Which Sections and Rules Govern GST Registration?

GST registration sits in Chapter VI of the CGST Act, 2017, sections 22 to 30. Chapter III of the CGST Rules, 2017 carries the procedure, rules 8 to 26. Two sections outside Chapter VI also compel registration: section 51 for TDS deductors, section 52 for TCS collectors. Every State has a mirror SGST Act. Section 26 treats an SGST or UTGST grant as a CGST grant. Section 20 of the IGST Act applies these provisions, so there is no separate IGST registration. No rule in Chapter III prescribes a registration fee.

The Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 fixes liability, the Central Goods and Services Tax Rules, 2017 fix procedure, and the FORMS carry the transaction, which is how GST registration works from end to end. The FORM is the object the applicant handles.

That absence of any fee rule is why what registration costs is nil at the government's end.

Thirty-three registration forms exist, FORM GST REG-01 to FORM GST REG-33. REG-01 is the application for registration. REG-02 is the acknowledgement carrying the Application Reference Number. REG-03 is the officer's notice; REG-04 is the applicant's reply. REG-06 is the registration certificate itself. REG-30 is the physical verification report. REG-32 and REG-33 are the newest, both created on 1 November 2025. Notification No. 18/2025-Central Tax inserted them for withdrawal from rule 14A.

FORMS REG-25 to REG-29 are transitional forms used for the 2017 migration from VAT, service tax and excise, not for new registrations.

Notification No. 18/2025-Central Tax substituted REG-03, REG-04 and REG-05 to add withdrawal as a fourth application category. A REG-03 notice can therefore now arise on a rule 14A withdrawal as well as on a registration, an amendment or a cancellation.

Two divergences between CBIC's forms register and the instruments will show up if you check this table against the register. The register titles REG-10 as an application by an overseas supplier of online information and database access or retrieval services only, while rule 14 as amended by Notification No. 51/2023-Central Tax dated 29 September 2023 extends REG-10 to overseas online money gaming suppliers. The register also spells REG-32 as an application for "Withdrawl", while the gazette spells it withdrawal, so a register search on the correct spelling returns nothing. This table follows the rule as amended for REG-10 and the gazette for REG-32.

A form that will not generate or load on the common portal is a portal problem rather than a drafting one, and the portal errors page carries those fixes.

Eleven sections govern GST registration: sections 22 to 30, plus sections 51 and 52. Section 22 fixes liability at twenty lakh rupees of aggregate turnover. Ten lakh rupees applies in Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura, for goods and services alike. Section 23 names who is not liable to register. Section 24 lists thirteen clauses who must register regardless of turnover. Section 25 sets the procedure. Sections 26 to 30 cover deemed registration, casual persons, amendment, cancellation and revocation. The forty lakh rupee exemption was notified under section 23(2).

Section 22's own figure is twenty lakh rupees. The forty lakh rupee figure comes from a notification issued under section 23(2), not from section 22, and the two are routinely conflated.

Aggregate turnover is defined in section 2(6) and computed on an all-India PAN basis, excluding CGST, SGST, UTGST, IGST and cess. Section 27 also requires a casual or non-resident taxable person to deposit tax in advance for the period applied for.

Registration runs on rules 8 to 26 of Chapter III of the CGST Rules, 2017. Rule 8 is the application in FORM GST REG-01. Rule 9 is the officer's verification and approval. Rule 10 issues the certificate in FORM GST REG-06. Rules 9A and 14A grant registration in three working days. Rule 16 lets an officer register a defaulter on his own motion. Rule 21A suspends a registration pending cancellation. Rule 23 governs revocation. Twenty-five rules sit inside a range numbered 8 to 26.

Every row key above is the rule's own marginal note as notified, with one exception: rule 14's marginal note runs to forty-odd words after the online money gaming insertion and is abridged in the key.

Six rules carry letter suffixes because they were inserted after 2017: rules 9A, 10A, 10B, 14A, 16A and 21A. That is why the chapter runs from rule 8 to rule 26 and still contains twenty-five rules.

