ITR-5 is the income tax return form for partnership firms, LLPs, AOPs, BOIs, business trusts, investment funds, co-operative societies, and local authorities. For AY 2026-27, the due date is 31 July 2026 for entities that don't need an audit, 31 August 2026 for businesses or professions without an audit, 31 October 2026 where a tax audit applies, and 30 November 2026 for entities with transfer pricing transactions.
If your firm or LLP falls into one of those categories, the rest of this page walks through eligibility, the documents you need, the exact filing sequence, and the mistakes that most often cause a return to get flagged or lose its loss carry-forward.
ITR-5 is a business-entity return. Unlike ITR-1 to ITR-4, which are built for individuals, ITR-5 asks for a complete balance sheet, a profit and loss account, and detailed schedules covering depreciation, partner or member details, and presumptive income where applicable. It's the form the Income Tax Department uses for every non-individual, non-company taxpayer that doesn't fall under the charitable-trust category.
Three forms sit next to it and get confused with it regularly:
Filing the wrong form doesn't just get rejected. It gets treated as a defective return under Section 139(9), and you get a limited window to refile the correct form before it's treated as if you never filed at all.
Have these ready before you start, since going back and forth mid-filing is where most delays happen:
These are the current statutory dates under Section 139(1). CBDT can extend them through a notification, so check the e-filing portal if you're close to a deadline before assuming it hasn't moved.
A tax audit under Section 44AB applies once you cross these thresholds in the previous year:
The audit report (Form 3CA or 3CB, with Form 3CD) is due by 30 September 2026 and must carry a valid UDIN before you file ITR-5. File the audit report first; ITR-5 references its acknowledgment number, so filing the return before the audit report is uploaded just means refiling later.
This is where a lot of firms get it wrong, and it's worth stating plainly: LLPs cannot use presumptive taxation. Sections 44AD and 44ADA are available only to partnership firms and individuals, never to LLPs. An LLP has to maintain full books of account and get audited once it crosses the Section 44AB thresholds, regardless of how small its turnover is.
For eligible partnership firms:
Get this wrong, particularly for an LLP, and the return is filed on a presumptive basis it was never entitled to use. That's a defect the system will eventually catch through GST or AIS reconciliation, not something that quietly slides through.
Both are taxed identically: a flat 30% on total income, with no basic exemption and no slab structure. A 12% surcharge applies once total income crosses Rs 1 crore, subject to marginal relief so the surcharge doesn't eat more than the income above the threshold. A 4% Health and Education Cess applies on tax plus surcharge.
Alternative Minimum Tax under Section 115JC kicks in if the regular tax works out to less than 18.5% of adjusted total income, mainly relevant where the firm has claimed specified Chapter VI-A deductions.
Partner remuneration and interest on capital are deductible for the firm, within the Section 40(b) limits tied to book profit, and the same amount is taxable as business income in the partner's own ITR-3. The partner's share of the firm's post-tax profit itself is exempt under Section 10(2A), since the firm has already paid tax on it. This is exactly where reconciliation problems start: if the figures in the firm's ITR-5 don't match what a partner later reports, both returns become processing risks.
One more thing most competing pages miss entirely: from FY 2025-26, Section 194T requires the firm to deduct TDS at 10% on payments to partners (salary, remuneration, commission, bonus, or interest) once the total to a single partner crosses Rs 20,000 in the year. Reconcile this against Form 26AS before you file, or the TDS schedule in ITR-5 won't match what's actually been deducted.
In our experience filing ITR-5 for partnership firms and LLPs over the last decade, the same handful of errors account for most of the notices and rejected returns:
You can still file a belated return up to 31 December 2026, with a late fee of up to Rs 5,000 under Section 234F and interest under Section 234A on any unpaid tax. The real cost isn't the fee. Business losses and capital losses for the year can no longer be carried forward once you miss the original due date — only unabsorbed depreciation survives a late filing. For a firm sitting on a meaningful current-year loss, that's a permanent loss of a future set-off, not a one-time penalty.
If you've already filed on time and later find an error, a revised return is available up to 31 March 2027. That window doesn't restore carry-forward rights lost by a late original filing; it only lets you correct genuine mistakes or omissions in a return that was filed on time.
Once verified, the return moves to processing under Section 143(1). The department's systems automatically cross-check GST turnover, AIS, and Form 26AS against what you've filed, and any unexplained gap can trigger an automated adjustment before anyone manually reviews the return. If a refund is due, it's credited to the bank account you've pre-validated on the portal. Keep the acknowledgment, the audit report, and your working papers for at least six years, since scrutiny and reassessment windows can reach back that far.
Most ITR-5 problems don't come from the form itself. They come from what should have been reconciled before anyone opened the filing utility: GST turnover against books, partner remuneration against the deed, TDS deducted against what's actually payable under Section 194T. In our decade of handling firm and LLP filings, that pre-filing reconciliation step is what actually prevents a notice later, not a faster form-fill.
Our process for a firm or LLP client covers the reconciliation check, a schedule-by-schedule review before your CA signs off on the audit report where one applies, and end-to-end handling of verification so nothing sits unverified past the 30-day window. If you're ready to start, reach out through LegalDev with your PAN and last year's filed return, and we'll tell you exactly what's needed for your entity type before we touch a single schedule.
For a partner's individual return once the firm's ITR-5 is filed, see our ITR-3 filing guide for partners. If your entity is a company rather than a firm or LLP, you'll need ITR-6 company return filing instead. Firms approaching the Section 44AB threshold for the first time may also want our tax audit and Form 3CD filing service, and any firm still reconciling GST turnover before filing should check our GST return filing and reconciliation guide.
