What Is GSTR 1 Return: Eligibility, Format & Filing Process

In India’s dynamic taxation and financial ecosystem, the GST Act serves a major purpose to maintain accountability and smooth operations of businesses. To further aid the process, the GST Council has proposed various GST returns that need to be submitted online according to prescribed formats. 

GSTR-1 return is one such important statement that acts like an in-depth report of a registered business’ turnover. One must upload this form either monthly or quarterly declaring all of their sales records for a particular tax period. 

Read on to find out how to file GSTR-1, when it is due, and who needs to file it.

What Is GSTR-1?

The GSTR-1 return is an official declaration that every registered taxpayer files either monthly/quarterly. This document should meet the following criteria:

• It should reveal the particulars of all sales and supplies made by a taxpayer throughout a certain tax period. 
• However, for composition dealers and foreign taxpayers, GSTR-1 is not required. 

Who Is Liable to File GSTR-1 Form?

All the registered taxpayers are required to submit the GSTR-1 return. This is compulsory irrespective of the volume of transactions or sales recorded for a specific tax period. This means even if an entity has no sales during a certain period then also they have to upload the Form GSTR-1. 

Given below are some entities that do not need to file a GSTR-1 return:

• An Input Service Distributor (ISD): You will be counted within this category if you get invoices for services utilised by other branches of your business. 
• Composition Dealer: If you are a registered taxable person under the GST composition scheme then you are treated as a composition dealer. Companies with a turnover of up to ₹1.5 crore annually can get registered under this scheme. 
• Non-resident Taxable People: To become a non-resident taxable person, you have to import supplies from outside or operate a business on behalf of an NRI person. 

GSTR-1 Due Date

Depending on a businessperson’s aggregate turnover, their due dates for filing the GSTR-1 form are set. For instance, businesses that register sales of up to ₹5 crore in a year have the option to register under the QRMP scheme and submit quarterly returns. For them, the GSTR-1 return will be due by the 13th of the upcoming month following a given quarter. 

However, taxpayers who are outside the QRMP scheme or those who earn ₹5 crore or more in a year need to file the GSTR-1 monthly. They have to upload the details before the 11th of the upcoming month. 

How Much Is the GSTR-1 Late Filing Fee?

At present, one has to bear ₹50 per day as a penalty for filing GSTR-1 after the deadline. In the case of nil returns, they must bear ₹20 per delayed day. Earlier, the late fee used to be ₹200 (₹100 according to the CGST Act and ₹100 as per the CGST). 

Prerequisites for Filing GSTR-1

To start filing GSTR-1, you should be a GST-registered taxpayer with a valid 15-digit GSTIN that can be generated with PAN card details. Also, you need to satisfy the following two criteria:

• You have to maintain detailed invoices bearing unique serial numbers to record your sales. This should cover both intra-state and inter-state transactions and retail-to-business as well as business-to-business sales. 
• Eventually, you need an OTP sent to your given contact number to verify the return with an electronic verification code or EVC. Otherwise, you can file the GSTR-1 return online by carrying out an Aadhaar-based e-sign. 

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How to File GSTR-1?

Given below is the step-by-step guideline on how to file a GSTR-1 return online:

Step 1: Open the official GST portal and enter your GSTIN account by providing the correct username and password.

Step 2: Click on the ‘Services’ option on the homepage and go to the ‘Returns Dashboard’.

Step 3: Mention the appropriate return filing period and financial year by using the drop-down feature. After this, you have to select the right filing frequency. To decide on this, you must consider the average turnover of your business. After selecting, click on ‘Search’.

Step 4: You will see a section marked as ‘Details of outward supplies of goods or services’. Click on ‘PREPARE ONLINE’ under this section You can even opt for the ‘PREPARE OFFLINE’ option if you have more than 500 invoices for a particular tax period.

Step 5: Fill out the necessary fields. 

Step 6: Click on ‘Generate GSTR Summary’ followed by ‘Preview’ to obtain a copy of your GSTR-1 form.

