Invoicing rules for marketplace sellers.
A compliant tax invoice is not a formality — it is the document your GST returns are built on. Here is what a tax invoice must contain, when a bill of supply applies instead, the fields you cannot skip, and where the e-invoicing threshold sits.
- A tax invoice is what a registered seller issues for a taxable supply, showing the GST charged.
- It must carry defined fields: your GSTIN, invoice number and date, buyer details, HSN, taxable value, tax rate and amount, place of supply.
- A bill of supply is used instead where no GST is charged — match the document to the tax position.
- E-invoicing (IRN + QR from the government portal) applies above a turnover threshold that has been lowered in stages.
- Your invoices feed GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B — keep them consistent with your settlements. Rules change; confirm with a CA.
Invoicing looks like paperwork, and sellers treat it as an afterthought — until a wrong GSTIN or a missing field ripples into a wrong return. This guide covers the invoice rules that matter for a marketplace seller, in plain terms. It is general information, not tax advice: the specific fields, thresholds and retention periods are set by law, change over time, and should be confirmed on the GST portal and with a chartered accountant.
An invoice is the smallest unit of your tax compliance — get it right and your returns have clean foundations; get it wrong and every downstream filing inherits the error. For a marketplace seller shipping many orders, invoicing is less about any single document and more about a consistent, correct process repeated at scale.
What a tax invoice is
A tax invoice is the document a registered seller issues for a taxable supply. It records the GST you charged, giving the buyer evidence of the tax and, where they are eligible, a basis for input credit. It is not optional decoration — it is the primary record that a taxable transaction happened and how much GST attached to it. Everything in your GST returns traces back to these invoices, so their accuracy is the accuracy of your whole GST position.
The fields you cannot skip
A compliant tax invoice carries a defined set of details. In broad strokes: your name, address and GSTIN; a consecutive invoice number and date; the recipient’s details and, if registered, their GSTIN; the HSN code and description of the goods; quantity, unit and taxable value; any discount; the GST rate and amount, split into CGST/SGST or IGST; and the place of supply for inter-state sales. Miss a required field and the document is defective, even if the maths is right. Because the precise list is set by the GST invoice rules and can be amended, verify against the current rules rather than a remembered template.
Tax invoice versus bill of supply
Not every document is a tax invoice. Where no GST is charged — a composition-scheme dealer, exempt goods — you issue a bill of supply instead, which shows no tax amount. Using a tax invoice where a bill of supply belongs (or the reverse) misstates the tax position of the sale. The rule is simple to state and easy to get wrong at volume: match the document to whether GST actually applies to that supply.
E-invoicing and the threshold
E-invoicing adds a step for businesses above a turnover threshold: before an invoice is valid for GST purposes, it must be reported to the government’s Invoice Registration Portal, which returns an IRN and a QR code. The threshold has been lowered in stages over time, pulling more sellers into scope with each reduction. Whether you are within it depends on your aggregate turnover against the current limit — and because that limit keeps moving, this is one to re-check each year rather than assume you are below. Confirm the latest threshold on the portal and with your CA.
Invoices feed your returns
Invoicing is not a sidecar to your GST filing — it is its source. Your tax invoices are the outward-supply data that flows into GSTR-1 and, in aggregate, your GSTR-3B. If your invoices disagree with your settlements — a different value, a missing order, a wrong tax rate — your returns inherit the discrepancy. That is why invoicing, settlement reconciliation and return filing have to move together. The same payout reconciliation discipline that protects your margin also keeps your invoice and return data consistent, and our guide on building GSTR-1 from marketplace reports connects the invoice data to the return.
Records and retention
Invoices are not disposable. GST law requires records — invoices included — to be retained for a prescribed period, and income-tax law has its own expectations. The durations are set by statute and can change, so the safe practice is to keep invoices and settlement records organised and retained for the longer applicable period, in a form you can produce if asked. Good document hygiene now is cheaper than reconstruction later; see our guide on the documents you need for marketplace selling.
Invoicing at scale is a process problem
For a seller shipping a handful of orders a week, getting an invoice right is a matter of care. For a seller shipping dozens a day across several marketplaces, it becomes a process problem — and processes fail differently from people. Individual care does not scale: nobody eyeballs the GSTIN on the two-hundredth invoice as closely as the second. What scales is consistency — a repeatable flow where the right GSTIN, the right fields, the right tax treatment and the right document type are applied the same way every time, so correctness does not depend on your attention holding across a busy day.
That is why invoicing, once volume climbs, stops being a paperwork task and becomes an operations task. The invoice is not a document you produce at the end; it is the output of a clean order-and-settlement flow, and it is only as accurate as the data behind it. Keep the order, settlement and document trail consistent across AJIO, Meesho and Amazon and your invoices inherit that consistency; let the underlying data drift and no amount of care at the invoice stage will save the returns downstream. Getting the process right early is far cheaper than reconstructing a year of mismatched documents later, and it is the same discipline that runs through payment reconciliation.
Sources & further reading
Invoice fields, e-invoicing thresholds and retention periods are all set by law and amended over time. Nothing here is definitive advice — confirm the current rules on the official portals and with a chartered accountant before you rely on them:
What goes on a compliant tax invoice
Miss a required field and the document is defective, even if every number is right. These are the load-bearing ones.
- Identity. Your name, address and GSTIN; the buyer’s details and GSTIN if registered.
- Number and date. A consecutive invoice number and the date of issue.
- Goods. HSN code, description, quantity, unit and taxable value.
- Tax. The GST rate and amount, split CGST/SGST or IGST, plus place of supply.
Matching the document to the supply
The right paper depends on the tax treatment and, in some cases, your turnover.
