For most of the profession's history, a chartered accountant's marketing plan was simple: do good work, and wait. Clause (6) of Part I of the First Schedule to the Chartered Accountants Act, 1949 treats soliciting clients or professional work, directly or indirectly, as professional misconduct. Clause (7) covers advertising professional attainments or services. For decades that meant a nameplate, a letterhead and not much else.
That is no longer the whole picture. ICAI has allowed websites under its guidelines for years, and the 13th edition of its Code of Ethics, which took effect on 1 April 2026, goes further. It is worth understanding exactly how, because most CA firm websites in India are either more cautious than they need to be or less careful than they should be.
Push and pull: the idea behind most of the rules
The simplest way to understand ICAI's position is the difference between push and pull. Pull is information a prospective client finds because they went looking: your website, a search result, a directory entry. Push is information you send to people who did not ask: emails, promoted posts, advertisements.
Under the new Code, services that only chartered accountants may perform, such as statutory audit and tax audit, stay on the pull side. You can describe them factually on your own website, and clients can find them. Services that are not exclusive to the profession, such as accounting, tax advisory and management consultancy, may now be promoted more actively. That is where the new room lies.
This one distinction changes how a CA firm website should be written. The audit and assurance pages should be precise, factual and easy to find. The advisory, GST and consulting pages can do more: explain, educate and invite readers to learn more, provided they still avoid what every version of the code prohibits.
What stays off limits
- Solicitation. Asking people to engage you, directly or indirectly, remains misconduct. That includes asking people to visit, like or follow your pages.
- Testimonials and endorsements. No client quotes about you or your fees, and no embedded star ratings or review widgets.
- Exaggerated claims. Nothing that overstates your services, qualifications or experience. Best, leading and number one all fall here.
- Fee schedules. Fees stay off the website unless a regulator requires them to be disclosed.
- A firm logo. ICAI restricts members from using a logo or monogram of their own. The CA India logo, used as the Institute prescribes, is the permitted exception.
The logo rule is an opportunity, not a handicap
Designers meeting a CA firm for the first time often ask for the logo. There is not one, and there should not be. What there can be is an identity: a consistent way of setting the firm's name, a considered typeface, a small palette used with discipline, templates for reports and letters, and a writing voice that sounds the same in an engagement letter and a LinkedIn post.
Clients recognise firms by these things far more than by marks. Think of how often you recognise a newspaper from its typography alone. A CA firm that treats its name style and its documents as its identity will look more considered than many firms that do have logos.
What a good CA firm website contains
- Factual particulars. Partners, qualifications, membership details, offices and the year the firm was established.
- Services described by the problem they solve. Not "GST services", but what happens when a business receives a show cause notice, or needs input tax credit processes for a new plant.
- Complete people pages. Most visits end on a person. A partner page with a current photograph, clear areas of work and recent writing does more than any home page banner.
- Recent writing. Budget notes, GST updates, audit and reporting explainers. Technical updates are exactly the content the code expects firms to share, and the content clients value.
- A clear way to get in touch. An address, email and phone number, without the pressure of "call now".
Social media, carefully
LinkedIn is where CFOs, promoters and finance teams already spend time, and it is a natural home for technical updates, short explainers and videos. Keep posts educational. Do not ask people to like, follow or share. Do not celebrate client wins, and do not name clients without clear permission and a reason the code would accept. When in doubt, write the post as if a disciplinary committee will read it.
Networks and new formats
The new Code also allows network firms registered with ICAI to run their own websites, and ICAI's global networking guidelines let CA firms associate with international entities. For firms joining or forming networks, that raises real branding questions: how the network is named, how member firms describe the relationship, and how all of it stays within the rules. Those are decisions to make before the website is built, not after.
A short checklist
- Separate audit and assurance pages from advisory pages, and write each accordingly.
- Remove every superlative, star rating and testimonial.
- Take any fee list off the site.
- Replace any firm logo with a name style and typography.
- Check every call to action. Information is fine; pressure is not.
- Read the current Code itself, not a summary. This article is a guide, not professional advice.
Every firm's situation is different, and the Code is detailed. What is clear is that a CA firm in 2026 can be visible, useful and current online without putting its members at risk. The firms that learn the rules well will be the ones clients find first.