1. The Architecture of “155 Compliances” – How this Page is Mapped
The figure of “155 legal compliances and legal updates” for November 2025 is not a single statute’s checklist; it is a composite of overlapping obligations under several key Indian laws. This Zerolev page organises the November landscape **Act-wise**, allowing CFOs, CSs, CAs and legal teams to see, in one place, how each framework contributes to the overall compliance burden.
Instead of a raw date-wise calendar, the thesis below focuses on the **conceptual roles, recurring filings and November-specific updates** under each Act, and then draws them together into a governance view at the end.
2. FEMA, 1999 – Cross-Border Reporting and November 2025 Flows
2.1 Monthly FEMA Compliance Rhythm
Under the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999, November 2025 continues the monthly cycle of cross-border reporting. Authorised Dealer (AD) Category-I banks must compile and upload October transaction data under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme, ensuring that all outward remittances are appropriately tagged and monitored. External Commercial Borrowing (ECB) borrowers are required to file the ECB-2 return for October, disclosing drawdowns, repayments, interest and hedging positions.
Non-Banking Financial Companies and other regulated entities face their own FEMA-linked reporting through monthly and quarterly returns (for example, liquidity and interest rate sensitivity reports, credit information returns). November therefore becomes a month of **data consolidation**, where October’s cross-border flows are crystallised into regulatory filings.
2.2 Event-Based FEMA Obligations
Alongside periodic reporting, FEMA imposes **event-based compliances** which may frequently fall into November when deals close in Q2 and Q3:
- Foreign Direct Investment filings through the single master form for fresh share or CCD/CCPS allotments.
- Transfer reporting for non-residents and residents, including FC-TRS reports on secondary transfers.
- Reporting of foreign investment in LLPs through designated forms and timelines.
- ECB-related end-use and guarantee reporting for newly signed loan agreements.
In practical terms, November becomes a **“clean-up month”** for investment bankers, treasury and legal teams to ensure that all October equity rounds, buyouts and intra-group restructurings have corresponding FEMA filings within 30–60 day timelines.
3. Income-tax Act, 1961 – From Monthly TDS to Year-End Audits
3.1 Routine November 2025 Income-tax Compliances
On the direct-tax side, November 2025 carries the familiar monthly and quarterly obligations:
- Deposit of TDS/TCS and equalisation levy for October transactions by the statutory early-November dates.
- Issue of non-salary TDS certificates and property/crypto-related TDS certificates around mid-month.
- Challan-cum-statement filings under sections like 194-IA, 194-IB, 194M and 194S towards the end of the month.
These actions ensure the TDS ecosystem is complete – from deduction and deposit to reporting and credit availability for deductees in their Form 26AS and Annual Information Statements.
3.2 November as a Cluster Month for Annual Filings
Extensions granted by the tax administration and certain court orders re-positioned several annual income-tax filings into November 2025. Tax audit reports for businesses and professionals (Forms 3CA/3CB with 3CD) along with a variety of special audit reports – for MAT/AMT calculations, additional employment deduction, charitable entities, and scientific-research institutions – all converge around an extended 10 November date.
The end of November then hosts major deadlines for:
- Income-tax returns for assessees with transfer-pricing requirements and certain corporate taxpayers.
- Transfer pricing master-file filings and safe harbour options.
- Option forms for new corporate tax regimes at concessional rates.
As a result, November becomes a **“double-density” month** for direct tax – monthly TDS on one side and heavy annual reporting for larger entities on the other.
3.3 Income-tax Legal Updates Context
Legal updates for November 2025 include revised TDS thresholds on small payments, stricter risk-based refund verification and announcements that income-tax return forms and rules are being refactored under a simplified Income-tax Act framework. For practitioners, this means November compliance is not only about meeting dates, but also about preparing for a redesigned direct-tax interface in subsequent years.
4. GST Act, 2017 – Real-time Compliance and the 3-Year Time Bar
4.1 Core GST Returns in November 2025
The Goods and Services Tax framework continues its monthly return cycle in November 2025:
- GSTR-1 for outward supplies for October for monthly filers, due in the second week of November.
- GSTR-3B summarising October liabilities and input tax credit, due in the third week.
- GSTR-7 and GSTR-8 for TDS and TCS under GST, also due in early to mid-November.
- Optional IFF filings for QRMP taxpayers, allowing upload of B2B invoices for timely recipient ITC.
The compliance pattern has stabilised, but the **administrative stance has hardened**, with late fees and interest becoming non-trivial costs for delayed filers.
4.2 Structural GST Change – Time-Barring of Old Returns
A key structural change that impacts November 2025 is the hard stop on filing returns that are more than three years past their original due date. For businesses, this means backlog clean-up cannot be deferred indefinitely: once the three-year window closes, the portal stops accepting those returns altogether.