Tax invoice
The standard document for a taxable supply, showing the GST charged and all the required fields. This is most marketplace sales.
Bill of supply
Used where GST does not apply — composition dealers, exempt goods. No tax amount shown; matched to the actual tax position.
E-invoice (IRN + QR)
Once turnover crosses the current limit, invoices must be reported to the government portal for an IRN and QR code before they are valid.
Retained records
Whatever the document, keep it — retention periods are set by law and outlast the order by years. Organised now beats reconstructed later.
How Robnu keeps the document trail clean
Robnu is an agentic OMS, not an accounting package — it does not replace your invoicing or tax software, and the compliance obligation for a correct invoice stays with you as the registered supplier. What Robnu does is make sure the data those documents are built from is accurate and matched.
It keeps the order, settlement and document trail consistent across AJIO, Meesho and Amazon, so your invoice values agree with your settlements and your returns agree with both. And on the operations side it merges labels, manifests and shipping documents into one PDF per dispatch — less paper-shuffling around every order, fewer places for a document to go missing.
You sell, Robnu runs the rest — and the paperwork underneath your tax stays consistent.
Marketplace invoicing, answered
A tax invoice is the document a registered seller issues for a taxable supply, showing the GST charged so the buyer has evidence of the tax and, where eligible, a basis for input credit. It must carry a defined set of details — your GSTIN, an invoice number and date, the buyer's details, a description of the goods, taxable value, the tax rate and amount, and place of supply. It is distinct from a bill of supply, which is used where no GST is charged.
The core fields typically include your name, address and GSTIN; a consecutive invoice number and the date of issue; the recipient's name and, where registered, their GSTIN and address; the HSN code and description of goods; quantity and unit; taxable value and any discount; the GST rate and amount split into CGST/SGST or IGST; and the place of supply for inter-state transactions. The exact requirements are set by the GST invoice rules and can change, so verify against the current rules.
A tax invoice is issued when you charge GST on a taxable supply. A bill of supply is issued when GST is not charged — for example by a composition-scheme dealer or for exempt goods — and therefore does not show a tax amount. Using the wrong one misrepresents the tax position, so match the document to whether GST applies to that supply.
E-invoicing is a system where certain businesses must report invoices to a government portal (the Invoice Registration Portal) to obtain an IRN and QR code before the invoice is valid for GST purposes. It applies above a turnover threshold that has been lowered in stages over time. Whether you are within scope depends on your aggregate turnover against the current threshold, so check the latest limit — it changes — and confirm with your CA.
Marketplaces often provide invoicing support or templates as part of order processing, but the compliance obligation for a correct tax invoice rests with you as the registered supplier. Relying on an auto-generated document without checking it carries the right GSTIN, fields and tax treatment is a risk. Treat marketplace-generated invoices as a starting point you are responsible for verifying.
Your tax invoices are the source of your outward supply data — they feed GSTR-1 and, in aggregate, your GSTR-3B. If invoices are wrong or inconsistent with your settlements, your returns inherit the error. That is why invoicing, settlement reconciliation and return filing have to stay aligned rather than being treated as separate chores.
GST law requires records including invoices to be retained for a prescribed period, and income-tax law has its own retention expectations. The specific durations are set by statute and can change, so keep your invoices and settlement records organised and retained for the longer of the applicable periods, and confirm the current requirement with your accountant.
Robnu is an agentic OMS, not an accounting package — it does not replace your invoicing or tax software. What it does is keep the order, settlement and document trail consistent across AJIO, Meesho and Amazon, so the data your invoices and returns are built from is accurate and matched. It also merges labels, manifests and shipping documents into one PDF per dispatch, cutting the document handling around each order.
Related seller guides
More on the operations, money and claims that decide whether a marketplace catalogue actually makes money.
GSTIN for marketplace sellers: what it is and why you need one
Your 15-character tax registration, decoded — its structure, why marketplaces require it, and how it connects to the TCS credit most sellers never claim back.
Claim Your TCS Credit: The 1% Marketplaces Deduct That Most Sellers Never Recover
Marketplaces deduct 1% TCS on your sales and deposit it against your GSTIN. It sits waiting as a credit in your GST cash ledger — and most sellers never claim it. Here is how the credit works and how to claim it.
GST for Amazon, Flipkart, AJIO & Meesho Sellers (2026): The Fundamentals
A plain-language GST primer for Indian marketplace sellers — registration, GSTIN, the returns you file, TCS, input credit and the reconciliation that keeps it all straight across AJIO, Meesho, Amazon and Flipkart.
Income Tax Basics for Online Sellers: Presumptive Taxation (44AD) Explained
How income tax works for a marketplace seller — business income versus GST, the presumptive scheme under section 44AD, books and audit, advance tax, and the TDS you reconcile against your 26AS.
TCS & GST on marketplace sales: a seller's guide
TCS, TDS and GST explained for AJIO and Meesho sellers — current rates after the 2024 revisions, where the money goes, and how to reclaim the tax that's prepaid on your behalf.
The 1% TCS every marketplace deducts — and how to claim it back
TCS is not a fee — it is your money, deposited against your GSTIN and reclaimable at filing. How it works, why most sellers forfeit it, and how to reconcile it across marketplaces.
Meesho invoice printing and the GST mistakes sellers make
The Meesho invoice carries your GST details, and the mistakes on it are the ones that come back to bite. How invoices generate, the GST fields that matter, the common errors, and how to print them cleanly at volume.
TCS Reconciliation: From Marketplace Reports to Your GSTR
The TCS a marketplace deducts should equal the TCS it deposits against your GSTIN — but only reconciliation proves it. Here is how to match TCS collected to TCS credited, from settlement report to GST return.