Startup India (DPIIT) Recognition & 80-IAC Tax Holiday Eligibility Checker

About the Startup India (DPIIT) Recognition & 80-IAC Tax Holiday Eligibility Checker

A company becomes a DPIIT-recognised Startup under the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade’s notification G.S.R. 108(E) when it passes five tests: it is a private limited company, a registered partnership firm, an LLP or a cooperative society; it is within ten years of incorporation (twenty for a Deep Tech Startup); its turnover has not exceeded ₹200 crore in any financial year (₹300 crore for Deep Tech); it works towards innovation or has a scalable model with high potential for jobs or wealth; and it was not formed by splitting up or reconstructing an existing business.

A recognised company or LLP can then ask the Inter-Ministerial Board for the certificate behind the tax holiday: 100% of the profits of the eligible business for three consecutive tax years out of ten. From tax year 2026-27 it is section 140 of the Income-tax Act 2025, which carries on section 80-IAC of the 1961 Act. This checker reads your answers against every test, lists the documents and puts the steps in order. Without a pass the free preview shows each test, the limits, the documents and the timeline, with every date and figure worked out hidden; a Premium pass shows them and unlocks the PDF, Excel, CSV, copy and print.

The five recognition tests

G.S.R. 108(E), paragraph 1(a), replaced the earlier definition of a Startup (notification):

• Form: a private limited company (Companies Act 2013), a partnership firm registered under section 59 of the Partnership Act 1932, a limited liability partnership, a Multi-State Cooperative Society, or a cooperative society under a State or Union Territory Act.
• Age: within ten years of incorporation or registration; twenty for a Deep Tech Startup.
• Turnover: not above ₹200 crore in any financial year since incorporation; ₹300 crore for a Deep Tech Startup. Turnover has its Companies Act meaning.
• Innovation: working towards innovation, development or improvement of products, processes or services, or a scalable business model with a high potential of employment generation or wealth creation.
• Not a carve-out: an entity formed by splitting up or reconstruction of an existing business is not a Startup.

An entity stops being a Startup on completing the ten (or twenty) years, or once its turnover for a year passes the limit.

A Deep Tech Startup

Deep Tech status needs all four attributes of paragraph 1(n): a solution based on new knowledge in a scientific or engineering discipline that is still being developed; a high share of spending on research and development; significant novel intellectual property owned or being created, with steps to commercialise it; and long development, high capital needs and large technical or scientific uncertainty. DPIIT decides it under its own framework from the documents you send.

Section 140: the three-year tax holiday

Section 140 of the Income-tax Act 2025 gives an eligible start-up a deduction of 100% of the profits of its eligible business for any three consecutive tax years out of the ten that begin with the year of incorporation. The start-up must be a company or an LLP, incorporated on or after 1 April 2016 and before 1 April 2030, with turnover of not more than ₹100 crore in the tax year claimed, and must hold the certificate of the Inter-Ministerial Board of Certification.

It must not be formed by splitting up or reconstruction of a business already in existence, nor by transferring machinery or plant used before (up to 20% of the total value is allowed). The accounts must be audited before the specified date with the audit report in the prescribed form, and a deduction of this kind needs the return filed by its due date with the claim in it. A company that pays tax at the 25%, 22% or 15% rate of sections 199 to 201 has its income worked out without this deduction.

The order of the steps

• Apply for recognition on the National Single Window System (“Registration as a Startup”) with the certificate of incorporation and a write-up on innovation or scalability. There is no fee.
• After recognition, a company or LLP applies to the Inter-Ministerial Board in Form-1, with its PAN, incorporation papers, the last three years’ audited accounts (where they exist) and evidence of innovation, scalability and jobs.
• Pick the three consecutive tax years to claim, have each year’s accounts audited and claim the deduction in a return filed on time.
• During recognition, keep funds in the core business: paragraph 5 of the notification lists assets a Startup should not invest in (a residential house not used for the business, unrelated land, loans and capital contributions outside the business, shares, luxury cars and jewellery, apart from the exceptions it gives).

Limitations

• The tests are read from your answers; DPIIT and the Inter-Ministerial Board decide each application from the documents.
• The checker does not work out the deduction’s amount or the tax saved: that depends on the profits of the eligible business and the rates for each year.
• Ten years “from” incorporation are counted the way periods from a date are counted in India, leaving the day of incorporation out.
• State startup policies and the Seed Fund Scheme have rules of their own and are not checked here.

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