Section 24 carries thirteen clauses and compels registration regardless of turnover. Section 24 overrides the section 22(1) thresholds, but it does not override section 23. The categories include inter-State suppliers, casual taxable persons and reverse-charge payers. They also include non-resident taxable persons, agents and Input Service Distributors. Section 51 deductors and section 52 collectors are covered. Overseas OIDAR suppliers are covered. Clause (xia) covers online money gaming supplied from outside India. Clause (xii) is not a category: clause (xii) is the residual notification power.

Section 23(2), as substituted by the Finance Act, 2023 with retrospective effect from 1 July 2017, now overrides section 22(1) and section 24 alike, so an exemption notification issued under section 23(2) can displace even compulsory registration. Before that substitution it could not, on the plain words.

Section 25(3) lets a person liable under neither section 22 nor section 24 register anyway. Once that voluntary registration is granted, every provision of the Act applies to him as it does to anyone else.

Section 122(1)(xi) penalises a failure to register when liable

Failing to obtain registration when liable is an offence under section 122(1)(xi) of the CGST Act, 2017. The penalty is fixed by the closing words of section 122(1): ₹10,000 or an amount equivalent to the tax evaded, whichever is higher. An equal penalty arises under the corresponding State GST Act. Where a registration rule is broken and no penalty is separately provided, section 125 applies a general penalty of up to twenty-five thousand rupees.

The ten per cent figure comes from section 122(2)(a), read with section 73(9), and the hundred per cent figure from section 122(2)(b). Section 122(2) opens by addressing any registered person who supplies goods or services on which tax has not been paid, has been short-paid or has been erroneously refunded, or where input tax credit has been wrongly availed or utilised, and clauses (a) and (b) take their subject from those opening words. On that opening, neither clause reaches a person who never registered at all. That reading is an inference from the opening words of section 122(2) rather than a decided holding.

Rule 9A grants registration automatically within three working days. The common portal identifies the applicant on data analysis and risk parameters. The rule sets no other test. No application and no opt-in is needed. Rule 9A covers applications under rule 8, rule 12 and rule 17. It carries no turnover cap and no output-tax cap. Notification No. 18/2025-Central Tax inserted rule 9A on 1 November 2025. Nothing in rule 9A is a rule 9 deemed approval.

Rule 9A operates automatically through the common portal and requires no separate Rule 9A application or election. Rule 14A requires the applicant to opt in and provides a formal withdrawal process.

The same trigger produces the opposite outcome in three places in the same chapter. Identification on the common portal, based on data analysis and risk parameters, grants registration in three working days under rule 9A; under the first proviso to rule 8(4A) the identical description pulls the applicant into biometric Aadhaar authentication and original-document verification at a Facilitation Centre; and under clause (aa) of the proviso to rule 9(1) it sends the file to physical verification of the premises and stretches the grant to thirty days. Identification by the portal is therefore not itself a verdict. The same flag speeds one applicant up and slows another down, and the rules nowhere say which.

Guidance written before 1 January 2021 gives three working days under rule 9, and anything repeating it today is quoting repealed text. Rule 9's three-working-day periods were replaced by seven working days on 22 December 2020 by Notification No. 94/2020-Central Tax, in force 1 January 2021. The genuine three-working-day grants are rule 9A and rule 14A(4), both dating from 1 November 2025.

Rule 14A grants registration within three working days to an applicant who opts in. The applicant opts in at item 4.1 of Part B of FORM GST REG-01. Rule 14A(2) requires Aadhaar authentication. Rule 14A(1) caps monthly output tax on supplies to registered persons at ₹2,50,000. That cap includes compensation cess. Rule 14A applies to rule 8 applications only. Withdrawal is by FORM GST REG-32, allowed by order in FORM GST REG-33. Notification No. 18/2025-Central Tax inserted rule 14A on 1 November 2025.

The cap is on output tax rather than turnover, and it applies only to supplies made to registered persons. Most published coverage drops the second of those two conditions, which changes who qualifies.