Consequently, November filings are performed with increased discipline – enterprises know that chronic delays may move from being a “late-fee problem” to becoming a **legal impossibility**, with knock-on effects on input tax credits and supplier–customer relationships.
4.3 November 2025 GST Updates and E-invoicing Expansion
November is also when incremental e-invoicing coverage kicks in based on FY 2024–25 turnover, pulling a wider base of mid-sized businesses into the system. Strong October GST collections reported in the same period signal enhanced analytics and enforcement. Taken together, this positions GST compliance in November 2025 as a **near-real-time tax control system**, not merely a monthly filing formality.
5. Companies Act 2013 & Corporate Law – ROC Filings and Extensions
5.1 AOC-4, MGT-7/7A and ROC Calendar Easing
Under the Companies Act, November is usually associated with annual filing of financial statements and annual returns (AOC-4 family of forms and MGT-7/MGT-7A). For FY 2024–25, standard statutory deadlines place AOC-4 in late October and annual returns around late November.
However, a Ministry of Corporate Affairs circular extended the due dates for these forms to the end of December 2025 without additional fee. This effectively reduces November’s penalty pressure, but the underlying work of finalising financial statements, board reports, AGM minutes and secretarial checklists still clusters in this period.
5.2 NFRA, MGT-14 and Other Corporate Compliances
For listed and certain public interest entities, November sits in the window for NFRA-2 filings (auditor reporting) and MGT-14 filings for board and shareholder resolutions passed in the late quarter. Many corporate-law updates in November also relate to:
- Clarifications on small company thresholds and fees.
- Fit-and-proper norms for independent directors and KMP appointments.
- Ongoing decriminalisation measures shifting some offences to penalty regimes.
In aggregate, the Companies Act side of November 2025 is characterised less by a single “hard deadline” and more by an intensive **pre-December preparation cycle**.
6. SEBI Act & Securities Laws – Event-Based Disclosures
6.1 LODR and Continuous Disclosure in November
The securities law layer for November 2025 consists mostly of **event-based** SEBI and stock-exchange compliances rather than fixed calendar filings. Listed entities must comply with:
- Board meeting intimation and outcome disclosure for quarterly financial results.
- Timely disclosure of material events under Regulation 30 of the LODR Regulations.
- Quarterly and half-yearly related-party transaction disclosures.
- Statements of deviation in use of IPO or rights-issue proceeds.
For these entities, November is critical because Q2/Q3 performance, fund-raising and strategic decisions often come to a head, triggering a cascade of market disclosures and potential SEBI enforcement risk if delayed or incomplete.
6.2 Enforcement & Governance Themes
Legal updates in this domain include SEBI’s tightening of disclosure formats, increased emphasis on timely RPT transparency and continuing moves towards separating the roles of Chairperson and MD/CEO in large listed entities. While not all changes are “effective November”, many take practical shape in board and audit committee discussions held during this month.
7. Labour Laws, PF/ESI & New Labour Codes – HR Compliance in Flux
7.1 PF/ESI and Classic HR Deadlines
Under EPF and ESI regulations, November 2025 maintains the traditional compliance cycle:
- Deposit of EPF and ESIC contributions for October payroll by mid-November.
- Submission of half-yearly ESI returns for the April–September period in early-to-mid November.
- Updates to employee master data, KYC and UAN linkage as part of ongoing social security hygiene.
For HR and payroll teams, these are routine, yet financially and legally significant, obligations – defaults can rapidly lead to penalties, interest and even prosecution in extreme cases.
7.2 Implementation of the New Labour Codes
A transformative element in November 2025 is the operational roll-out of India’s four new Labour Codes:
- The Code on Wages.
- The Industrial Relations Code.
- The Social Security Code.
- The Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code.
These consolidate numerous earlier labour statutes and re-draw compliance triggers. Thresholds for retrenchment permissions, standing orders and layoff approvals are adjusted, and the codes introduce structured recognition for gig and platform workers along with new social security obligations.
State-level adaptations – such as regulations on night shifts for women, gig-worker protection laws and revised Shops & Establishments provisions – further complicate November’s HR compliance work. Organisations must update appointment letters, HR policies, PoSH procedures and workplace safety frameworks to align with the new legal architecture.
8. SEZ Act, STPI & Sectoral Regulators – Export and Sector-Specific Reporting
8.1 SEZ Compliances
Units registered under the Special Economic Zones Act must comply with:
- Periodic performance reports covering exports, imports and net foreign exchange earnings.
- Statements on duty-free procurement and stock movements.
- Event-based approvals for additional space, merger of units or broad-banding of services.
November often sees a clustering of such filings as SEZ units reconcile half-yearly data, manage re-approvals for letter-of-permission conditions and prepare for year-end board reviews of export performance.
