Udyam registration: how an MSME gets its number

Updated 2026-10-05

Udyam registration is the Government of India's free, online registration for micro, small and medium enterprises, run by the Ministry of MSME since 1 July 2020. A firm registers with its PAN and Aadhaar; the portal pulls investment and turnover from income-tax and GST records, classifies the firm, and issues a permanent Udyam Registration Number and certificate.

Udyam registration

The Ministry of MSME's free online registration for micro, small and medium enterprises, in force since 1 July 2020. A firm registers with PAN and Aadhaar; the portal classifies it from its income-tax and GST data and issues a permanent Udyam Registration Number. It replaced Udyog Aadhaar.

What it is

Udyam registration is how a firm is officially counted as a micro, small or medium enterprise. It replaced the earlier Udyog Aadhaar memorandum on 1 July 2020 and is run by the Ministry of MSME through a single portal. It is free; the portal states that no fee is charged and that no agent is needed, a point worth knowing because paid “Udyam consultants” advertise heavily.

How the portal classifies a firm

The applicant enters the proprietor’s or authorised signatory’s Aadhaar and the firm’s PAN. The portal then reads investment in plant and machinery from the firm’s income-tax return and turnover from its GST filings, and places the firm in a class using the MSME thresholds. A new firm with no returns self-declares for its first year. The result is a permanent Udyam Registration Number and a downloadable certificate carrying the class, the activities and the units.

Classification is refreshed each year from the filed figures, so a firm that grows moves up a class without re-registering; the portal gives a transition period before the benefits of the lower class stop.

What the certificate is for

Banks ask for it for priority-sector and credit-guarantee lending; buyers ask for it to give the public-procurement preference; state departments ask for it before paying capital or interest subsidies; and a firm invoking the delayed-payment protection of the MSME Development Act cites its number. Exhibitors at industrial shows are routinely asked for it by buyers who must record supplier class; an EngiExpo edition page is a reasonable place to have the number to hand.

One more use has arrived with the recent Quality Control Orders. Where such an order sets a later date for small and micro units to start carrying the Indian Standard Mark, as the appliances order does in giving them January and April, the class on the Udyam certificate is what earns those extra months. A unit that never registered, or that has grown past its class without updating the registration, works to the headline date like anyone else.

Questions this raises

What is a Udyam Registration Number?

The permanent number the Udyam Registration portal issues when a micro, small or medium enterprise completes registration. It appears on the downloadable Udyam certificate together with the firm's class, its activities and its units, and a firm does not re-register to keep it when it grows into a higher class. It is what a bank asks for before priority-sector or credit-guarantee lending, what a buyer asks for before giving the public-procurement preference, what a state department asks for before paying a capital or interest subsidy, and what a firm cites when it invokes the delayed-payment protection of the MSME Development Act. The portal charges nothing to issue it and states that no agent is needed.

What is a UAM number?

UAM is the Udyog Aadhaar Memorandum, the MSME registration that Udyam registration replaced on 1 July 2020, and a UAM number is not a Udyam Registration Number. The Udyam portal states that those who hold EM-II or UAM registration, or any other registration issued by an authority under the Ministry of MSME, "will have to re-register themselves", and it carries a separate form headed "For those already having registration as UAM" which takes the Udyog Aadhaar Number and verifies it by one-time password to the mobile number or email on the UAM record. Until that re-registration is done there is no Udyam Registration Number to quote to a bank or a buyer.