Step 7: Now, select the option marked as ‘File Return’ and you will get two options:

• File with EVC
• File with DSC

Select any of these two options to complete the GSTR-1 return filing process. 

GSTR-1 Form and Format

The GSTR-1 return format includes a wide range of details like a taxpayer’s outward supplies and sales records. In this section, let us take a quick look at the format. 

In the first section, the taxpayer must mention the relevant year followed by the tax period. Next, the sections after this ask for the below-mentioned details during this tax period:

1. GSTIN: It is a unique PAN-based 15-digit number assigned by tax authorities to every individual GST-registered taxpayer. 
2. Name of the Taxpayer: Under this head, one needs to mention their legal name and the trade name of the business.
3. Turnover of the Taxpayer: 

This section is further divided into subsections (a) and (b). The first one declares aggregate turnover in the preceding fiscal year. On the other hand, the next row records the value of sales and supplies that your business made starting from the beginning of the new financial year to GST rollout. 

4. Taxable Outward Supplies Towards Registered Persons Eliminating the Items of Table 6

Further, this header is divided into three distinct sections:

• The first one covers invoice-wise particulars of all taxable B2B supplies that a registered taxpayer completed for a specific period. However, it does not count sales that incur reverse charges or sales completed via e-commerce portals. The taxpayer must reveal the breakdown of SGST, CGST and IGST for each transaction. 
• Next, you see the B2B sales registered during the current period that draws reverse charge. These can be services offered by an online cab-booking platform, facilities provided by a goods transport agency and so on. 
• In the third subsection, you see supplies made online via an e-commerce operator. Taxpayers must segregate this information by mentioning the separate GSTINs of each e-commerce platform. 

5. Taxable Outward Supplies (Interstate) Made to Unregistered Persons Where the Invoice Amount is Exceeding ₹2.50 lakh:

In this section, one has to declare the sales made to high-ticket customers or unregistered businesses. It is further divided into two parts as follows:

The first half must convey invoice details of inter-state B2C transactions (sales made to end consumers) and B2B supplies (sales made to businesses not registered under the GST regime). However, e-commerce sales need to be included in this part. 

The second half of Section 5 of the GSTR-1 return features invoice particulars of inter-state B2C supplies that were completed online. Some details that you must put here include the GSTIN of the concerned e-commerce operator, taxable value, place of supply, etc. 

6. Zero-rated Supplies and Deemed Exports

Here, you need to mention these details:

• All exports your business made throughout the quoted tax period. Against each transaction, you must provide the respective invoice particulars, shipping bills and specifics of any taxes involved. 
• Then, the supplies made to consumers residing in Special Economic Zones (SEZs) must also be included.
• Finally, under this table, you must highlight the deemed exports that you have completed in the said tax period. As per Section 8.1, Chapter 8 of Foreign Trade Policy 2015-2020, businesses should consider specific items as exports even before they leave India. 

Thus, businesses that supply products to software or hardware technology hubs, Export Oriented Units or government-funded projects need to address this field. 

7. Taxable Supplies (Aggregate of Credit Notes and Debit Notes) Made to Unregistered Consumers, Eliminating Supplies Mentioned Under Table 5:

Under this table, a taxpayer needs to put rate-wise details of sales and supplies completed during a specific tax period. It encompasses the tax received for different heads:

• Intrastate Sales
  • Here, you have to give consolidated details of both online and offline B2C sales.
  • Besides the sales particulars, you must provide the GSTINs of the e-commerce operators involved (for the online transactions).
• Interstate Sales for Which the Invoice Amount Has Not Exceeded ₹2.5 Lakh
  • This part should contain details regarding all the B2C supplies including the place of supply.
  • Particulars of B2C sales executed online. It is essential to mention the concerned e-commerce operator’s GSTIN. 

