To bill a B2C customer without a GSTIN, you issue an ordinary tax invoice and simply leave the buyer’s GSTIN blank — a walk-in retail customer is unregistered, so there is no GSTIN to enter. You still put your shop’s GSTIN, a unique invoice number, the items and the correct CGST/SGST (or IGST) on the bill. This guide explains what a B2C bill needs, how the place of supply works when the buyer isn’t registered, the ₹200 rule, and a worked small-shop example that adds up cleanly.
Do you need a GSTIN to bill a B2C customer?
There are two kinds of sales, and only one needs the buyer’s GSTIN:
- B2B — you sell to another registered business. Their GSTIN goes on the invoice so they can claim input tax credit.
- B2C — you sell to an ordinary consumer who isn’t registered under GST. There is no buyer GSTIN, and none is required.
Most sales in a kirana store, pharmacy or general store are B2C. The bill is still a full tax invoice — the only difference is the buyer’s GSTIN field stays empty.
What a B2C bill still must show
Even without a buyer GSTIN, a B2C tax invoice carries the usual mandatory fields under the CGST Rules (see the official rules on cbic.gov.in):
| Field | Notes for a B2C sale |
|---|---|
| Your shop’s name, address & GSTIN | Printed once at the top. |
| Invoice number | Unique and consecutive for the financial year, e.g. INV2026-27/0042. |
| Date of issue | DD/MM/YYYY. |
| Buyer’s name & address | Optional for small B2C sales; required at ₹50,000 or more. |
| Buyer’s GSTIN | Blank for an unregistered customer. |
| Description, quantity & unit | e.g. “Toor Dal, 2 kg”. |
| Taxable value | Item value after any per-line discount. |
| Tax rate & amount | CGST + SGST, or IGST. |
| Place of supply | The buyer’s state — decides the tax split. |
| Signature | Physical or digital signature of the supplier. |
For a large B2C sale — currently ₹50,000 or more to an unregistered buyer — you should still capture the buyer’s name, address and state so an inter-state sale is recorded correctly. Confirm the current threshold on cbic.gov.in or with your CA.
Place of supply when the buyer has no GSTIN
Without a GSTIN, how do you know whether to charge CGST + SGST or IGST? You use the place of supply. For a sale to an unregistered person, the place of supply is the buyer’s state as recorded on the invoice; if you don’t record a state, the law treats the place of supply as your own shop’s state. Mentioning just the buyer’s state name is enough — you don’t need a full address for the tax to be correct.
In practice, for a walk-in customer standing at your counter:
- Same state (intra-state): split the GST into CGST + SGST, each at half the rate.
- Different state (inter-state): charge a single IGST at the full rate.
If you don’t know the buyer’s state, defaulting to your own state (an intra-state CGST + SGST bill) is the safe, rule-consistent choice. For a deeper walk-through, see our guide to the difference between CGST, SGST and IGST.
The ₹200 rule: when you can skip the individual bill
For very small sales the law gives shops a break. If the sale is under ₹200, the customer is unregistered, and they don’t ask for a bill, you don’t have to issue an individual tax invoice — you keep a consolidated record of those small sales for the day instead. If the customer asks for a bill, you must still give one. This threshold can change, so confirm the current rule on cbic.gov.in or with your CA.
Most shops simply print every bill anyway — it’s faster than deciding case by case, and it keeps your daily sales total clean for record-keeping.
Worked example: a walk-in sale in Bhopal
Meena runs a general store in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. A walk-in customer — no GSTIN — buys two things:
- A steel tiffin box: taxable value ₹600, taxed at 18%.
- A pack of school notebooks: taxable value ₹400, taxed at 5%.
Both the shop and the customer are in Madhya Pradesh, so this is an intra-state sale — CGST + SGST, each at half the rate. The buyer’s GSTIN box stays blank.
| Item | Taxable | Rate | CGST | SGST |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Steel tiffin box | ₹600 | 18% | ₹54 | ₹54 |
| School notebooks | ₹400 | 5% | ₹10 | ₹10 |
| Total | ₹1,000 | ₹64 | ₹64 |
Adding it up: taxable ₹1,000 + CGST ₹64 + SGST ₹64 = ₹1,128. That is a complete, compliant B2C tax invoice — no buyer GSTIN needed. Because the sale is under ₹50,000, Meena doesn’t have to record the customer’s name and address either.
(GST rates change — the 18% and 5% figures above are examples. Confirm the rate for each item on cbic.gov.in or with your CA before you rely on them.)
Doing this without the headache
At a busy counter you don’t want to stop and think about which tax split applies or whether this sale crosses ₹50,000. The right approach is to bill every customer the same simple way and let the software get the details right.
Yojika is offline-first GST billing software built for exactly this. For a walk-in B2C sale you just add items and print — the tax engine sets CGST/SGST or IGST from the place of supply, the invoice number stays unique and consecutive for the financial year, and the buyer GSTIN field is simply left blank when there isn’t one. You can print to A4, A5 or a thermal receipt printer, in any of the 22 official Indian languages, and your business data stays on your own PC.
- See what’s included on the features page.
- Check simple, transparent pricing.
- Or download Yojika and try it free for 14 days.
New to GST bills? Start with our GST invoice format for small shops.
This article is general information, not tax advice. GST rules and thresholds change — confirm the current position on gst.gov.in or with your CA.