GSTN notified Enhancements to Address-Related Fields in GST Registration Functionalities

The Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN) has notified Enhancements to Address-Related Fields in GST Registration Functionalities.

The Following enhancements have been made to address related fields in the registration functionalities: New Registration, Amendment Application (Core & Non-Core), and Geocoding Business Addresses.

These enhancements are based on ticket analysis and user input. The details are as follows:

1. Update in Validations applicable while entering the address in address-related fields.

a. Address is in India:

• • The fields PIN Code, State, District, and City/Town/Village are interlinked and must be selected from the autosuggestions.
  • For other fields, the taxpayer in addition to alphanumeric values can add limited special characters such as Hyphen (-), Forward Slash (/), Ampersand (&), Comma (,), Apostrophes (‘), Hash(#), Period(.), Small Brackets (), Inverted Commas (“”), Colon (:), Semi Colon (;), Underscore (_) and Space. Other Special Characters are not allowed.
  • Additionally, special characters are not permitted at the start of the entry.
  • Example: When entering an address, you can input “123 Main St. #4, Apt (5A)” but not “#123 Main St.” as special characters like the hash(#) are not permitted at the beginning.

b. Address is outside India:

• • Taxpayers can input any value for Zip Code, State, and District except special characters'{}.
  • For other fields: Taxpayer can enter alphanumeric values and limited special characters such as Hyphen (-), Forward Slash (/), Ampersand (&), Comma (,), Apostrophes (‘), Hash(#), Period(.), Small Brackets (), Inverted Commas (“”), Colon (:), Semi Colon (;), Underscore (_) and Space. Other Special Characters are not allowed.
  • Furthermore, special characters are not permitted at the beginning of entries for fields other than zip code, district, and state.

2. Proper instructions have been added to address fields on whether input values are permitted or prohibited for the given field. Hovering over the icon would allow taxpayers to view these instructions.\

3. The above changes would have no effect on data that has already been saved in the system, even if it contains special characters that are no longer allowed. However, if a taxpayer files an amendment application and edits the tab containing address details, the system will validate the address using the above logic.

4. The changes were made in response to tickets raised by users who were unaware of the characters that could and could not be used in address fields, as well as which fields could be edited and which could only be selected from a drop-down menu. One such specific case was when taxpayers were inserting a hash (#) at the beginning of the Building Number field. In such cases, the help desk or support team informed the taxpayer to remove the hash (#) character and submit the application again.

5. The above changes are applicable to Normal Taxpayers – Regular, SEZ Unit, SEZ Developer, Composition, Input Service Distributer and Casual Taxpayers.

6. In addition, the field of locality/sub-locality is not mandatory

• If the Locality/Sub-locality field is left blank or mapped to another Pin Code, the system will display the following warning message: “Locality/Sub-locality does not match the Pin Code. Would you like to save the details?” or “You did not enter Locality/Sub-locality. Do you want to save the information and proceed?”
• For example, if you enter the Pin Code 123456 but leave the Locality/Sub-locality field blank, you will see the message “You have not filled in Locality/Sub-locality.” Do you want to save the information and proceed?”
• In such circumstances, click “YES” to continue the registration process, and the system will enable you to move forward.