ITR-3 is for individuals and HUFs, including a partner reporting their personal share of a firm's income. ITR-5 is filed by the firm or LLP itself to report the entity's own income, balance sheet, and tax liability. A partner never reports the firm's full turnover on ITR-3; only their remuneration, interest, and exempt profit share.
No. An OPC is a company under the Companies Act, so it files ITR-6 regardless of having a single shareholder. ITR-5 is reserved for non-company entities like firms, LLPs, AOPs, and BOIs.
Yes. Filing is mandatory for a registered partnership firm or LLP even in a year with zero income or a loss, because the firm's PAN remains active and the Income Tax Act doesn't exempt a nil-income firm from the filing requirement the way it does for some individuals below the basic exemption limit.
Only if the entity isn't subject to a tax audit. Non-audit entities can verify using Aadhaar OTP of the authorised signatory, net banking, bank account EVC, or demat account EVC. Once Section 44AB applies, DSC becomes mandatory and EVC options stop working for that return.
A late fee of up to Rs 5,000 under Section 234F, interest under Section 234A on unpaid tax, and the loss of the ability to carry forward business and capital losses for that year. Unabsorbed depreciation is the only carry-forward that survives a late filing.
Yes, and it still has to file, even with nil turnover. An LLP with no transactions in the year files a nil return through ITR-5; it doesn't get an exemption from filing just because there's nothing to report.
No, GST registration and income tax filing are separate requirements. A firm below the GST registration threshold, or dealing only in exempt supplies, can still file ITR-5 without a GST number. Where GST registration does exist, the department reconciles GST turnover against the ITR-5 figures, so any gap needs documentation.
Schedule BP is where business and professional income gets computed: net profit as per the P&L account, adjusted for disallowances under Sections 37, 40(a), and 40A(3), depreciation as per the Income-tax Act rather than the books, and any presumptive income declared under Section 44AD, 44ADA, or 44AE.
Partnership firms and LLPs are taxed at a flat 30% under the standard regime; there isn't a slab-based "new regime" option for firms the way there is for individuals. The regime-switch question mainly applies to co-operative societies choosing between the standard rate and the concessional rate under Section 115BAD, which is a separate election.
It's one of the most common scrutiny triggers. The department's systems auto-compare GSTR-3B/GSTR-9 turnover against the turnover declared in Schedule BP. A genuine gap, from exempt supplies, non-GST income, or timing differences, needs to be documented and explained before filing, not discovered after a notice.
No, but the practical sequence usually runs the other way. Partners' remuneration, interest on capital, and exempt profit share flow from the firm's return, so filing personal ITR-3 with figures that later diverge from the firm's ITR-5 invites a mismatch notice. Waiting for the firm's return to be finalised avoids that.
Yes, up to 31 March 2027 for AY 2026-27, provided the original return was filed on time. A revised return corrects genuine errors or omissions; it doesn't restore carry-forward rights that were already lost because the original filing was late.
A flat 30% on total income, with a 12% surcharge if income exceeds Rs 1 crore (subject to marginal relief) and a 4% Health and Education Cess on tax plus surcharge. LLPs are taxed identically to partnership firms.
Only once the LLP crosses the Section 44AB thresholds: turnover above Rs 1 crore (Rs 10 crore under the digital-transaction relief) for a business, or gross receipts above Rs 50 lakh for a profession. Since LLPs can't use presumptive taxation, there's no lower threshold that triggers audit early the way the presumptive opt-out rule does for firms.
Business trusts specifically registered as such under SEBI regulations file ITR-5. Charitable or religious trusts covered under Section 139(4A) file ITR-7 instead, not ITR-5. The distinction matters, since filing the wrong one gets treated as a defective return.
Form 3CEB is the transfer pricing report required under Section 92E for entities with international transactions or specified domestic transactions with associated enterprises. Filing it extends your ITR-5 due date to 30 November 2026 for AY 2026-27.
Remuneration and interest on capital paid to partners are deductible for the firm within the Section 40(b) limits, which are tied to the firm's book profit and the terms of the partnership deed. The same amounts are then taxable as business income in the partner's individual ITR-3, so the deduction on one side matches the income declared on the other.
Yes. The Income Tax Department releases an offline JSON utility for ITR-5 each assessment year, which lets you fill the return without a continuous internet connection and then upload the completed JSON file to the portal for submission and verification.
At minimum: PAN, the partnership deed or LLP agreement, the balance sheet and P&L, bank statements, GST returns if registered, Form 26AS/AIS/TIS, TDS certificates, the tax audit report with UDIN if applicable, and partner details matched to the deed. Starting without these usually means restarting the filing halfway through.
Yes. Section 115BAD offers eligible co-operative societies a flat 22% rate (plus surcharge and cess) in place of the standard slab rates, in exchange for giving up most exemptions and deductions. The election has to be made in the prescribed manner and, once exercised, applies for subsequent years unless withdrawn under the conditions specified.
A defective return under Section 139(9) gives you a notice with a limited window, typically 15 days, extendable on request, to correct the defect and refile. If the correction isn't made in time, the return is treated as if it was never filed, which brings back every late-filing consequence including the loss carry-forward penalty.
There's no fixed statutory turnaround, but once a return is verified and processed without a mismatch flag under Section 143(1)(a), refunds to a pre-validated bank account are typically credited within a few weeks. A GST or AIS mismatch, or a pending rectification, extends this well beyond that.