GST · Freelance invoicing

Freelancer invoice format

A designer, developer, writer or consultant registered under GST raises a tax invoice for an Indian client — not a bill, not a payment request. Here is one, filled in, with every field named and the rule it answers to. Copy the structure straight off the paper.

Rules cited · ss.16, 22, 24, 31 CGST · ss.7, 8, 12 IGSTrr.46, 47, 49 CGST RulesRendered by Invoise’s Minimal template

New to this? Three words you’ll see below

GSTIN: Your fifteen-character GST registration number — and your client’s, if they have one.
SAC code: The official code for the kind of work you did. Services are classified in chapter 99 of the GST classification.
Place of supply: Where the work counts as delivered. Section 12 of the IGST Act decides it, and it decides which tax you charge.

The document

One freelance invoice, filled in

Rendered by Invoise’s Minimal template from a snapshot shaped exactly as finalization freezes one — the product’s own renderer, not a picture of it. The freelancer, the client and the figures are invented.

Reading the paper

Each claim below names something visible on the invoice beside it, and the rule it answers to. Scroll, and they take the document in order.

Tax Invoice

The document's own title. Section 31 of the CGST Act is what a registered person supplying taxable services issues, and it is what the recipient needs in hand.

Section 31 · CGST Act

Invoice number

A consecutive serial of at most sixteen characters, unique for the financial year. One series or several, but no gaps and no repeats inside a year.

Rule 46 · CGST Rules

Your GSTIN

Fifteen characters: the two-digit State code, your ten-character PAN, an entity code, a fixed Z and a check digit. Rule 46 asks for the supplier's name, address and GSTIN.

Rule 46 · CGST Rules

Bill to, with their GSTIN

A registered client's name, address and GSTIN. This is the field their input tax credit hangs on, which is why they will ask you to correct it.

Section 16 · CGST Act

Place of supply

Karnataka on this invoice, the same State the supplier sits in — which is what makes the supply intra-State and splits the tax below.

Section 12 · IGST Act

HSN/SAC under each line

The classification code for what that line supplied. It sits on the line, not on the invoice, because two lines can be two different services.

Rule 46 · CGST Rules

Subtotal and Tax total

Rule 46 wants the taxable value of the supply and the amount of tax charged on it, not one merged figure. Nothing is discounted here, so the subtotal is the taxable value, and the tax charged is totalled on its own line under the two components.

Rule 46 · CGST Rules

CGST (9%) and SGST (9%)

The 18% on the lines, split into its two halves because supplier and place of supply are in one State. A client in another State would see a single IGST (18%) row here instead.

Sections 7 & 8 · IGST Act

Reverse charge: not applicable

Whether tax is payable on reverse charge is a particular rule 46 asks for. No template has a field of its own for it, so it goes in the invoice note.

Rule 46 · CGST Rules

Copy the structure — or stop copying structures.Every field named above is one Invoise fills from your business, your client and your lines.

Contact Invoise

Tax InvoiceMN/26-27/014

GSTIN 29AKNPN4821M1ZI402, Sunrise Chambers5th Cross, Jayanagar 4th BlockBengaluru, Karnataka 560011meera@meeranair.design

Bill toKadamba FoodsKadamba Foods Private Limited14, Sampige RoadMalleshwaramBengaluru, Karnataka 560003accounts@kadambafoods.inGSTIN 29ABGCH7392K1ZT

Issue date03 Aug 2026

Due date18 Aug 2026

Supply date03 Aug 2026

Place of supplyKarnataka (29)

#	Item	Rate	Qty	Amount
1	Website redesign — design and buildSix pages, responsive layouts and the CMS templatesHSN/SAC 998314	₹68,000.00	1 project	₹80,240
2	Analytics setup and handoverEvent tracking, the reporting dashboard and a recorded walkthroughHSN/SAC 998313	₹2,500.00	4 hours	₹11,800

Notes

Reverse charge: not applicable. Payment due within 15 days.

Bank transfer or UPI. Account details on the engagement letter.

Subtotal₹78,000

CGST (9%)₹7,020

SGST (9%)₹7,020

Tax total₹14,040

Total (INR)₹92,040

The split

CGST and SGST, or IGST

One rate, two ways of printing it. Which one you print is decided by where the supply lands, not by what you charge.

Same State · two components

Shown on the invoice above

Within one state

Your location and the place of supply are in the same State or Union territory. Section 8 of the IGST Act calls that an intra-State supply.

Central tax and State tax are levied separately, so one rate prints as two rows — CGST and SGST, each half of it.

