When you need GST registration

Suppliers of goods only: ₹40 lakh

If you supply only goods, you don’t have to register until your aggregate turnover goes above ₹40 lakh in a financial year (Notification 10/2019, from 1 April 2019). This higher limit does not apply to:

• people who must register anyway under section 24 of the CGST Act;
• suppliers of ice cream, pan masala or tobacco products;
• suppliers within the special states listed in the notification, which have lower limits.

Example: a Gujarat trader selling only ordinary goods with ₹35 lakh turnover does not need to register.

Services, or goods and services together

Under section 22 of the CGST Act you must register once your aggregate turnover in a financial year is more than ₹20 lakh, or ₹10 lakh if you supply from a special category state. The Act lets those states ask for a higher limit, up to ₹20 lakh, so check your state’s current limit.

Composition scheme

If your turnover in the previous year was up to ₹1.5 crore, you can choose to pay a small fixed percentage of turnover instead of normal GST. The limit is ₹75 lakh in Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura and Uttarakhand.

Composition rates (rule 7 of the CGST Rules). The Rules set the central tax share, and the same again is paid as state tax, so the total is double:

Who	Central tax	Total
Manufacturers (except notified goods)	0.5% of turnover	1%
Restaurants and similar food services	2.5% of turnover	5%
Traders and other eligible suppliers	0.5% of taxable turnover	1%
Small service providers under s.10(2A)	3% of turnover	6%

Quarterly returns (QRMP)

If your turnover in the previous year was up to ₹5 crore, you can file GSTR-3B quarterly while still paying tax monthly.