8. Nil-rated Supplies, Exempt Supplies and non-GST Outward Supplies:

This table is all about capturing the sales descriptions of services/items that are nil-rated supplies as per the GST law. It also covers exempt supplies (resources that do not incur GST for the taxpayer and do not allow claiming input tax credit on the tax paid for inputs) and non-GST supplies (those supplies that may attract other taxes but are not subject to GST). 

The individual sections of the Table 8 are discussed here:

• Interstate Supplies Towards Registered Persons: It holds information about all the B2B sales completed by registered businesses in other states apart from their own. 
• Interstate Supplies Made to a Registered Person: This contains B2B sales executed locally (within the same state as the business’ address)
• Interstate Sales Made to Unregistered Persons and Consumers: B2C sales accomplished where the consumer is either an end customer or an unregistered business in some other state.
• Intrastate Supplies Made to Unregistered Persons and Consumers: This simply lists down B2C sales completed locally. 

9. Details of Changes to Taxable Outward Supplies That Were Furnished in GST Returns for Previous Tax Periods in Tables 4,5 and 6:

By utilising this section, a taxpayer can reflect corrections or changes to the sales statements that have already been submitted in an earlier tax period. 

Table 9 includes:

• Specifics of wrong shipping bills and incorrect invoices uploaded with previous returns in addition to rectifications
• Original debit notes, refund vouchers and credit notes generated during the running tax period
• Amendments made to the refund vouchers, credit and debit notes filed in the previous tax periods. In this part, you also need to provide the description of the original invoice which needs to be changed along with the document number, GSTIN of the customer, date, etc. 

10. Amendments to Outward GST Supplies Made to Unregistered Persons Reported on Returns for Earlier Tax Periods:

This table is primarily composed of two sections that depict:

• Changes made to intrastate transactions (within the same state) and trades which were made in the previous tax periods (both offline and online). Additionally, the GSTINs of all the involved entities can be found in this section.
• You can use the second half of Table 10 of the GSTR-1 return to report corrections to inter-state supplies that were completed in earlier tax periods.

11. Consolidated Statement of Advances Collected or Adjustments Made in the Present Tax Period, Combining Changes From Earlier Periods:

The eleventh table captures:

• a. Advance amounts collected by a taxpayer during the current tax period that is yet to be invoiced (both the advance payments for interstate as well as intrastate supplies are covered here)
• b. Advance amounts collected by taxpayers during the previous periods that have been adjusted with the supplies produced at present in tables 4, 5, 6 and 7.
• c. Any changes made to the information put under subsection 11A of the previously filed tax returns

12. HSN-wise Summary of Outward Supplies

In this segment, you must provide an HSN-wise declaration of the items sold by your business. This contains the total quantity sold, Unit Quantity Codes (for imports and exports) and tax value beneath each tax segment. 

Note: All taxpayers need to report a minimum of 4-digits or 6-digits of the HSN Code in Table 12 of the GSTR-1 compulsorily, on the basis of their Aggregate Annual Turnover (AATO) in the preceding financial year.

Later, in 2025, the manual entry of HSN codes was replaced by choosing the correct HSN from a given drop-down menu from the February return period.

13. Documents Submitted in the Tax Period

This table must list down the documents that you are providing while filing a GSTR-1 return. It contains:

• Invoices for outward supply
• Invoices issued against inward supplies received from unregistered person
• Debit notes (these are demand notes issued by your business addressing customers after the supply has taken place)
• Credit notes (includes post-sales concessions and other forms of refunds given to customers)
• Revised invoices
• Receipt vouchers
• Payment vouchers
• Refund vouchers
• Delivery challans

Finally, at the end of the GSTR-1 return statement, a declaration of truth paragraph is written. It needs to be addressed by an authorised return filer of your company. 

Conclusion

The GSTR-1 return is a crucial document when it comes to maintaining overall tax compliance. Also, there is no provision to bring changes once it has been filed. If you make a mistake in GSTR-1, it has to be rectified in the GSTR-1A of the same tax period which can be a tedious job. 

So, to streamline filing returns, you can get expert help from tax professionals who can keep your business running smoothly.

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