How-to · MSME · Delayed Payment

How to Claim MSME Samadhaan for a Delayed Payment

Updated for 2026 · Claw Editorial

If a buyer does not pay a registered micro or small enterprise within the agreed time, and in any case within 45 days of accepting the goods or services, the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Act 2006 (MSMED Act) lets the supplier claim the overdue amount plus compound interest at three times the Reserve Bank of India bank rate. The claim is filed online on MSME Samadhaan and is decided by the state Micro and Small Enterprise Facilitation Council (MSEFC), which first tries conciliation and then acts as, or refers the dispute to, arbitration. This page explains who can claim, the 45-day and interest rules, exactly how to file on the portal, what the Facilitation Council does, how long it should take, and how the award is enforced if the buyer still does not pay. The ministry has been moving new references to an online dispute resolution route, so confirm the current filing portal before you start. Last verified October 2026.

01Who can claim and when

The delayed-payment remedy is for the supplier, and it is limited by status:

• You must be a micro or small enterprise with a valid Udyam Registration (the earlier Udyog Aadhaar). A medium enterprise does not get the MSEFC delayed-payment remedy, though the ministry has widened some protections over time, so check the current position for your category.
• The supply must be of goods or services for which payment is overdue beyond the agreed date, or beyond 45 days where there is no agreed date or the agreed date is longer.
• The buyer can be any buyer, including a large company or a government body.

Register on Udyam first if you have not, because the Udyam number is needed to file.

02The 45-day rule and the interest you are owed

The money side of the MSMED Act is strong, and this is the lever a claim uses:

• Payment window. The buyer must pay on or before the date agreed in writing, and that agreed date cannot exceed 45 days from the day the buyer accepts the goods or services. With no written agreement, payment is due within 15 days.
• Interest. On a delay, the buyer is liable to pay compound interest with monthly rests at three times the bank rate notified by the RBI. This is a statutory rate; the parties cannot contract out of it.
• It runs by law. You do not have to have charged interest on the invoice for the statutory interest to apply.

The statutory interest, compounded monthly at three times the RBI bank rate, is usually what makes a buyer settle. It is owed by law even if your invoice never mentioned interest.

Separately, buyers who delay payment to MSEs beyond 45 days are required to disclose this, and companies file a half-yearly MSME Form I return with the Registrar of Companies.

03Before you file

Gather proof that the supply happened and the payment is overdue:

• Your Udyam Registration number and enterprise details.
• The unpaid invoices, with dates and amounts, and proof of acceptance or delivery (purchase order, delivery challan, acceptance email).
• A simple ledger showing what is due and from when, so the interest can be calculated from the acceptance date.
• Any written agreement or correspondence on payment terms.

04How to file on MSME Samadhaan

The claim is filed online, free of cost.

• Go to the MSME Samadhaan portal at samadhaan.msme.gov.in and choose Case Filing by Supplier.
• Verify your Udyam Registration number with OTP, which pulls your enterprise details.
• Enter the buyer's details, the unpaid invoice numbers, dates and amounts, and upload the invoices and proof of acceptance or work order.
• Submit. The application goes to the MSEFC of the state or union territory where your enterprise is located.

05What the Facilitation Council does

The Micro and Small Enterprise Facilitation Council (MSEFC) handles the dispute in two stages under the MSMED Act:

• Conciliation first. The Council tries to settle the matter between you and the buyer.
• Arbitration next. If conciliation fails, the Council itself takes up the dispute as arbitration, or refers it to an institution, under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act 1996. It then passes an award for the principal and the statutory interest.

The Act expects the reference to be decided within ninety days, though in practice it can take longer. The MSEFC award is binding, subject to the limited challenge below.

06Enforcing the award

An award in your favour is only useful if the money arrives. Two things to know:

• The buyer's challenge is restricted. A buyer who wants to set aside the MSEFC award must deposit 75 percent of the awarded amount before a court will hear the challenge, under section 19 of the MSMED Act. This is a strong protection for the supplier.
• Execution. If the buyer does not pay, you enforce the award like a decree through execution proceedings before the appropriate court. If the buyer is a company in financial trouble, recovery may run into insolvency, where a defaulting buyer's conduct can also feed a wilful defaulter classification.

Before taking on a new buyer, many MSEs now run a quick litigation and default check first; see litigation due diligence before a vendor payment.

07Where Claw fits

Claw is an all-in-one legaltech platform for Indian advocates, law firms, and corporate legal teams, combining AI-based case search, an AI legal assistant (Legal GPT), case management, and compliance automation across all Indian courts and tribunals.

Filing on Samadhaan is a portal task. Getting paid is a litigation task. A delayed-payment claim moves through the Facilitation Council, becomes an arbitral award, and often ends in a set-aside challenge before a court or in execution and insolvency proceedings if the buyer still will not pay. You can create a FREE Claw account to track that matter across the forum that hears it, from the MSEFC arbitration to the court dealing with the challenge or execution. Claw covers 9,102 courts, benches and forums, so there is a real tracking home for the recovery that follows a claim; its judgment search spans 30 crore+ judgments, with Supreme Court decisions from 1950 and High Court decisions from 1990, so you can see how MSMED Act awards and set-aside challenges were decided. Results return in under 5 seconds, and Claw does not train its AI models on your documents. A litigation search on a buyer before you extend credit can also show whether other suppliers are already chasing the same company. This is general information, not legal advice on your claim.

08Sources and further reading

• MSME Samadhaan (delayed payment filing): samadhaan.msme.gov.in
• Udyam Registration: udyamregistration.gov.in
• Ministry of MSME: msme.gov.in
• Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India: ibbi.gov.in
• Claw: clawlaw.in

This page is general information for an Indian audience, not legal advice. Confirm current filing channels, time limits and the interest formula on the official portals, as the ministry revises these.

09Frequently asked questions