E-Invoice Limit in GST: Turnover, IRN and 30-Day Rule

Quick answer: The GST e-invoice limit is aggregate annual turnover of more than Rs 5 crore in any financial year since 2017-18. Above that, every B2B invoice, export invoice, credit note and debit note must be reported to an Invoice Registration Portal (IRP) to get an Invoice Reference Number (IRN) and signed QR code. Taxpayers with turnover of Rs 10 crore or more must report within 30 days.

The e-invoice limit is the first thing most growing Indian businesses search for, usually after their accountant warns them they are close to it. This guide explains how the threshold works, what the IRN and IRP do, the 30-day reporting rule, exemptions, and what changes on the invoice itself. For the GST invoice fields that still apply below and above the limit (GSTIN, HSN or SAC, place of supply), read our GST invoice guide.

Important: This is general information, not tax or legal advice. CBIC and the GST Network change thresholds and portal rules by notification and advisory, sometimes with short notice. Check the official e-invoice portal and the latest CBIC notifications, or ask a chartered accountant, before relying on any figure here.

How the e-invoice limit has changed

E-invoicing started with the biggest taxpayers and has moved down steadily.

Effective from	Aggregate turnover threshold
1 October 2020	Above Rs 500 crore
1 January 2021	Above Rs 100 crore
1 April 2021	Above Rs 50 crore
1 April 2022	Above Rs 20 crore
1 October 2022	Above Rs 10 crore
1 August 2023	Above Rs 5 crore (current)

The test looks at any financial year from 2017-18 onwards. If your aggregate turnover crossed Rs 5 crore in 2024-25, for example, e-invoicing applies to you from 1 April 2025 and continues afterwards, even if 2025-26 turnover is lower.

What counts as aggregate turnover?

Aggregate turnover is calculated on a PAN basis, across all GSTINs registered under the same PAN in India. It includes taxable, exempt and export supplies and inter-state supplies between distinct persons with the same PAN, and excludes the GST itself and inward supplies on which you pay tax under reverse charge. A business with three state registrations that each turn over Rs 2 crore has an aggregate turnover of Rs 6 crore and is above the limit, even though no single GSTIN is.

What is an IRN, IRP and signed QR code?

• IRP (Invoice Registration Portal): the system that validates your invoice data. The government's NIC portals and several private IRPs authorised by GSTN all perform the same function, and you can choose which to use.
• IRN (Invoice Reference Number): a unique 64-character hash generated from your GSTIN, the document type, the financial year and the invoice number. It proves the invoice was registered.
• Signed QR code: returned by the IRP and printed on the invoice. It contains key invoice details, the IRN and the IRP's digital signature, so tax officers can verify it offline.

The flow is: your accounting system creates the invoice in the standard e-invoice schema (JSON), uploads it to an IRP, gets back the IRN and signed QR, then you send the invoice to the buyer. The IRP passes the data to the GST system, which pre-fills your GSTR-1 and, where relevant, generates an e-way bill. This is a clearance-style model; our e-invoicing guide compares it with Europe's Peppol networks.

Which documents need an IRN?

Document or supply	IRN needed (above the limit)?
Tax invoice for B2B supply to a registered buyer	Yes
Export invoice (with or without payment of IGST)	Yes
Supply to SEZ unit or developer	Yes
Deemed exports	Yes
Credit notes and debit notes on the above	Yes
B2B supplies where the buyer pays tax under reverse charge	Yes
B2C invoices to consumers	No (but dynamic QR above Rs 500 crore)
Bill of supply for exempt goods or services	No
Import bills of entry, delivery challans	No

Reverse charge has its own wording rules on the invoice; the logic is similar to the VAT treatment in our reverse charge invoice guide, though Indian GST has its own notified list of services.

The 30-day reporting rule

Large taxpayers used to be able to generate IRNs for older invoices. That loophole has closed in stages. A time limit was first introduced for taxpayers with aggregate turnover of Rs 100 crore or more, and from 1 April 2025 it applies to taxpayers with aggregate turnover of Rs 10 crore or more. These taxpayers cannot report an invoice, credit note or debit note to the IRP more than 30 days after the document date. The portal simply rejects it.

