What Is CHG-1 (Registration of Charges)?
Form CHG-1 is the electronic form an Indian company files with the Registrar of Companies (ROC) to register a charge — a mortgage, hypothecation, pledge, or other security interest — that it has created over its property, assets, or undertaking in favour of a lender. On the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) portal, the form is described as covering "intimation of creation / modification of charge (other than those related to debentures)." Filing CHG-1 is what makes a charge legally effective against the company's liquidator and other creditors; an unregistered charge is treated as if it never existed for that purpose, even though the underlying loan agreement remains binding between the company and the lender.
For a foreign-owned Indian subsidiary or joint venture, CHG-1 is usually the first ROC filing triggered by ordinary bank financing — a working-capital facility, a term loan, or a security package supporting an External Commercial Borrowing (ECB) — because almost every commercial loan to an Indian company involves some form of security over its assets.
Legal Basis
The charge-registration regime sits in Chapter VI of the Companies Act, 2013, read with the Companies (Registration of Charges) Rules, 2014:
- Section 77 requires every company creating a charge on its property, assets, or undertaking — in India or outside India — to register the particulars of the charge with the ROC, together with the instrument creating it. The registration is what gives the charge legal priority against a liquidator or other creditors; a charge that is never registered can still be enforced against the company itself, but not against these third parties.
- Section 78 lets the person in whose favour the charge is created — the bank or lender — apply for registration itself if the company fails to do so, and recover the registration fee from the company.
- Section 82 is the mirror provision for the other end of the loan's life: it requires the company to give the ROC notice, in the prescribed form, of the payment or satisfaction in full of a registered charge within 30 days of that payment or satisfaction, with a proviso letting the Registrar allow the intimation to be made within 300 days on payment of an additional fee. That notice is made on Form CHG-4 ("intimation of satisfaction of charge").
- The Companies (Registration of Charges) Rules, 2014 prescribe the forms (CHG-1, CHG-4, CHG-6, CHG-8, CHG-9) and the manner of filing, and — through the fee provisions that apply to ROC filings generally — set the fee that escalates the later a charge is registered relative to its creation date.
The Charge ID
Once CHG-1 is filed and approved, the ROC allots a unique reference for that specific charge. MCA's own guidance describes this as an "8 digit number which a Company received during the time of charge creation by filing eform CHG-1 with ROC" — the Charge ID (also called the Charge Registration Number, CRN). Every later filing relating to that same charge — a modification, a rectification, or eventually its satisfaction on CHG-4 — is filed against this Charge ID, so it needs to be retained by the company's finance or company-secretarial team for the life of the facility.
Timelines: Creation to Registration
The company must present the particulars of a charge for registration within 30 days of its creation. What happens when that window is missed was rewritten by the Companies (Amendment) Act, 2019, which substituted the first and second provisos to section 77(1) with effect from 2 November 2018. For a charge created on or after that date, the Registrar may allow the registration to be made within 60 days of creation on payment of an additional fee and, if it is still not registered, may on a further application allow it within an additional 60 days on payment of an ad valorem fee. That second window is the outer limit — 120 days from the date the charge was created. Charges created before 2 November 2018 ran on the older 300-day track instead.
The Act provides no route past that outer limit. The same 2019 amendment substituted section 87, and the Central Government's power under it is now confined to extending the time for giving intimation of the payment or satisfaction of a charge, and to rectifying an omission or misstatement of particulars in an earlier filing. It no longer extends to late registration of the creation or modification of a charge itself. Form CHG-8 — which MCA's portal describes as covering "RD approval for delay in creation / modification / rectification of charge" — is the vehicle for the section 87 applications that survive.
The same escalation exists at the other end of a charge's life. For satisfaction, MCA's own charge-management guidance states plainly: "in case Form CHG-4 is being filed beyond 300 days from the date of satisfaction of charge, then the application to Central Government for condonation of delay is required to be filed in eForm CHG-8," and once that condonation is granted, the company separately files Form INC-28 to record the Central Government's order on the company's master data.
Related Filings: CHG-6 and CHG-9
Two adjacent forms round out the charge-management set on the MCA portal. Form CHG-6 covers "intimation of appointment / cessation of receiver / manager" — used when a debenture trustee or secured lender appoints (or removes) a receiver over charged assets, typically after a default. Form CHG-9 is the debenture-specific counterpart to CHG-1: "intimation for registration of creation or modification of charge for debentures or rectification of particulars." A company that secures a debenture issue with a charge over its assets files CHG-9 rather than CHG-1, even though the substantive 30-day registration logic is the same.
Foreign Lenders, ECB Security, and the RBI Angle
CHG-1 registration is a Companies Act obligation that applies regardless of who the lender is — an Indian bank, a foreign parent, or an offshore bank lending under the External Commercial Borrowing (ECB) framework. When an Indian borrower secures an ECB with a charge over its own assets (a hypothecation of receivables or plant and machinery, for example), that charge still has to be registered with the ROC on CHG-1 within the same 30-day window as any domestic-lender charge — the Reserve Bank of India's ECB framework does not substitute for, or extend, the Companies Act filing.
