What Happened to SSI Registration and How to Register on Udyam

SSI registration has been replaced by Udyam registration, the single MSME registration the Ministry of MSME has run on its free government portal since 1 July 2020. Before the MSMED Act came into force, small-scale industry units held permanent SSI registration certificates, and those are no longer issued.

The letters SSI stood for small-scale industry. After the MSMED Act 2006, the paperwork moved first to Entrepreneurs Memorandum filings (EM-I and EM-II), then to the Udyog Aadhaar Memorandum from 18 September 2015, and finally to Udyam.

For how registration works today, see our full guide to Udyam registration.

The document you receive today is the Udyam Registration Certificate, issued online with a permanent number and a QR code.

An old SSI, EM-II or Udyog Aadhaar certificate no longer stands in for it, so a former small-scale unit has to register afresh on the portal.

An SSI certificate today is the Udyam Registration Certificate.

The term SSI certificate was the everyday name for the old small scale industries registration, but that status was folded into the micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) framework under the MSMED Act 2006. Since then the recognition has run through Entrepreneurs Memorandum filings, then the Udyog Aadhaar Memorandum, and now Udyam.

You need the current certificate to be recognised as an MSME and to use the benefits that come with it, such as small-business loans, public tenders, or the law's protection on delayed payments.

Registration is voluntary and free, and you hold one Udyam registration for the whole enterprise.

Your SSI registration number and the Udyam number that replaced it

Your old SSI registration number is not a Udyam number, and the two come from different systems, so the earlier number does not carry over. When you register on Udyam you are given a fresh, permanent number.

A Udyam number follows the pattern `UDYAM-XX-00-0000000`: the word UDYAM, then two letters, two digits and seven digits.

That is 19 characters with the hyphens and 16 without, and it is your Udyam Registration Number, or URN. A Udyog Aadhaar (UAM) number, from the system in between, is 12 characters, such as DL05A0000001.

The old SSI scheme sized a unit on its investment alone. The MSME framework uses two figures together, investment and annual turnover, and the limits changed from 1 April 2025 under notification S.O. 1364(E).

An enterprise must stay within both the investment and the turnover ceiling for its category, and crossing either one moves it up a size.

Under notification S.O. 2119(E) as amended, exports of goods or services are left out when turnover is worked out, while investment in plant, machinery or equipment is counted in full.

Registration is online, paperless and free, and the portal pulls most of your figures from government records rather than asking you to type them. Work through these steps.

1. Open the official Udyam Registration Portal and, under MSME Udyam Registration, choose New Registration, listed as the option For New Entrepreneurs who are not Registered yet as Micro, Small & Medium.
2. Verify your Aadhaar: the proprietor's for a proprietorship, the managing partner's for a partnership, or the karta's for a Hindu Undivided Family. A company, LLP or society gives the authorised signatory's Aadhaar along with its PAN and GSTIN.
3. Enter your PAN, and your GSTIN where GST applies to you. Both have been required for Udyam registration since 1 April 2021.
4. Fill in the basic details, official address and plant or unit details. You do not type investment or turnover figures, as the portal takes those from your income tax and GST records.
5. Submit the form. No documents or proof need to be uploaded, and there is no fee at any stage.
6. The portal issues your Udyam Registration Certificate online, with a permanent number, a QR code and no renewal ever needed. You can download the certificate later from the Print/Verify menu.

If you already hold a Udyog Aadhaar, you use the UAM Migration to Udyam option instead of New Registration, and you receive a new Udyam number on moving across.

You upload nothing, because registration is a self-declaration and the portal verifies your details from government databases. In practice you only need the following to hand.

• Aadhaar number: the Aadhaar of the proprietor, managing partner, karta or authorised signatory, depending on how the business is set up.
• PAN: the enterprise's PAN, or the proprietor's PAN for a proprietorship.
• GSTIN: required where GST applies to you under the CGST Act.
• Bank details and NIC code: your bank account details and the National Industrial Classification (NIC) code for your activity.

For a fuller breakdown of each item, see our list of MSME registration documents.

Registration is what links your enterprise to the schemes and legal protections set out for MSMEs. The main government-backed ones are below.

• Delayed-payment protection: under the MSMED Act, a buyer must pay a registered micro or small enterprise within 45 days of accepting the goods or service, with compound interest at three times the RBI notified bank rate on anything paid late.
• A council to settle unpaid bills: a micro or small enterprise can refer a delayed payment to its state MSE Facilitation Council, and new delayed-payment applications are now filed on the MSME ODR Portal.
• A reserved share of public buying: central ministries, departments and public sector units must source at least 25% of their yearly purchases from micro and small enterprises, including 4% from SC/ST-owned and 3% from women-owned firms.
• Collateral-free credit cover: loans to micro and small enterprises can be backed by the Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises (CGTMSE), which gives member lenders guarantee cover without a separate security.
• Priority sector lending: loans to MSMEs count towards banks' priority sector lending targets, which can make finance easier to raise.
• Selling to the government: a registered enterprise can list on the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) to supply government buyers.

To check whether your business qualifies in the first place, see our guide to MSME registration eligibility.

The portal is clear that older registrations do not continue on their own: holders of EM-II or Udyog Aadhaar will have to re-register on Udyam.

The dates on which the old papers lapsed differ between notifications, so the table gives the position rather than a single cut-off.

If you held any of the earlier types, the step is the same: register on Udyam, using the UAM Migration to Udyam path if you had a Udyog Aadhaar.

Our guide on moving from Udyog Aadhaar to Udyam walks through that case.

To check a current registration, open the Print/Verify menu on the official portal and choose Verify Udyam Registration. You enter the 19-character URN and the portal shows the enterprise's details.

Our guide to verifying a Udyam number covers this in more detail.

For an older record, the portal still carries a Verify Udyog Aadhaar option that takes the 12-character UAM number, though it may not return a result for a long-expired registration.

The portal has no verify option for a pre-2006 SSI or an EM-II certificate. The office that issued it, usually a District Industries Centre or the state industries department, holds the record, so ask there if you need it confirmed.

Once your Udyam details are in order, the number mostly sits in the background until a lender, buyer or scheme asks for it.

If you export goods or services and receive payment from overseas, it helps to keep your business records consistent, so your invoices, your Udyam certificate and your bank details line up.

At Xflow, we handle cross-border payments for Indian exporters who receive money from overseas customers.

We are authorised by the Reserve Bank of India as a cross-border Payment Aggregator (PA-CB), with final authorisation (the fully approved stage, past in-principle) as of February 2026.

We make an electronic FIRA, or eFIRA, available with every withdrawal at no extra cost. It is digital proof of an inward remittance, listing the sender's details, the exchange rate, the rupee equivalent and the purpose code.

Keeping the eFIRA with your Udyam certificate and invoices gives you a clean paper trail for every export payment.