GST Late Fee Calculator.

Under Section 47 of the CGST Act read with the equivalent state act, the late fee for GSTR-3B is Rs 50 per day of delay, made up of Rs 25 under CGST and Rs 25 under SGST, and Rs 20 per day (Rs 10 plus Rs 10) for a nil return. CBIC Notification 19/2021 capped the fee from the June 2021 tax period onwards: Rs 500 for a nil return, Rs 2,000 for taxpayers with aggregate turnover up to Rs 1.5 crore in the previous financial year, Rs 5,000 for turnover between Rs 1.5 crore and Rs 5 crore, and Rs 10,000 for turnover above Rs 5 crore. All these figures are the CGST and SGST amounts added together. The calculator applies these rates and caps and shows the split.

The per-day rate is the same, Rs 50 for a regular return and Rs 20 for a nil return, and Notification 20/2021 applied the same turnover-based caps of Rs 500, Rs 2,000, Rs 5,000 and Rs 10,000 from June 2021. The difference is in how it is collected. GSTR-1 has no payment of tax attached to it, so no interest arises, and the portal does not demand the GSTR-1 late fee at the time of filing GSTR-1. Instead it is auto-populated in the next GSTR-3B, where it must be paid before that return can be submitted. Taxpayers under the QRMP scheme who use the Invoice Furnishing Facility are treated the same way for the quarterly GSTR-1.

Section 50(1) charges interest at 18 percent per annum on the tax paid late, calculated for the number of days from the day after the due date to the date of payment. Since the 2022 amendment, interest applies only to the portion of tax paid through the electronic cash ledger, not to tax set off against input tax credit. The formula is tax multiplied by 18 percent multiplied by days divided by 365. On Rs 1,00,000 paid 30 days late the interest is Rs 1,479.45. Interest is not capped, so for a large liability it is the bigger of the two costs. A separate 24 percent rate under Section 50(3) applies to wrongly availed and utilised input tax credit, which this calculator does not cover.

For financial years up to 2021-22 the fee was Rs 200 per day (Rs 100 CGST plus Rs 100 SGST) capped at 0.5 percent of turnover in the state or union territory. Notification 07/2023 reduced it from FY 2022-23: Rs 50 per day capped at 0.04 percent of state turnover for taxpayers with aggregate turnover up to Rs 5 crore, Rs 100 per day capped at 0.04 percent for turnover between Rs 5 crore and Rs 20 crore, and Rs 200 per day capped at 0.5 percent for turnover above Rs 20 crore. Filing GSTR-9 has been made optional for taxpayers with aggregate turnover up to Rs 2 crore in recent years, so check whether you were required to file at all before computing a fee. The due date is 31 December following the financial year.

Yes. A registered taxpayer must file every return for every period, including months with no sales and no tax, and a nil return filed late attracts Rs 20 per day (Rs 10 CGST plus Rs 10 SGST), capped at Rs 500 per return for GSTR-3B and GSTR-1 since June 2021. The common mistake is assuming that nothing to report means nothing to file. Nil GSTR-3B and GSTR-1 can be filed in under a minute on the portal or by sending an SMS from the registered mobile number, so there is no reason to let them pile up. If the business has genuinely stopped, apply for cancellation of registration so that the obligation to file ends.

Not by the taxpayer, but the government periodically notifies amnesty schemes. There have been several since 2017, most recently waivers and reduced caps for GSTR-3B, GSTR-4, GSTR-9 and GSTR-10 returns pending from earlier periods, typically conditional on filing within a window. Section 128 gives the government the power to waive late fees by notification. Outside such a scheme, the fee computed by the portal is final and must be paid before the return is accepted. Interest, however, is statutory under Section 50 and is not usually covered by late fee amnesty schemes. Check the CBIC notifications page or ask your CA whether a scheme is open before you pay for very old returns.

The late fee accrues on each return separately until it hits the cap, so six unfiled regular GSTR-3B returns for a small taxpayer can cost up to Rs 12,000 in fees plus interest on any tax. After two consecutive unfiled GSTR-3B returns the e-way bill facility is blocked, which stops goods from moving. Your customers cannot see your invoices in their GSTR-2B, so they lose input credit and may stop buying from you. The department can issue a notice in Form GSTR-3A, assess tax on a best-judgement basis under Section 62, and eventually cancel the registration under Section 29 for six months of continuous non-filing. Filing promptly, even nil returns, avoids all of this.

No. It covers the three returns that most regular taxpayers file: GSTR-3B, GSTR-1 and GSTR-9. Composition taxpayers file CMP-08 quarterly and GSTR-4 annually, with a late fee of Rs 50 per day (Rs 20 for nil) capped at Rs 2,000 for GSTR-4 under Notification 21/2021, and the final return GSTR-10 on cancellation carries Rs 200 per day up to Rs 10,000, with amnesty caps announced from time to time. The per-day logic is the same, so you can approximate those by using the GSTR-3B option and ignoring the cap, but confirm the cap for that specific return before paying.