What the ECB framework adds is a parallel, RBI-side reporting track that runs alongside the ROC filing rather than replacing it. An ECB borrower files a monthly return on Form ECB-2, reporting the receipt of ECB proceeds and debt servicing, within seven calendar days from the end of the month in which either occurred, through its designated Authorised Dealer (AD) Category-I bank rather than through the ROC or the FIRMS portal. Changes to the parameters of an existing ECB go to the same AD bank on a revised Form ECB-1, not on Form ECB-2 and not to the ROC. A foreign-owned borrower raising secured debt from an offshore lender should therefore expect two separate clocks: the Companies Act clock (CHG-1, 30 days from creation of the charge, extendable on fee) running to the ROC, and the FEMA reporting clock (Form ECB-2, seven calendar days from month-end) running to the AD bank. Missing either one is treated as a separate compliance failure, and satisfying one does not cure a lapse on the other.
Why This Matters for Foreign Companies and Investors
An unregistered or late-registered charge is not just a paperwork gap — it changes who gets paid first if the company runs into trouble. A charge that was never registered is void against the company's liquidator and against other creditors, meaning a secured lender can be pushed back into the queue of unsecured creditors even though its loan agreement is perfectly valid. This is exactly the kind of gap that surfaces in due diligence before an acquisition, a fresh financing round, or a refinancing: a buyer's or new lender's counsel will pull the company's charge register from the ROC and cross-check every loan agreement and security document against a corresponding, correctly timed CHG-1 or CHG-9 filing. A foreign parent that capitalised its Indian subsidiary through secured intercompany debt, or that arranged a trade finance facility secured by inventory or receivables, needs the same discipline: every security document should trigger a CHG-1 (or CHG-9) filing calendar entry the day it is executed, not the day someone remembers it exists.
Practical Example
A Singapore-headquartered manufacturer's wholly owned Indian subsidiary draws a working-capital facility from an Indian bank, secured by a hypothecation over its raw-material stock and receivables. The security agreement is executed on 3 March. The company's finance team must file CHG-1 with the particulars of the charge and the security instrument by 2 April (30 days later). The ROC allots an 8-digit Charge ID once the filing is approved. Eighteen months later, the subsidiary repays the facility in full; the company must file CHG-4 recording satisfaction of that same Charge ID. If the CHG-4 filing happens more than 300 days after the repayment date, the company files CHG-4 and then applies to the Central Government for condonation of the delay on CHG-8, and files INC-28 with the resulting order, before the ROC will mark the charge as satisfied on the public register.
Compliance Checklist
- Log the exact date every security document (mortgage, hypothecation, pledge, or debenture trust deed) is executed — the 30-day CHG-1 or CHG-9 clock starts there, not on the loan disbursement date.
- Record the 8-digit Charge ID allotted on approval, and reference it on every later filing against the same charge.
- Track the repayment or release date of every secured facility so CHG-4 can be filed promptly, and treat 300 days from that date as a hard deadline before Central Government condonation (CHG-8) becomes necessary.
- For ECB-secured borrowing, run the CHG-1 filing to the ROC and the monthly Form ECB-2 return to the AD bank as two separate, parallel checklist items rather than one combined task.
- Before any acquisition, refinancing, or new investment round, pull the target company's charge register from the ROC and reconcile it against its loan and security agreements as part of due diligence.
Frequently Asked Questions
What happens if a company never files CHG-1 for a charge it has created?
The underlying loan or security agreement remains valid between the company and the lender, but the charge itself is not effective against the company's liquidator or its other creditors. In practice, this means the lender can lose its priority as a secured creditor if the company later becomes insolvent, even though nothing is wrong with the loan documentation itself.
Who can file CHG-1 if the company does not?
Section 78 of the Companies Act, 2013 lets the lender in whose favour the charge was created file for registration itself, and recover the registration fee from the company. This gives secured lenders an independent route to protect their priority even where the borrower is slow or unwilling to file.
Is CHG-1 required for a charge securing a foreign-currency loan (ECB)?
Yes. The Companies Act charge-registration requirement is separate from, and runs alongside, the Reserve Bank of India's ECB reporting framework. A charge securing an ECB still needs a CHG-1 filing within the standard window, in addition to the borrower's monthly Form ECB-2 return of ECB proceeds and debt servicing through its AD bank.
What is the difference between CHG-1 and CHG-9?
Both register the creation or modification of a charge over a company's assets. CHG-1 is used for charges other than those relating to debentures; CHG-9 is the equivalent form specifically for charges that secure a debenture issue.
Do I need a company secretary or CA to file CHG-1?
Section 77(1) requires the particulars of the charge to be signed by the company and the charge-holder, so the lender has to sign as well as the company — which is the step most often left until late in a loan closing. Most foreign-owned subsidiaries route the filing itself through their company secretarial or compliance provider alongside the closing.
See also: Registrar of Companies (ROC) and MCA, Trade Finance: Letter of Credit & Bank Guarantee, and Due Diligence.
Setting up secured financing for an Indian subsidiary or joint venture? Beacon Filing's compliance outsourcing team tracks charge-registration deadlines alongside your other ROC and RBI filings.