Rule 14A(5) allows withdrawal by FORM GST REG-32, and rule 14A(10) is the order allowing it, in FORM GST REG-33. Both forms were created by the same notification and were added to CBIC's forms register on 18 December 2025.

Three separate clocks run on an application, and only two are three working days. Rule 9A is automatic and needs no opt-in. Rule 14A is elective and capped at ₹2,50,000 monthly. Rule 9(1) is the ordinary route and takes seven working days. Rule 9's own three-working-day periods were replaced on 22 December 2020. Notification No. 94/2020-Central Tax made that change. Any page giving three working days under rule 9 quotes repealed text.

Only rule 14A has an exit, because only rule 14A is something an applicant opts into.

The fifteen days in rule 8(4A) fix the deemed date of submission of the application. That date is the earlier of two events for an applicant who opts for Aadhaar. It is the date Aadhaar authentication is completed. Or it is fifteen days from submission of Part B of FORM GST REG-01. Every later clock runs from that date. It fixes the seven working days in rule 9(1). It fixes the thirty days in the proviso and the three working days in rule 14A(4). The fifteen days is not an approval deadline.

Rule 8(4A) has three moving parts. The rule itself carries the deemed-submission rule. The first proviso is the biometric trigger for applicants flagged on data analysis and risk parameters. The second proviso, in force since 11 February 2025, covers applicants who did not opt for Aadhaar at all, and requires a photograph and verification of original documents at a Facilitation Centre rather than biometric authentication, there being no Aadhaar to authenticate against. What each branch then costs the applicant is set out with the two provisos in full.

Rule 8(4B) is a negative power. The Central Government may notify States or Union territories in which the proviso to rule 8(4A) does not apply, and no notification subsists under it, so the proviso applies across every State and Union territory.

Rule 9(1) gives the proper officer seven working days from the date of submission. Thirty days applies where the applicant did not complete Aadhaar authentication. Thirty days also applies where the applicant is flagged for physical verification. A notice in FORM GST REG-03 issues within seven working days of the date of submission. The applicant replies in FORM GST REG-04 within seven working days of service. Approval follows within seven working days of the clarification. Rule 9(5) deems the application approved if the officer does nothing.

All three clauses of the proviso to rule 9(1) carry the same thirty-day period and route the file through rule 25: clause (a) where Aadhaar authentication was not done, clause (aa) where Aadhaar was done but the applicant is flagged for physical verification, and clause (b) where the officer decides on physical verification with the approval of an officer of at least Assistant Commissioner rank. Rule 25(1) covers verification after the grant of registration, and the officer uploads the verification report with photographs in FORM GST REG-30 within fifteen working days following the date of verification. Rule 25(2) covers verification before the grant, in the circumstances specified in the proviso to rule 9(1), and the report goes up at least five working days prior to the completion of the time period specified in that proviso. That is a deadline for the upload, measured against the registration deadline, and it says nothing about how far ahead the visit itself must happen. CBIC's Instruction No. 03/2025-GST paraphrases the same period as 05 days and drops the word working; where the two differ, the Rule governs.

Rule 25 no longer requires the visit to happen in the applicant's presence. Those words went with the substitution made by Notification No. 38/2023-Central Tax dated 4 August 2023.

Both current periods replaced shorter ones on 22 December 2020. Notification No. 94/2020-Central Tax, in force 1 January 2021, substituted seven working days for three in rule 9(1) and rule 9(2), and replaced the twenty-one-day period with thirty days.

An application to revoke a cancelled registration is filed in FORM GST REG-21 within ninety days of service of the cancellation order. Rule 23(1) of the CGST Rules, 2017 sets that period. Notification No. 38/2023-Central Tax substituted rule 23(1) with effect from 1 August 2023. The Commissioner may extend the period by up to one hundred and eighty days. An officer of at least Additional or Joint Commissioner rank may also extend it. Section 30(1)'s thirty days was removed on 1 October 2023. Rule 10B requires Aadhaar authentication before FORM GST REG-21 is filed.