8.2 STPI and Other Sectoral Returns
Software Technology Parks of India-registered exporters are required to file periodic softex and export performance reports, capturing foreign currency inflows and outflows. Financial-sector entities face additional reporting under RBI, IRDAI and financial intelligence laws – including KYC, suspicious transaction reports and cross-border exposure disclosures.
While these may not fall on the same fixed dates as tax filings, they contribute significantly to the “155 compliance touchpoints” in November for technology, BFSI and export-focused businesses.
9. RERA, 2016 – Real Estate Project Governance
9.1 Quarterly RERA Compliances Landing in November
Under the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, developers and promoters are required to periodically update their project dashboards with construction progress, unit-wise status and statutory approvals. November 2025 lies in the cycle when many projects must:
- Upload quarterly progress reports.
- Reconcile RERA-escrow account inflows and outflows.
- Disclose any revised completion timelines or phase additions.
Since these disclosures are public and monitored by both homebuyers and regulators, RERA compliance in November has both a legal and reputational dimension.
9.2 Interaction with Financing and Tax
Real-estate compliance does not stand alone. RERA project reporting, GST on construction and development rights, income-tax treatment of project revenues and FEMA regulations on foreign investment in real estate all intersect. November becomes a key month for developers to align these strands – a misstep in one regime can have consequences in another, including funding covenant breaches or investor disputes.
10. Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) – November 2025 Privacy Pivot
10.1 Operationalisation of Data Protection Rules
Beyond traditional tax and corporate laws, November 2025 marks a major shift in India’s digital regulatory landscape with the operationalisation of rules under the Digital Personal Data Protection law. These rules give concrete shape to requirements on:
- Lawful basis for processing and consent management.
- Data minimisation, purpose limitation and storage limitation.
- Security safeguards and breach notification protocols.
- Records of processing and grievance redressal mechanisms.
Organisations of all sizes – from consumer-tech giants to SMEs with basic CRM systems – must now treat **privacy compliance as a parallel pillar** to tax and corporate compliance. November is the month where many entities begin formal DPDP implementation projects, including data-mapping, updating privacy notices and renegotiating vendor data-processing clauses.
10.2 Intersection with Sectoral and Global Frameworks
DPDP compliance does not exist in isolation. Businesses in regulated sectors must align data protection efforts with RBI, SEBI, IRDAI and health/privacy guidelines. Cross-border operators also need to consider how Indian DPDP rules interact with GDPR, CCPA and other overseas frameworks. November’s DPDP rules therefore act as a **trigger month** for multi-jurisdictional privacy strategy.
11. Cross-Cutting Legal Updates & Judicial Trends
11.1 Legislative Pipeline Around November
November 2025 sits just ahead of the Winter Session of Parliament, with several Bills on the table:
- Higher education governance reforms reorganising UGC, AICTE and NCTE.
- Further tweaks to the Income-tax and Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code frameworks.
- Extensions and refinements of the Jan Vishwas-style decriminalisation programme.
State legislatures add another layer, with family-law changes, municipal and panchayat ordinances and sector-specific amendments. For compliance teams, November is when these proposals are evaluated for **future impact on internal policies and contracts**, even before they formally become law.
11.2 Key Case Law and Judicial Oversight
Across the Supreme Court and High Courts, November 2025 legal digests highlight decisions on:
- Limits on retrospective interest or penalty imposition by tax and regulatory bodies.
- Clarifications on arbitration clauses, enforcement of arbitral awards and public policy defences.
- Environmental and land-law cases affecting when limitation periods start for challenging clearances.
These judgements do not create new “forms” to file, but they redefine **litigation risk and contractual drafting norms**. A robust November compliance review now includes a legal-risk scan for such judicial trends.
12. Governance Takeaways – Managing 155+ Compliance Touchpoints
Taken together, the November 2025 picture reveals three core lessons for organisations operating in India:
- Multi-Act Coordination is Mandatory: FEMA, Income-tax, GST, Companies Act, SEBI, labour, SEZ/STPI, RERA and DPDP obligations overlap in timing and subject matter. Silos between tax, legal, secretarial, HR and IT teams are no longer sustainable.
- Static Calendars are Insufficient: While date-wise compliance calendars remain crucial, frequent extensions, new Acts, format changes and time-barring rules mean that a **dynamic, monitored compliance system** is needed rather than a once-a-year checklist.
- Compliance is Strategic, not Clerical: November 2025 shows that compliance decisions directly affect funding access, reputation, data-privacy posture and even valuation. Boards increasingly view compliance dashboards as strategic tools rather than pure legal hygiene.
In this sense, “155 legal compliances and legal updates” is not just a list – it is a snapshot of how deeply regulation is now woven into business models. Organisations that treat November as an annual stress-test for their compliance architecture will be better positioned for the next cycle of legal and regulatory change.