Is MCA down? What to do when the portal will not let you view or download documents

You need a company's filings today. The MCA portal at mca.gov.in will not log you in, will not take your payment, or gives you a document that opens as a blank page. Before you conclude that "MCA is down", it helps to know the usual failure points, because several of them are on your side and can be fixed in minutes.

This guide is about inspecting public documents. Problems with filing e-forms are related but have their own causes.

Portal behaviour changes often, especially since MCA completed the move from the V2 to the V3 portal in July 2025. Treat the steps below as a starting point, not a manual.

How the inspection process works

Knowing the steps tells you where it broke. In outline CHECK: current V3 menu path and steps:

1. Log in to the portal with your V3 user ID.
2. Go to MCA Services, then Document Related Services, then View Public Documents.
3. Search by CIN, LLPIN or name and select the company.
4. Choose document categories and years, add the company to the cart and pay the inspection fee. This has been ₹100 per company and ₹50 per LLP CHECK: current fee.
5. Wait for payment confirmation, then open the documents from your account area.
6. Download each document within the time allowed.

Older guidance says purchased documents can be viewed only within seven days of payment confirmation, and only for three hours from when you first open a document of that company CHECK: whether these limits still apply on V3.

Is it the portal or you?

Run these checks in order. Each takes under a minute.

• Open the MCA home page in a private window. If it does not load at all, the problem is either the portal or your network.
• Try a different network, such as a mobile hotspot. Office firewalls and some antivirus products interfere with government portals. If it works on the hotspot, the problem is on your side.
• Try another browser. If one browser works and another does not, clear the cache and cookies of the failing one and disable extensions, particularly ad blockers and pop-up blockers.
• Try a free service such as master data for any company. If master data loads but View Public Documents does not, the issue is probably in that service, not the whole portal.
• Check the home page and the news or notices section for announced maintenance CHECK: where MCA currently posts V3 downtime notices. MCA schedules planned outages, sometimes over several days, as it did before the final V3 form migration in July 2025.
• Ask a colleague elsewhere to try the same step. If it fails for both of you, it is the portal.

Common failure modes and what to do

You cannot log in

• Reset the password through the portal's own flow. Old V2 credentials do not always carry over to V3 CHECK: current position for users who registered only on V2.
• If the one-time password does not arrive, wait a few minutes before requesting another. Repeated requests can lock the account temporarily CHECK: lock-out behaviour not confirmed from any published source.
• Make sure you are using the user ID you registered on V3, not your email address, if the portal asks for the ID.

The company does not come up in search

• Search by CIN or LLPIN rather than name. Names change, and punctuation in names ("Pvt." against "Private") breaks search.
• A recently incorporated company may take time to appear.
• Struck-off and amalgamated companies should still be searchable. If one is not, try the old name.

Payment taken but documents not available

This is the most stressful failure, and the main rule is: do not pay again straight away.

• Note the service request number (SRN) and the transaction reference from your bank.
• Check the payment or transaction status for the SRN on the portal.
• Under heavy load, requests can sit in a queue, and documents become viewable only once payment is confirmed. Wait and check again later in the day.
• Make sure you are logged in with the same user ID that made the payment. Documents are tied to that account.
• If the payment stays unconfirmed, raise a ticket with the MCA helpdesk quoting the SRN and bank reference CHECK: current helpdesk channel and refund process for failed inspection payments.

The document opens as a blank page or says "Please wait..."

This is usually not a portal fault. Many MCA e-forms, particularly older ones, are dynamic XFA forms built for Adobe software. Browser PDF viewers, Apple Preview and most third-party readers cannot render them. They show a blank page or a message beginning "Please wait... If this message is not eventually replaced by the proper contents of the document, your PDF viewer may not be able to display this type of document."

• Download the file to your computer rather than opening it in the browser.
• Open it in Adobe Acrobat Reader on Windows or Mac using File, then Open.
• Many e-forms carry the real documents, such as financial statements, resolutions and agreements, as attachments embedded inside the PDF. In Acrobat Reader, open the attachments panel (the paperclip icon) to see and save them.

CHECK: whether e-forms filed on V3 since 2023 are XFA or ordinary PDFs.

Downloads stall or files are corrupt

• Large files, especially scanned annual filings, can time out. Retry one file at a time.
• A file that downloads at a few kilobytes is probably an error page saved as a PDF. Open it in a text editor to check.
• Download everything you need in one sitting if the viewing window is time-limited.

A document you expected is not in the list

• Check the category and year you selected. Charge documents, annual filings and "other attachments" are listed separately.
• Recently filed forms may still be under processing and not yet visible.
• Filings from before the electronic registry, generally before 2006, may be missing, incomplete or available only as scans CHECK: the scanned documents request service on V3 and physical inspection at the ROC office.
• If the form is genuinely absent, record it as not on file. Absence from the portal is a finding, not proof that the company never made the filing.

When the portal really is down

• Record your attempts. Note the date, time, the step that failed and any error message, with screenshots. This matters if a deadline is missed.
• Watch for circulars. MCA has in the past relaxed filing timelines and additional fees when portal problems affected compliance. Those circulars usually concern filing, not inspection.
• Consider other routes for urgent matters. The counterparty can produce its own filings. Certified copies can be applied for, and inspection can be sought at the ROC office under s.399 of the Companies Act, 2013 and rule 15 of the Companies (Registration Offices and Fees) Rules, 2014 CHECK: whether physical inspection at ROC offices is currently available.
• Avoid peak periods where you can. Late October and November, when AOC-4 and MGT-7 deadlines fall, tend to be the slowest CHECK: this is practitioner experience, not an MCA statement.

A quick triage list

1. Private window, other browser, other network.
2. Is master data working?
3. Any maintenance notice?
4. If payment: note SRN, check status, do not pay twice.
5. If blank document: download and open in Adobe Acrobat Reader.
6. If still stuck: screenshots, helpdesk ticket, alternative route.

NyayAssist MCA runs the login, inspection fee and download steps on your behalf and opens the XFA forms and their attachments, though it depends on the same portal and cannot work around a genuine MCA outage.