Why it matters: for an e-invoicing taxpayer, an invoice without a valid IRN is not treated as a valid tax invoice. Your customer may be unable to claim input tax credit, and you may face penalties for issuing an invalid invoice. Build IRN generation into the moment of invoicing, not a month-end batch.

Exemptions from e-invoicing

Some taxpayers do not need to generate IRNs, whatever their turnover:

• SEZ units (SEZ developers are not exempt)
• Insurance companies, banking companies and financial institutions, including NBFCs
• Goods transport agencies (GTA) carrying goods by road
• Suppliers of passenger transportation services
• Suppliers of admission to cinematograph exhibitions on multiplex screens
• Government departments and local authorities

If you claim an exemption, keep a note of the basis in your records; some taxpayers have been asked to file a self-declaration on the e-invoice portal.

Worked example: does this business cross the limit?

A Pune engineering firm has one GSTIN in Maharashtra and one in Karnataka. Turnover figures exclude GST.

Component (FY 2025-26)	Amount (Rs)
Taxable supplies, Maharashtra GSTIN	3,20,00,000
Taxable supplies, Karnataka GSTIN	1,45,00,000
Exports of services	40,00,000
Exempt supplies	5,00,000
Aggregate turnover	5,10,00,000

The maths: Rs 3.20 crore + Rs 1.45 crore + Rs 0.40 crore + Rs 0.05 crore = Rs 5.10 crore, which is above Rs 5 crore. Both GSTINs must issue e-invoices from 1 April 2026. Turnover is below Rs 10 crore, so the 30-day reporting limit does not yet apply, but reporting late is still poor practice. Interstate supplies between its own two GSTINs would also be included in aggregate turnover, so watch those if they are significant.

What changes on your invoice

Once you are above the limit, your invoice must carry the IRN and the signed QR code returned by the IRP. Everything else in the GST rules stays: GSTIN of supplier and recipient, invoice number and date, HSN or SAC codes, taxable value, rate, CGST, SGST or IGST amounts, and place of supply. The tax ID on an invoice guide explains how GSTINs compare with other tax numbers.

The invoice number series still matters. The IRP rejects a duplicate document number for the same GSTIN and financial year, so a clear numbering scheme helps; our invoice number generator is useful for planning one.

Common e-invoice errors and how to avoid them

Most IRP rejections and later disputes come from a handful of avoidable problems:

• Wrong buyer GSTIN or state code. The IRP checks the GSTIN against the GST database. A cancelled or mistyped GSTIN fails validation, and the wrong place of supply produces the wrong tax type (IGST instead of CGST and SGST, or the reverse).
• Duplicate document numbers. Reusing an invoice number in the same financial year is rejected. Keep separate series for invoices, credit notes and debit notes.
• Generating the IRN after sending the invoice. The buyer should receive the version that carries the IRN and QR code, not an earlier draft.
• Trying to edit an invoice after registration. An IRN cannot be amended. Cancel within 24 hours if the whole invoice is wrong, otherwise issue a credit or debit note.
• Ignoring the e-way bill link. Where goods move, the e-way bill can be generated from the e-invoice data, so transport details entered at invoicing time save work later.

Can I use a free invoice generator below and above the limit?

Below Rs 5 crore, yes: a clear PDF tax invoice with all the GST fields is normal practice, and our free invoice generator with the Classic template produces one in your browser without an account. Above the limit, a generator PDF is not enough for B2B supplies. Our tool does not create the e-invoice JSON, connect to an IRP or receive an IRN, so you need GST software, an ERP or a GST Suvidha Provider that does. You can still use a generator for quotations and proforma invoices before the sale.

Next step

Add up your aggregate turnover across every GSTIN under your PAN for each year since 2017-18. If any year is above Rs 5 crore, set up IRN generation in your accounting software before your next invoice, and check whether the 30-day rule applies too. For field-by-field invoice rules, go back to the GST invoice guide.