Indian GST for foreign suppliers — what part of this actually needs a professional?
Some of it, yes — and we will say so on the call if that is the honest answer. The parts that are worth paying for are the ones where a missed election, a missed deadline or an unverified threshold costs more than the fee: digital services to Indian consumers fall in a dedicated regime with simplified registration, while supplies to Indian businesses may be handled by the recipient under reverse charge.
What if I have already filed and got it wrong?
That is a common starting point. We re-derive the position, identify whether an amendment or a disclosure route is the right vehicle, and tell you which one preserves the relief that is still available. The order matters more than the speed.
How long will it take?
It depends on the documents rather than on us. Once the pack is complete most filings turn around inside a fortnight; anything that needs a certificate from a tax authority runs on that authority's timetable, which we tell you at the start rather than at the end.
Do I need to register for Indian GST if I have no office in India?
An office is not what triggers the obligation. India looks at what you supply and to whom. A foreign supplier of taxable services to Indian consumers falls inside a dedicated regime with a simplified registration route, and registration there does not depend on having premises or staff in the country. Supplies made to Indian businesses are a different question, because the recipient may be required to account for the tax itself under the reverse charge. So the first piece of work is never the registration form. It is establishing, customer by customer, which side of that line your sales sit on, because that determines whether you register at all.
My Indian customer says they will pay the tax under reverse charge?
They may well be right, and if they are, you do not collect Indian tax on that sale. The reverse charge shifts the accounting obligation to the recipient where the recipient is a business. What matters is whether that is true of every customer, or only of the ones who told you. A supplier who takes the customer's word on the whole book usually finds a group of consumers mixed in among the businesses, and those supplies belong in the consumer regime instead. Keep the evidence of status that you relied on for each customer, because that evidence is what supports the treatment if it is later questioned.
Do I need a representative in India to register for GST?
The consumer-facing regime for foreign suppliers is built around a representative and its own return cycle, so a foreign supplier is not simply issued a number and left to file. Appointing someone, and agreeing what they are responsible for, is part of the registration rather than an optional extra afterwards. That relationship also decides practical things: who holds the credentials, who prepares the periodic returns, and who receives correspondence from the authorities. Settle it before the registration goes in. Suppliers who register first and arrange the representative afterwards tend to miss their first return cycle while the arrangement is still being negotiated.
Does the marketplace collect Indian GST for me or do I?
Usually it does some of it. A marketplace that collects tax on the sales it processes leaves untouched every sale you make outside it: direct subscriptions, invoices raised to a business, renewals taken on your own payment page. The common mistake is reading the marketplace's tax report as a statement about your whole Indian turnover. It is a statement about the marketplace's own channel. Split your Indian revenue by channel first, then ask which regime each channel sits in. The residue outside the marketplace is what decides whether you have a registration obligation of your own, and it is frequently larger than the operator's report suggests.
How do I tell whether an Indian customer is a business or a consumer?
By collecting and keeping something that shows it, at the point of sale rather than afterwards. Customer status is the fact that decides which treatment applies, so it is the fact an auditor will test first. A registration number supplied by the customer, a business address, the nature of the entity on the invoice and the account's own sign-up data all contribute. What does not work is a self-declaration tick box with nothing behind it. Build the check into the checkout and the invoicing system so that the evidence is created automatically as sales are made. Reconstructing status for several years of past customers is slow and often inconclusive.
What if I have been selling into India for years without registering?
Start by sizing it rather than by filing something. Work out, for each past period, how much of the Indian revenue was consumer-facing, how much went to businesses that would have accounted for the tax themselves, and how much was collected by a marketplace on your behalf. Those three buckets have very different consequences, and the exposure is usually smaller than the gross Indian turnover implies. Once the position is quantified you can decide how to approach the authorities and in what order to register and correct. Doing it the other way round, registering first and analysing later, forecloses options that are open while the position is still being prepared.
What is the Liberalised Remittance Scheme?
The Reserve Bank of India framework under which a resident individual may remit up to an annual ceiling for permitted purposes — education, medical treatment, travel, maintenance of relatives, investment in shares or property abroad — with gifts and loans to non-residents inside the same ceiling. You declare the purpose to the bank on Form A2. The ceiling and the excluded purposes are set by the RBI and have changed more than once, so the figure to work from is the one current at the date of the transfer. See Form A2 and LRS remittances.
Is my Indian provident fund or PPF still tax-free now that I live abroad?
The exemption is an Indian one, and it does not travel. Your new country of residence taxes worldwide income under its own rules, and several — the United States in particular — may treat the annual growth in a foreign retirement or savings plan as currently taxable and separately reportable, whether or not you withdrew anything. So an account that is genuinely tax-free in India can be a taxable, reportable asset where you now live. See Indian pensions received abroad.
