A registered person must issue a tax invoice before, or at the time of removal of goods for supply to the recipient. For supplying services, GST invoices can be issued before, at, or even after the time of supply. Further, e-Invoicing system is also being implemented in a phased manner that requires certain more mandatory fields.

Information required in a GST invoice

Rule 46 of the CGST Rules deals with the contents of invoice. The tax invoice issued must startup legal advisor mention information under the following 16 headings:

  1. Name, address and GSTIN of the supplier
  2. Tax invoice number up to 16 characters (it must be generated consecutively and each tax invoice will have a unique number for that financial year)
  3. Date of issue
  4. If the buyer (recipient) is registered then the name, address and GSTIN of the recipient
  5. If the recipient is not registered and the value is more than Rs.50,000* then the invoice should carry:
    1. Name and address of the recipient
    2. Address of delivery
    3. State name and state code**
  6. HSN code of goods or service accounting code for services***
  7. Description of the goods/services
  8. Quantity of goods (number) and unit in UQC (metre, kg etc.)
  9. Total value of supply of goods/services
  10. Taxable value of supply after adjusting any discount
  11. Applicable rate of GST (Rates of CGST, SGST, IGST, UTGST and Cess startup legal advisor mentioned)
  12. Amount of tax (With breakup of amounts of CGST, SGST, IGST, UTGST and Cess)
  13. Place of supply and name of destination state for inter-state sales
  14. Delivery address if it is different from the place of supply
  15. Whether GST is payable on reverse charge basis
  16. Signature of the supplier or his authorised representative

* Also, to be declared if the value is less than Rs.50,000 only where the recipient requests for the details.

** If the case is an export to an unregistered recipient of value up to Rs.50,000, then the name of the country of destination is required.

*** HSN code reporting is as follows for businesses, since 1st April 2021:

  • Turnover above Rs.5 crore must use 6-digit HSN code for all invoices
  • Turnover less than or equal to Rs.5 crore must use 4-digit HSN code for all the B2B invoices. However, this reporting is optional for B2C invoices.

Previously, up to 31st March 2021, the reporting was as follows for businesses

  • Turnover less than 1.5 crores- HSN code is not required to be mentioned
  • Turnover between 1.5 -5 crores can use 2-digit HSN code
  • Turnover above 5 crores must use 4-digit HSN code