Registration of the Association

  1. Application for registration shall be submitted electronically in Form FC 3A. The applicant shall upload the signed or digitally signed application along with scanned documents as specified by the Central Government.
  2. Registration granted shall be valid for 5 years from the date of its issue.
  3. Application for renewal to be made in Form FC 3, six months before the date of expiry of the certificate.
  4. Act provides that registration may be granted, ordinarily within 90 days from the date of receipt of application, however practical experience is that the process takes much longer.
  5. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has introduced a new facility “FCRA – Online” to facilitate associations to file their applications for registration and submit statutory forms online. Refer fcraonline.nic.in.
  6. Recent amendment to the Rules have made it compulsory to file all forms under FCRA electronically and the payment of fees has to be made online through the payment gateway, instead of the earlier requirements of filing hard copies and payment by demand draft or banker’s cheques.