QRMP Calendar Decoded: The Quarterly GST Filing and Opt-In Deadlines to Watch

For India's small and mid-sized businesses, the compliance calendar is not a suggestion — it is a series of hard cut-offs enforced by late fees and interest. As the trading day of 18 September 2026 opens, the single deadline cluster most worth pinning to the wall belongs to the Quarterly Return, Monthly Payment (QRMP) scheme, the Goods and Services Tax filing track that covers registered persons with an aggregate turnover of up to Rs 5 crore in the current and the preceding financial year.

The QRMP quarter now in play is July to September 2026, which closes in less than a fortnight, and the opt-in window for the next quarter — October to December 2026 — runs until 31 October 2026. This watchlist decodes the QRMP calendar deadline by deadline, sets it alongside the one market event with a fixed date on the horizon, and states plainly where no confirmed corporate results exist for the day ahead.

Statutory Deadlines

QRMP is a facility, not a default that suits everyone. It lets a registered person with aggregate turnover up to Rs 5 crore file GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B once a quarter while paying tax every month by challan. That splits the compliance burden: two quarterly returns instead of monthly ones, but the cash still leaves the business monthly so the exchequer is not kept waiting. The threshold is tested on turnover in both the current and the immediately preceding financial year, so a business that crossed Rs 5 crore last year cannot use the scheme this year.

The opt-in and opt-out mechanics are the part most businesses misjudge. The scheme is chosen quarter by quarter, and each choice has a closing date. Miss the window and you are locked into your existing filing frequency for that whole quarter. The four windows for the year run as follows:

For the day ahead, the live window is Q3: a business that wants to move into — or step out of — QRMP for the October to December 2026 quarter has until 31 October 2026 to change its profile on the portal. Once selected, the option carries forward automatically to future quarters until it is changed, so there is no need to re-opt every three months. The statutory basis for quarterly filing sits in Section 39 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017, hosted on the official code repository at indiacode.nic.in.

Within a quarter, three moving parts govern the cash and the paperwork. The monthly tax is paid through Form GST PMT-06 for the first two months of each quarter, the quarterly GSTR-3B settles the balance, and the optional Invoice Furnishing Facility (IFF) lets a supplier push out its business-to-business invoices for the first two months so that recipients can claim input tax credit without waiting for the quarterly GSTR-1. The IFF for a given month is due on the 13th of the following month.

Two adjacent deadlines round out tomorrow's statutory picture, both fixed by the Income-tax Act, 1961. The second advance-tax instalment fell due on 15 September 2026 — that date has passed, so any shortfall now attracts interest under Section 234C, and the next instalment (cumulatively 75% of the estimated liability) is due 15 December 2026. Readers unsure whether they owe advance tax at all should start with our advance tax glossary entry and confirm the instalment schedule directly at incometax.gov.in. Separately, depositors whose interest income will stay below the taxable threshold should have Form 15G or Form 15H on file with each bank for the 2026-27 financial year; there is no single statutory date for these, but they must be lodged before the first interest credit of the year to stop tax being deducted at source.

Market Events

The one dated macro event framing the weeks ahead is the Reserve Bank of India's next Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) review, scheduled for 5 to 7 October 2026. At its last meeting on 5 August 2026 the six-member committee left the policy repo rate unchanged at 5.25% — a unanimous vote and the fourth consecutive pause after the February, April, June and August 2026 reviews. Governor Sanjay Malhotra said the MPC wanted greater clarity on the inflation outlook before acting.

The rest of the rate corridor was held in step: the Standing Deposit Facility (SDF) rate at 5.00%, the Marginal Standing Facility (MSF) rate and the Bank Rate at 5.50% each. The committee also refreshed its projections for FY 2026-27 at that meeting, raising real GDP growth by 10 basis points to 6.7% and trimming the CPI inflation forecast by 10 basis points to 5.0%. Because external-benchmark-linked floating-rate loans reset within roughly three months of any repo change, a fourth straight hold means borrowers on such loans see no fresh EMI movement from policy this quarter. The full policy statement is published at rbi.org.in.

For anyone modelling how a stable rate environment feeds a monthly investing plan rather than a loan, our SIP calculator and step-up SIP calculator let you project a contribution over 5, 10 or 20 years; a one-time deployment can be tested on the lumpsum calculator. None of these is advice — they are arithmetic tools, and the return assumption you enter is your own.

Earnings

Honesty matters more than a full-looking page here. No large-cap corporate results are on Oquilia's confirmed calendar for 18 September 2026, and this desk does not publish earnings dates it cannot verify against an exchange filing. India's quarterly results season for the July to September 2026 period clusters in the second half of October 2026, once companies close their books for the quarter ending 30 September 2026, so a genuinely busy earnings run is still several weeks away.

That gap is a useful reminder for QRMP filers specifically: the quarter that ends 30 September 2026 is the same cut-off that drives the October filing and payment cycle. A business waiting on its own September numbers to finalise its GSTR-3B should treat the 30 September 2026 close as the anchor date and work backwards from the opt-in window closing 31 October 2026. When results dates for individual companies are confirmed on the exchanges, they will appear in this slot with the filing referenced; until then, this section stays deliberately empty of names.

FAQ

Who is eligible for the QRMP scheme?

A registered person whose aggregate turnover is up to Rs 5 crore in the current financial year and was up to Rs 5 crore in the preceding financial year. If turnover crosses Rs 5 crore during a year, the person becomes ineligible from the next quarter. Eligibility is assessed at the GSTIN level, and the option once exercised continues until changed.

When does the opt-in window for the October to December 2026 quarter close?

31 October 2026. QRMP is chosen quarter by quarter, and each quarter has its own closing date — 30 April for Q1, 31 July for Q2, 31 October for Q3 and 31 January for Q4. Because the choice carries forward automatically, a business already in QRMP need do nothing to stay in for the next quarter.

Do I still pay tax monthly under QRMP?

Yes. QRMP defers the returns to a quarterly rhythm but not the cash. Tax for the first two months of each quarter is paid by challan in Form GST PMT-06, and the quarterly GSTR-3B settles the net liability for the whole quarter. This is why the scheme is named Quarterly Return, Monthly Payment.

What is the Invoice Furnishing Facility and when is it due?

The IFF is an optional facility that lets a QRMP supplier upload its business-to-business invoices for the first two months of a quarter so that buyers can claim input tax credit without waiting for the quarterly GSTR-1. It is due on the 13th of the month following the invoice month. It is optional, but skipping it can delay a customer's credit and strain the relationship.

Was the second advance-tax instalment for FY 2026-27 already due?

Yes. The second instalment fell due on 15 September 2026, by which point 45% of the estimated annual liability should have been paid cumulatively. As of 18 September 2026 that date has passed, so any shortfall attracts interest under Section 234C of the Income-tax Act, 1961. The next instalment, taking the cumulative figure to 75%, is due 15 December 2026.

Will the RBI change rates before the next quarter's QRMP window closes?

The next MPC review is 5 to 7 October 2026, before the 31 October 2026 Q3 opt-in window closes. The repo rate stood at 5.25% after the 5 August 2026 hold; this desk does not forecast the October decision and reports only the announced outcome once the RBI publishes it at rbi.org.in.

Are there corporate earnings to watch on 18 September 2026?

No results are on Oquilia's confirmed calendar for that day. India's July to September 2026 results season concentrates in the second half of October 2026, after the 30 September 2026 quarter-end. This desk lists an earnings date only when it is backed by an exchange filing.