New Rule from April 2025: No ITC if Invoice Not Uploaded Within 30 Days on GST Portal

Starting April 1, 2025, the Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN) will enforce a rule requiring businesses with an annual aggregate turnover (AATO) of Rs 10 crore and above to upload e-invoices on the Invoice Registration Portal (IRP) within 30 days of issuance. The move will extend a restriction that currently applies only to taxpayers with AATO of Rs 100 crore and above. The new rule aims to streamline compliance and minimize issues related to input tax credit (ITC) by requiring timely reporting.

GSTN has specified that in case an e-invoice is uploaded beyond the stipulated period of 30 days, the portal would automatically reject the same and therefore would no longer be valid for claiming any ITC. Thus, an invoice dated April 1, 2025, would now have to be uploaded by April 30, 2025. It might have serious consequences if done so a little late. Delay in uploading Tax Invocie would make the same inavlid and an invalid e-invoice compromises a buyer’s chance to claim input tax credit and might affect cash flows and business operations since the buyer, or even the transporters, reject shipments without an e-invoice that is valid and in compliance.

Experts on GST point out that this change is essentially an attempt to reduce the delay in availing ITCs and encouraging disciplined reporting of e-invoices. Since the process of e-invoice is actually a part and parcel of GST, both parties to the transaction will need to upload within due time; non-compliance would also attract penalty and higher scrutiny by tax authorities.

For example, if the tax payer uploads the e-invoice after the due date, then the invoice has to be mandatorily reported in the return Form GSTR-1 for that month or the following month. Similarly, the same amount of tax shall be paid in Form GSTR 3B along with an interest rate of 18% per annum for delayed payment. Thus, missed e-invoices should be reported in GST returns without delay to avoid extra cost.

It further clarifies that this 30-day rule for uploading, however will not be applied on those businesses whose AATO is below Rs 10 crores. By this step, many have considered it as an aid to the process of getting to higher efficiency in the tax system. It’s beneficial as this reduced e-invoice threshold to Rs 10 crore helps the system to improve data accuracy, reduce manual mistakes, and allows quicker reconciliation of GST records of both businesses and tax authorities.

Whereas e-invoicing has observed to impose a 30-day limitation on the GST portal rather than an explicit requirement under the law, it ensures orderly processing by making uploading necessary within a specific point in time. This procedural change will encourage GST taxpayers to stay within the deadline and evade several issues which the delayed uploading of e-invoices causes.

An example scenario was proposed to understand the advisory that if a supplier issues an invoice on April 1, 2025, it needs to be uploaded as e-invoice by April 30, 2025, to be considered valid. The e-invoice will create an IRN along with a QR code validating and bringing much-needed transparency to the transaction. Lacking the generation in time, the invoice may land up as not compliant under rule 46, ending the chances for ITC claims on behalf of the buyer.

The advisory further states that the deadline of 30 days ensures there is lesser delay with effective reconciliation of the records of taxpayers with the GST filings while also ensuring address to the concerns regarding the delayed GST payments, which now become easier to track from the authorities end.

More importantly, the advisory puts forward a shift in GST compliance altogether digitally and makes it an integral step in the process, making the upload of an invoice indispensable for eligibility to tax credits. The move by the government brings forth real-time tracking of taxes and strengthens the structure of digital transactions.