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E-invoicing in India

Live Confidence: high Checked 21 Jul 2026
ModelClearance · IRP (Invoice Registration Portal, NIC + private IRPs, IRN + signed QR)
Required formatGST e-invoice schema INV-01 (JSON), PEPPOL/UBL-derived; IRP returns signed JSON + IRN + QR
TimelineLive since Oct 2020 · ₹5cr threshold since Aug 2023

Who is in scope

B2B, B2G (supplies to government/notified entities), exports, deemed exports and SEZ supplies, plus credit and debit notes — for registered persons whose AATO exceeded ₹5 crore in ANY financial year from FY2017-18 onwards. B2C is out of scope for IRN (dynamic-QR rules apply separately to B2C for AATO > ₹500 crore). Notified exemptions: banks/financial institutions/NBFCs, insurers, goods transport agencies (GTA), passenger transport services, admission to cinematograph exhibition in multiplexes, SEZ units (SEZ developers are IN scope), government departments and local authorities.

Key dates

  • 1 Oct 2020 Mandatory for taxpayers with aggregate annual turnover (AATO) > ₹500 crore
  • 1 Jan 2021 Extended to AATO > ₹100 crore
  • 1 Apr 2021 Extended to AATO > ₹50 crore
  • 1 Apr 2022 Extended to AATO > ₹20 crore
  • 1 Oct 2022 Extended to AATO > ₹10 crore
  • 1 Aug 2023 Extended to AATO > ₹5 crore (Notification 10/2023 – Central Tax, 10 May 2023, amending Notification 13/2020 – Central Tax). This is still the operative threshold in July 2026.
  • 1 Nov 2023 30-day IRN reporting time limit introduced for AATO ≥ ₹100 crore (GSTN advisory 13 Sep 2023)
  • 1 Apr 2025 30-day IRN reporting time limit lowered to AATO ≥ ₹10 crore (GSTN advisory 27 Mar 2025). IRP hard-blocks IRN generation for documents older than 30 days.
  • TBD Further reduction of the e-invoicing threshold (₹3 crore / ₹2 crore) repeatedly discussed but NOT notified as at 21 Jul 2026
What practitioners get burned by

The 30-day IRN reporting window is a hard IRP validation, not a penalty: report late and you simply cannot generate an IRN, so the document is not a valid tax invoice and the buyer loses input tax credit. It applies to credit and debit notes too, which teams routinely forget. Threshold is tested on ANY FY from 2017-18 onwards — a one-off spike year permanently pulls you in; falling below ₹5 crore later does not release you. SEZ units are exempt but SEZ developers are not.

Sources

2 of 4 are primary sources. Mandate dates move — treat this page as a starting point and confirm against the primary source before committing a plan.

Also in Asia-Pacific

Planning for India?

A page is a starting point. A scoped analysis gives you the specification, the mapping and the effort — in weeks, not quarters.