Where the cancellation was for failure to furnish returns, no revocation application may be filed until those returns are furnished and the tax, interest, penalty and late fee shown in them is paid.

After revocation, all returns for the period from the cancellation order to the revocation order must be furnished within thirty days of the revocation order. Where the cancellation was retrospective, all returns from the effective date of cancellation must be furnished within the same thirty days. Breaching either is itself a ground of cancellation, under rule 21(ga).

The officer decides in FORM GST REG-22 within thirty days, or issues a show cause notice in FORM GST REG-23 answerable in FORM GST REG-24 within seven working days.

Thirteen dated changes have reshaped GST registration law since 2019. The most recent took effect on 1 November 2025. Notification No. 94/2020-Central Tax replaced rule 9's three working days with seven. Notification No. 04/2023-Central Tax restructured rule 8(4A) on 31 March 2023. Notification No. 38/2023-Central Tax gave rule 23 its ninety-day revocation window. Notification No. 18/2025-Central Tax inserted rules 9A and 14A. The same notification created FORMS GST REG-32 and REG-33.

As at 24 August 2026, no 2026 notification has amended the registration rules. CBIC's master notification database, complete to 21 August 2026, holds exactly two Central Tax notifications for calendar 2026, and neither touches registration.

Eight citation errors recur across published GST registration guidance. Each one is checkable against the current text in a minute. The rule 9 period is seven working days, not three. The proviso period is thirty days, not twenty-one. The revocation window is ninety days, not thirty. Section 22(1) says twenty lakh rupees, not forty. FORM GST REG-14 is the amendment application, not the cancellation application.

Rule 9(2) gives seven working days, not three

Notification No. 94/2020-Central Tax, dated 22 December 2020, substituted seven for three with effect from 1 January 2021. Guidance still giving three working days under rule 9 is quoting repealed text. The genuine three-working-day grants are rule 9A and rule 14A(4).

The Rule 9(1) proviso gives thirty days, not twenty-one

No twenty-one-day or twenty-one-working-day period exists anywhere in the registration rules. The twenty-one-day period went with Notification No. 94/2020-Central Tax dated 22 December 2020, in force 1 January 2021.

No notification numbered 12/2026-GST exists

CBIC's master database holds exactly two Central Tax notifications for 2026, numbered 01/2026 and 02/2026. "12/2026-GST" is not a valid CGST notification designation.

Rule 23(1) gives ninety days, not thirty

Section 30(1)'s thirty days was removed on 1 October 2023 by the Finance Act, 2023. Rule 23(1) gives ninety days, extendable by up to one hundred and eighty more.

Section 22(1) says twenty lakh rupees, not forty

The forty lakh rupee exemption is Notification No. 10/2019-Central Tax, issued under section 23(2). Its clause (c) does not reach intra-State suppliers in Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland or Tripura, where the figure stays at ten lakh rupees for goods as well as services, and the State threshold sets out the statutory chain.

Rule 16 is suo motu registration, not rule 12

Rule 12 registers TDS deductors and TCS collectors in FORM GST REG-07. Suo motu registration is rule 16, by order in FORM GST REG-12.

Section 29(2)(b) is the composition clause, not 29(2)(c)

Clause (b) now fixes its own period in the Act: the composition taxpayer who has not furnished the return for a financial year beyond three months from the due date of furnishing that return. Clause (c) is the one that reads to a prescribed period, and the prescription sits in rule 21(h), a continuous period of six months for monthly filers under section 39(1), and rule 21(i), a continuous period of two tax periods for quarterly filers under the proviso to section 39(1). The pre-2022 statutory figures of six months and three consecutive tax periods are gone.

FORM GST REG-14 is the amendment application, not the cancellation application

REG-11 as amendment, REG-13 as suo motu, REG-14 as cancellation, REG-20 as enrolment and REG-26 as field visit report are the 2016-17 draft numbering. In the notified Rules, REG-14 is the amendment application and REG-16 the cancellation application.