its registration has already commenced activities, so it does not go back to a provisional registration. It applies directly for regular registration in Form 105 under Section 332, and the Commissioner having jurisdiction over Andhra Pradesh decides within six months from the end of the quarter in which the application is made, after an inquiry.
What makes these files different from a first-time application is the gap. The Commissioner will look at the years the organisation spent outside the regime: what it received, what it spent, whether the accounts were audited, whether receipts described themselves as 80G eligible when they were not. In our experience a re-registration succeeds or fails on the quality of that reconstruction far more than on anything in the constitution.
Disclose the lapse. The application asks about earlier registrations granted, refused or cancelled, and the department can see the filing record whatever you write. A plain account, supported by the accounts for those years, is treated as the routine compliance failure it usually is. A file that leaves it to be discovered invites the Commissioner to doubt everything else in it.
Stop issuing 80G receipts today
If the status check shows no live registration, the single most urgent action is not the application. It is to stop issuing receipts that claim 80G deductibility, and to tell donors in Amaravati who have received them for the current year that the position is being corrected. Every additional receipt is an additional donor whose claim will fail on verification, and a funder who discovers this on their own is a funder you do not get back. The application can take six months. This takes an afternoon.
Guides and resources
Deeper reading on the non-profit tax framework under the Income-tax Act, 2025, the current registration and 80G rules, and the CSR and compliance obligations that depend on holding a live registration.
How to get back into the regime from Amaravati
Ten steps, filed entirely online with no government fee and no office visit. Step one is the one most organisations skip.
Establish what you actually hold
Check the portal for a filed Form 10A or 10AB, the order that followed, and a Unique Registration Number within its validity. An application is not a registration, and a paper certificate with no order behind it is not one either. We do this at no charge.
Identify the correct situation under Section 332(3)
An organisation that lost its registration has already commenced activities, so it applies directly for regular registration in Form 105. Form 104 is only for an organisation whose activities have not yet commenced, and choosing it wrongly is a common reason files are rejected.
Review and, if needed, amend the constitution
Check the trust deed registered in Amaravati, the Andhra Pradesh society memorandum and rules, or the memorandum and articles, for charitable objects, irrevocability, application of income to the objects, a dissolution clause pointing at another registered organisation, and the absence of benefit to founders.
Reconstruct the accounts for the lapsed years
Compile audited annual accounts for up to three preceding years, covering the period outside the regime. This is where a re-registration is won or lost, because it is the part of the file the Commissioner has not seen before.
Prepare the activity note across the whole period
A note on the work actually carried on in Amaravati, backed by programme reports, beneficiary records, photographs and bills, showing continuity rather than only recent activity. Unbroken genuine work is the strongest argument a returning organisation has.
Frame the disclosure of the earlier registration
State the earlier registration, the fact that migration was not completed by 30 June 2024, and why. The department can see the filing history, so a plain account supported by the accounts is treated as a compliance failure to be corrected, not as concealment.
File Form 105 on the income tax portal
Filed on incometax.gov.in under the organisation's own login, verified by digital signature or electronic verification code. A single form carries both the Section 332 registration and the Section 354 approval. There is no government fee and no visit to any office in Amaravati.
Respond to the Commissioner (Exemptions) notice
The Commissioner having jurisdiction over Andhra Pradesh issues a notice seeking documents and explanations before the order. On a re-registration it will usually focus on the lapsed period, so a complete first response with the accounts and the activity evidence attached materially shortens the process.
Receive the order in Form 107
Regular registration and approval are granted in Form 107, for five tax years, or ten where the Section 332(5) income condition is met. Record the validity date and keep the order with the constitution; funders ask for the order in force, not the old certificate.
Rebuild the compliance cycle so it does not happen again
Apply at least 85% of regular income to the objects each year or file the statement of accumulation under Section 342, file the prescribed audit report, file the return on time, and file Form 113 with Form 114 certificates by 31 May. Diarise the registration and 80G expiry dates separately, because they no longer coincide.
Find out where you stand, at no charge
We check the portal, tell you plainly whether your registration in Amaravati is live or lapsed, and only then talk about filing anything. Nil government fee, professional fee ₹1,999 if re-registration is needed.
FAQs about 12AA registration in Amaravati
Questions sourced from real search queries, CBDT Circular 7/2024, the Income-tax Act, 2025 and our experience filing 4,000+ exemption applications.
- History: the old 12A or 12AA certificate and any Form 10AC, 10AD or rejection order.
- Constitution: the trust deed registered in Amaravati, the Andhra Pradesh society certificate with memorandum and rules, or the MOA and AOA.
- Identity: PAN of the entity, and the name, address and PAN of every trustee, director or office bearer.
- The gap: audited accounts for the lapsed years, and the donation records for that period.
- Activity: a note on the work actually carried on in Amaravati, with programme evidence.
A ten-minute check now, or a six-month problem later
Talk to an IncorpX NGO tax expert for a free consultation on what your organisation in Amaravati actually holds and what, if anything, needs filing. Nil government fee, professional fee ₹1,999.
Nebin Binoy 
