A GST invoice (called a tax invoice) is the bill you must give for every taxable sale once your shop is registered under GST. It isn’t just a receipt — the law lists specific fields it has to carry. Get one wrong and the buyer may not get their input tax credit, and your returns can mismatch. This guide lists exactly what a GST invoice format for small shops needs, shows a worked example, and gives you a simple layout to copy.
What a GST tax invoice must contain
Under the CGST Rules, a tax invoice for goods should include these fields (see the official rules on cbic.gov.in):
| # | Field | Notes for a small shop |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Your shop’s name, address & GSTIN | Printed once at the top. |
| 2 | Invoice number | Unique and consecutive for the financial year (e.g. INV2026-27/0001). |
| 3 | Date of issue | DD/MM/YYYY. |
| 4 | Buyer’s name, address & GSTIN | GSTIN only if the buyer is registered (B2B). |
| 5 | HSN code of each item | Digits depend on turnover — verify the current rule. |
| 6 | Description, quantity & unit | e.g. “Toor Dal, 2 kg”. |
| 7 | Taxable value | Item value after any discount. |
| 8 | Tax rate & amount | CGST + SGST, or IGST (see below). |
| 9 | Place of supply | The buyer’s state — decides the tax split. |
| 10 | Whether tax is on reverse charge | For ordinary retail sales this is normally “No”. |
| 11 | Signature | Physical or digital signature of the supplier. |
For a sale to an unregistered buyer (ordinary walk-in customers), you don’t need their GSTIN. If the sale value is large (currently ₹50,000 or more — confirm the current threshold), you should still capture the buyer’s name, address and state.
CGST + SGST or IGST? The one rule that trips people up
The tax you charge depends on where the sale is supplied, not where the buyer is standing:
- 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.
A quick example
Ravi runs a provision store in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. He sells ₹1,000 worth of biscuits (taxed at 18%) to a walk-in customer, also in Tamil Nadu.
- It’s an intra-state sale, so the 18% splits into CGST 9% = ₹90 and SGST 9% = ₹90.
- Invoice total = ₹1,000 + ₹90 + ₹90 = ₹1,180.
If the same order went to a customer in Kerala, it would be inter-state: IGST 18% = ₹180, and the total is still ₹1,180 — but shown as one IGST line, not two.
Getting this split right on every bill, by hand, across dozens of tax rates is exactly where small shops lose time (and make mistakes).
Invoice numbering: keep it clean for the whole year
Your invoice numbers must be unique and consecutive within a financial year (which in
India runs 1 April → 31 March). A common, safe format is a prefix + the year + a running
number, resetting to 0001 each 1 April:
INV2026-27/0001
INV2026-27/0002
...
Skipping or repeating numbers is what causes reconciliation headaches at return-filing time, so this is worth automating.
A simple GST invoice layout you can copy
------------------------------------------------------------
RAVI PROVISION STORE GSTIN: 33ABCDE1234F1Z5
100 Cross Cut Road, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu - 641012
------------------------------------------------------------
Tax Invoice No: INV2026-27/0042 Date: 04/07/2026
Bill to: Walk-in customer Place of supply: Tamil Nadu (33)
------------------------------------------------------------
Item HSN Qty Rate Taxable GST Amount
Toor Dal 0713 2 kg 120 240.00 5% 252.00
Biscuits 1905 4 25 100.00 18% 118.00
------------------------------------------------------------
Taxable value: 340.00
CGST: 15.00
SGST: 15.00
Round off: 0.00
TOTAL: ₹ 370.00
------------------------------------------------------------
That’s the shape of a compliant bill: identity at the top, a clear item table with HSN and tax, the CGST/SGST (or IGST) split, and a total.
Doing this without the headache
You can produce all of the above by hand or in a spreadsheet. The reason most shops don’t is speed and accuracy at the counter: the tax split, HSN, and running invoice number have to be right on every sale, in the language your customers read, on whatever printer you own.
Yojika is built for exactly this. It’s offline-first GST billing software for Indian small shops: the tax engine handles CGST/SGST/IGST automatically from the place of supply, invoice numbering resets correctly each financial year, and you can print to A4, A5, or a thermal receipt printer — with invoices available in all 22 official Indian languages. Your business data stays on your own PC, not in someone’s cloud.
- See what’s included on the features page.
- Check simple, transparent pricing on the pricing page.
- Or download Yojika and try it free for 14 days.
Choosing a tool to do this for you? See our guide to billing software for a kirana store.
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.