Due to an update last year under, Section 363 Companies Act 2014 as amended by section 10 Companies (Statutory Audits) Act 2018, companies are now allowed to file unaudited accounts with a late annual return for that year. However they will not be eligible for audit exemption for the following two two years.

A common misconception of this update is that if an audited set of accounts is filed with the Companies Registration Office for the current annual return, only one more audited set of accounts is required to be filed. This is INCORRECT ! Your company will still be required to file two more sets of audited accounts with the Companies Registration Office as the update requires the following two years to be audited.

The above is also assuming you have not tried to avail of the annual return extension under Section 343 of the Companies Act 2014.