Filing the accounts with the business register: deadline, costs and penalties

Andrea, sole director of a small building company, had the accounts approved on 25 June and pencilled the filing in for the end of July. On 3 August his accountant explains that the deadline has passed and that, on top of €127.50 in fees and stamp duty, he now owes a penalty payable on form F23.

Thirty days from approval

The filing deadline is short and has no special treatment for an SRL. The Genoa and Cagliari-Oristano chambers put it the same way: the accounts must be filed with the business register within 30 days of approval, meaning the date of the minutes of the meeting that approved them.

Filing is not a chore to put off. Until the accounts appear on the register, anyone pulling the company's extract sees the last set filed, perhaps two years old. For a bank weighing a credit line, or a large customer vetting suppliers, a gap like that counts against you.

The Marche chamber adds a point that sounds obvious but is not: it will not accept accounts the members have not approved. The draft prepared by the directors is not enough, even if the accountant has already turned it into XBRL. The filing always comes after the members' vote.

How the thirty days are counted

Genoa explains the method. The count starts on the day after the minutes; when the thirtieth day falls on a Saturday or a public holiday, the deadline moves to the next working day. The date of the minutes is therefore the figure to note down straight away.

Work backwards. Fix the meeting date, count the filing deadline and gather the digital signatures before the vote. A meeting at the end of June, with directors and auditors away in July, is the surest way to find yourself without signatures on the last day.

Andrea, in the story that opens this module, had written a vague end of July in his diary instead of the calculated deadline. It is the commonest mistake and the easiest to avoid: on the evening of the meeting, count the deadline, check the day of the week and schedule the filing a few days early.

Who signs the filing

The usual route runs through the accountant. Article 31 of law 340 of 2000, cited by the Genoa and Marche chambers, allows members of the order of chartered accountants and accounting experts, appointed by the legal representative and holding a digital signature, to file accounts on the company's behalf.

In that case the professional signs the filing and the documents and adds a declaration to the cover sheet: that they belong to the order, face no disciplinary proceedings involving suspension and have received the appointment. With the role certificate issued by the order, some registration details can be left out.

The alternative is a director's signature. The Marche chamber distinguishes two cases: either each person digitally signs their own document, the board the accounts, the chair and secretary the minutes, the auditors their report; or a single director signs the cover sheet and scanned copies of the paper originals, with a statement of conformity.

Using an intermediary who is not an accountant, such as a filing agency or trade association, does not remove the need to sign. Genoa states that the director then digitally signs the filing and every attachment, while the intermediary signs the cover sheet only. The paper special proxy is no longer accepted.

Whatever the route, the signature is personal. An accountant filing for many companies uses their own signature and appointment; a director doing it alone uses their own device. What has gone is the old halfway house of a hand-signed proxy form handed to the agency.

DIRE and Telemaco: the online filing

Filing is online only. The Rome chamber links this to article 31 of law 340 of 2000: accounts are filed in digital form, online or on a digital medium. In practice the normal route is to send them through Telemaco, the chambers' filing service.

To prepare the filing, the chambers offer DIRE, short for Depositi e Istanze Registro Imprese: a web service that needs no installation and sets the filing up by type of formality automatically. It is reached from the personal Telemaco area, under the tools for accounts. Fedra and up-to-date commercial software also exist.

Every year Unioncamere publishes an operating manual for the accounts filing season, which the chambers pass on with the technical instructions; Genoa points to the 2026 edition. Keep it open while filling in the forms: it covers codes, models and special cases that the summary pages leave out.

What filing costs

Filing carries two costs. The first is the filing fee: the Genoa chamber gives €62.50 for filing the annual accounts, with or without a shareholder list. That amount includes the contribution to the Italian accounting standards body, the OIC, which rose from €2.40 to €2.50 under a decree of 22 September 2025.

The second is stamp duty, set for the whole filing at a flat €65.00. For an ordinary SRL the total is therefore €127.50, drawn from the Telemaco prepaid balance when the filing is sent. Consolidated accounts filed together with the annual accounts are exempt from both charges.

Where the company also files consolidated accounts, Genoa asks for two separate filings, sent together and cross-referenced in the notes field. That simultaneity is what makes the consolidated accounts free of fees and stamp duty: filed at another time, they would be charged as a separate filing.

Some companies pay less. Genoa states that innovative start-ups pay neither the filing fee nor stamp duty for their first five years from incorporation, and that innovative SMEs are exempt from stamp duty. Social cooperatives pay €32.50 in fees and no stamp duty.

Correcting accounts already sent

A mistake spotted after sending is fixed in one of two ways, depending on how far the filing has gone. If the office has not yet processed it, the Marche chamber allows a resubmission referring to the protocol number already assigned. Resubmitting costs no further fees or stamp duty, already paid with the original filing.

When the office asks for it during review, tick the resubmission box and quote the protocol number of the filing being completed. The office then attaches the correction to the original filing instead of treating it as a new one.

If the accounts have already been processed and made public, correcting them takes a new filing: a complete set of accounts with fresh minutes approving the corrected version. It pays the ordinary fees and stamp duty and must be filed within 30 days of the new minutes. Both sets remain visible on the register.

While the filing is under review, keep an eye on it. The Cagliari-Oristano chamber refers users to SARI, accounts section, for guidance on preparation, and to a reminder service for requesting urgent processing. A bank credit line waiting on the filed accounts is a good reason to use it.

Late filing and the penalty

A company that misses the thirty days still files, but pays a penalty. The Genoa chamber describes it as a tax penalty paid on form F23, tax code 741T, office code Age, reason code PA. It is owed for each legal representative, not once per company.

The amount depends on the delay. If the accounts are filed within 30 days after the deadline, the penalty is €91.56 per legal representative; beyond those 30 days it rises to €274.66. An SRL represented by two directors therefore pays twice as much as one with a sole director.

The penalty comes on top of the ordinary costs, which remain due in full. For a sole director filing a few days late, the bill goes from €127.50 to €219.06. None of these sums is huge, but it is money spent on not writing down a date.

The longer delay costs three times as much. A company with two legal representatives that files more than thirty days after the deadline pays €274.66 for each, €549.32 in all, on top of the ordinary €127.50. At that point the penalty is more than four times the cost of the filing itself.

The final liquidation accounts

One set of accounts takes a different route. Annual accounts are never sent with the Comunicazione Unica, but the final liquidation accounts are: the Marche and Cagliari-Oristano chambers list them among the ComUnica formalities. The model used is not form B, as for ordinary accounts, but form S3.

The final accounts close the company's life and pave the way for its removal from the register. For this step some chambers still accept the paper proxy, since it is the last formality. Otherwise the general rule applies: whoever is under the obligation, the liquidator included, signs with their own digital device.

A checklist before sending

• Date of the minutes noted and deadline counted from the next day, including any shift
• XBRL file checked, minutes and reports in PDF/A, all digitally signed by the right people
• Wording on virtual stamp duty and on conformity with the originals placed at the foot of the documents
• Cover sheet signed by the correct declarant, with the professional's declaration if they are filing
• Telemaco balance sufficient for €62.50 in fees and €65.00 in stamp duty

A filing that clears this checklist reaches the office complete and is usually processed without any request for correction. If a request comes anyway, the filing's message log says what is missing: answer with a resubmission under the same protocol number, without paying fees or stamp duty again.