FSSAI annual return filing (Form D1) is a separate, easy-to-miss obligation for State and Central Licence holders — due every year by 31st May — separately from your annual licence fee. GBS Cochin prepares and files it for you on FoSCoS, end to end.
Form D1 is the FSSAI Annual Return — a mandatory yearly filing on the FoSCoS (Food Safety Compliance System) portal that reports how much food your business produced, imported, or exported over the previous financial year. It's separate from your licence's annual maintenance fee, and separate from the Food Safety Management System (FSMS) declaration you filed at licensing. FSSAI uses this data to track industry-wide production trends and flag compliance mismatches — for example, a business reporting far more sales than its licensed production capacity.
| FBO type | Form required | Deadline |
|---|---|---|
| Manufacturers, repackers, relabellers, importers, and exporters (any food category except milk/dairy) holding a State or Central Licence | Form D1 | 31st May, for the previous financial year (April–March) |
| Milk and milk product manufacturers | Form D2 (half-yearly) | Confirm current dates on FoSCoS — the dairy filing calendar is notified periodically and has changed across recent years |
| Basic Registration holders (turnover up to ₹1.5 crore) | Not required | — |
| Pure traders, distributors, retailers with no manufacturing activity | Not required in most cases | Check with your local FSSAI office if unsure |
If you're not sure which category your business falls into, our FSSAI license page walks through Basic Registration, State Licence, and Central Licence eligibility under the current 2026 turnover thresholds.
Tell us your licence type and business activity — we'll confirm in minutes.
Get a Free Filing CheckForm D1 reports your licensed product categories, the quantities you produced or imported over the financial year, the value of that production, and details of the raw materials and workforce behind it — cross-checked against what your licence actually covers. The exact figures, formatting, and category matching FSSAI expects are where most self-filed returns run into trouble, which is the part we handle for our clients rather than leave to guesswork.
Form D1 is filed on the FoSCoS portal against your existing State or Central Licence, for the financial year that just ended. The filing itself is straightforward once your production, raw material, and workforce figures are correctly matched against your licensed product categories — which is where most errors actually happen. Getting the category mapping wrong, or reporting sales instead of production, is what triggers the compliance flags mentioned below.
| Situation | Consequence |
|---|---|
| Filed after 31st May | Late filing penalty of ₹100 per day of delay, capped at 5 times the applicable annual fee, plus possible compliance notice from FSSAI |
| Not filed at all | Improvement notice under the FSS Act; non-compliance recorded against your licence |
| False or inflated figures | Prosecution under the Food Safety and Standards Act for furnishing false information |
No. Form D1 applies only to State and Central Licence holders who manufacture, repack, relabel, or import food products. Basic Registration holders are not required to file it.
No — these are two separate obligations. The annual fee keeps your licence active under the 2026 perpetual validity rules and applies to every licence/registration holder. Form D1 is a production and activity report required only from certain manufacturers, repackers, relabellers, and importers.
You should still file, declaring your actual production for the period you were operational, with a note explaining the gap — rather than skipping the filing entirely.
No, milk and milk product manufacturers file Form D2 instead, on a half-yearly basis. Check FoSCoS directly for the current filing windows, since these dates are notified periodically and have changed in recent years.
You can file it yourself directly on FoSCoS if you're confident in your production records and licensed categories. Many businesses use a consultant specifically to avoid the common mistakes above — particularly reporting the wrong category or missing the deadline entirely.
File as soon as possible — the penalty typically accrues per day of delay, so filing late is still significantly better than not filing at all.
Send us your licence details and production records — we'll file it correctly and on time.
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