GST, for a business that has outgrown treating it as bookkeeping
Most Indian businesses got their GST registration years ago and have run the returns the same way ever since. That worked while the law sat still. It has not sat still: the rate structure was rebuilt in September 2025, the demand and recovery provisions were rewritten for financial year 2024-25 onwards, the portal now bars returns older than three years, and the appellate tribunal that was missing for seven years started hearing cases in February 2026. These five guides cover what an established, registered business actually has to get right now.
- Written for a business already registered and already filing, not for a first-time registrant
- Every regulatory figure checked against a source during this build, with the source recorded
- Where something is enacted but not yet in force, we say so rather than letting it read as current law
Four changes that made most GST guidance out of date
Each of these is settled law. Each one also contradicts material that is still sitting on professional websites, and in some cases in filed working papers.
The rate structure was rebuilt
From 22 September 2025 the 12% and 28% slabs went, leaving 5% and 18% as the working rates plus a 40% rate on a specified list. Tobacco and pan masala moved across separately on 1 February 2026. A handful of rates survived the cut, including 12% on bricks, which catches people out.
Demands are governed by a new section
For financial year 2024-25 onwards, Sections 73 and 74 are replaced by Section 74A. The three-year and five-year limitation split is gone: it is 42 months from the annual return due date whether or not fraud is alleged. Sections 73 and 74 still govern every earlier year.
Old returns can no longer be filed
From 1 December 2025 the portal permanently bars any GST return more than three years past its due date. A separate unbarring facility opened in February 2026, but it needs an officer’s approval and is a concession, not a right.
The appellate tribunal is finally running
The GST Appellate Tribunal began accepting appeals in September 2025 and began hearing them in February 2026. The window for the historical backlog closed on 31 July 2026. Anything after that depends on condonation or on a token generated before the deadline.
Current, sourced, and honest about what is not settled
We check the notification, not the commentary
A great deal of Indian GST commentary describes a Council recommendation as though it were the law. A recommendation, an enacted amendment and a commencement notification are three different things, often months apart, and sometimes the third never arrives.
We treat compliance and dispute as one problem
Most GST demands start as a mismatch that was visible in a reconciliation long before a notice arrived. The same team that files the returns should be the one that sees the notice coming.
We say when something is unsettled
Some of what matters most right now is genuinely unresolved: an enacted relief that has not been notified, a tribunal decision that binds one state and no other. We name those rather than picking whichever answer reads better.
Five guides, following the year rather than the service list
These follow a registered business through its own GST year: getting the registration right, running the monthly cycle, protecting the credit, handling the department, and deciding things before doing them. Start with whichever describes your current problem.
GST Registration and Amendments
Thresholds that differ by state and by whether you sell goods or services, the three-working-day registration routes introduced in November 2025, mandatory Input Service Distributor registration, amendments, cancellation and revocation.
GST Returns and Ongoing Compliance
The monthly and annual clock, the hard-locking of outward liability in GSTR-3B, the three-year filing bar and the unbarring route, e-invoicing, e-way bills and the Invoice Management System.
Input Tax Credit: Claiming, Protecting and Reconciling
The five conditions, the deadlines, blocked credits including the construction position, reversal on supplier default, apportionment, and where reconciliation actually earns its keep.
GST Audits, Notices and Departmental Proceedings
Scrutiny and mismatch intimations, departmental audit, the Section 74A demand regime and its penalty ladder, the appeal route and its pre-deposit, and where the GST Appellate Tribunal has actually got to.
GST Strategy: Rates, Structuring and Expansion
Classification and rate decisions after the 2025 restructuring, place of supply including the change that reopened exports for intermediaries, refunds, reverse charge, and what to settle before entering a new state or a new contract.
Setting up in India, or a company at seed stage
If you are a foreign company entering India, or an early-stage startup, our India Entry and Startups guides cover the ground you actually need first. These pages assume the business exists and is registered.
Who this is written for
The reader we have in mind is the finance lead of an established Indian business: registered in at least one state, probably more, with input tax credit large enough that a reversal hurts, and either already in correspondence with the department or aware that it is only a matter of time. Manufacturing, trading and distribution, and business-to-business services.
Two readers are deliberately not served here, because a more specific page already serves them better. A foreign company setting up in India needs the entry decisions settled before GST becomes the interesting question. A company at seed to Series A stage has a different set of first problems. Both are covered elsewhere on this site.
One further caution. A listed company or a large enterprise with a standing in-house indirect tax function will find parts of this too general. The guides are written for a business where GST is one person’s responsibility among several, not a department.
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Tell us where you actually are: a registration question, a return or reconciliation problem, a notice already received, or a decision you have not made yet. A partner replies within one business day.
This page is general information, not professional advice. Indian GST law changed substantially between 2024 and 2026, several changes are enacted but not yet notified into force, and how any of this applies depends on your own facts, your state and your sector. Take professional advice before acting on anything on this page. We are happy to be that adviser, but we do not act on a web page, ours or anyone else's, without one.