Who Must Register for GST? Turnover Limits & Compulsory Triggers

"I'm under ₹20 lakh, so I don't need GST registration" is the single most common — and most costly — assumption we hear from new business owners. It's true only if none of the compulsory-registration triggers below apply to you, and several very ordinary businesses trip one of them without realising it.

The turnover-based thresholds. For most states, GST registration becomes mandatory once your aggregate turnover crosses ₹40 lakh for suppliers of goods, or ₹20 lakh for suppliers of services. In special category states, these limits are lower — ₹20 lakh for goods and ₹10 lakh for services. Once you cross the applicable threshold, you have 30 days to apply for registration.

Compulsory registration regardless of turnover. This is where the real risk sits, because turnover doesn't matter at all for these categories: anyone making inter-state taxable supplies (selling to a customer in another state), every e-commerce operator and most sellers operating through an e-commerce platform (Amazon, Flipkart, Meesho and similar), agents making supplies on behalf of another taxable person, casual taxable persons (occasional suppliers with no fixed place of business), anyone liable to pay tax under reverse charge, and online service providers based outside India supplying to non-registered persons in India.

The most common trap we see. A freelancer or small manufacturer starts selling on an e-commerce marketplace assuming the ₹20 lakh/₹40 lakh threshold still protects them — it doesn't. E-commerce sellers generally need GST registration from their very first sale on the platform, irrespective of turnover, because the marketplace-seller category is a compulsory trigger, not a turnover-based one.

Why voluntary registration is sometimes worth it anyway. Even below the threshold, registering voluntarily can make sense: you can claim input tax credit on business purchases, B2B customers increasingly require a GSTIN before they'll buy from you (so they can claim their own input credit), and most e-commerce and B2B marketplaces simply won't list an unregistered seller.

Bottom line: check the compulsory-trigger list first, not just your turnover. If any of them apply — especially selling through a marketplace or supplying interstate — you need to register now, not once you cross ₹20 lakh.

If you're not sure whether your business falls into one of the compulsory categories, that's exactly the kind of question our GST registration service exists to answer before it becomes a penalty — see the next article in this series for what happens if you get this wrong.

Figures and thresholds in this article reflect the CGST Act, 2017 as amended by Union Budget 2026. Rules can change — please confirm your specific registration obligation with a qualified CA or GST practitioner.