On ₹78,000.00 of taxable value

CGST (9%): ₹7,020.00
SGST (9%): ₹7,020.00
Total: ₹92,040.00

Different States · one component

Between states

Your location and the place of supply are in different States or Union territories. Section 7 of the IGST Act calls that an inter-State supply.

Integrated tax is levied instead, so the same rate prints as a single IGST row. The client pays the same money either way.

On ₹78,000.00 of taxable value

IGST (18%): ₹14,040.00
Total: ₹92,040.00

Central tax and State tax are levied by two different governments on an intra-State supply, which is why the same 18% has to be shown as CGST 9% plus SGST 9% rather than one line. Integrated tax is a single levy on an inter-State supply — Union territory tax takes State tax’s place in a Union territory. The client pays the same amount either way, and the split is not a preference: the law fixes it from your location and the place of supply.

In Invoise this is a tax treatment on the document, named exactly as above: Within one state, or Between states. Picking one decides which components are computed for the lines. Invoise suggests one from the two States on record, and you can correct that suggestion, because you are the one who knows where the supply landed.

One exception to “same State means CGST and SGST”: a supply to or by a Special Economic Zone unit or developer is treated as inter-State under section 7 of the IGST Act even where both sides sit in the same State.

Place of supply

The field the split is read off

Get it wrong and it is not one line of the invoice that changes. It is which government you paid.

Section 12 of the IGST Act sets the place of supply of services where both supplier and recipient are in India. The general rule in sub-section (2) is short: to a registered person, it is the location of that person; to anyone else, it is the recipient’s address where you have one on record, and your own location where you do not.

Sub-sections (3) to (14) then carve out particular services and send them somewhere else — work on immovable property to where the property is, admission to an event to where the event is held, and so on. If your service is in one of those, the general rule does not apply to it.

Where the client sits is not the same question

For most freelance work billed to a registered business the two coincide, and the place of supply is simply the State that client is registered in. They are still separate fields: rule 46 asks for the recipient’s address and, on an inter-State supply, for the place of supply along with the name of the State — because they can differ, and the tax follows the second one.

Invoise suggests a treatment from the two parties’ States and lets you change it. It does not decide a carve-out for you, and this page is not advice on your particular supply.

HSN / SAC

A code on every line, not on the invoice

Two lines can be two different services. The classification sits on the line that was supplied.

Rule 46 asks for the “Harmonised System of Nomenclature code for goods or services” among an invoice’s particulars — one classification covering both. Services are classified in chapter 99 of it, where the code is usually called a SAC. The sample above carries 998314 on its design-and-build line and 998313 on the consulting hours, because those are two different services even on one invoice.

How many digits depends on your aggregate turnover in the preceding financial year. Under Notification 78/2020 – Central Tax, in force from 1 April 2021: up to ₹5 crore, four digits are required on B2B invoices; above ₹5 crore, six digits on every tax invoice. The same code carries into the HSN summary when the return is filed.

Both codes on the sample are real, drawn from the official GST classification Invoise imports from services.gst.gov.in — the same list the SAC code finder searches. Billing a client outside India instead? The export invoice format is a different document.

Validity

What makes it an invoice rather than a bill

A PDF with your name and an amount is a request for money. A tax invoice is a document with a job to do at the other end.

It is what your client claims credit on

Section 16 of the CGST Act makes possession of a tax invoice a condition of taking input tax credit. Your client’s finance team is not being fussy about your GSTIN and theirs — without them the credit does not come.

The numbering is part of the rule

A consecutive serial, at most sixteen characters, unique for the financial year. You may run several series — one per client, one per business line — but within a year a number is used once and the run has no gaps. The sample’s MN/26-27/014 is initials, financial year, count.

Not every document is a tax invoice

Supplying exempt services, or paying tax under the composition levy of section 10, means issuing a bill of supply under rule 49 instead — same identity and numbering particulars, no tax shown on it. Everything on this page’s document assumes a tax invoice.

Rule 47 sets when, not section 31: an invoice for a taxable supply of services is to be issued within thirty days of the date of the supply of service. Invoise assigns the number and freezes the document when you finalize it, so the serial is the database’s to keep consecutive rather than yours to remember.

And if you are not registered, none of this applies to you yet. Section 22 of the CGST Act makes a supplier liable to register once aggregate turnover in a financial year exceeds ₹20 lakh — ₹10 lakh in the special category States the section names. The ₹40 lakh figure you may have seen is for suppliers of goods only: both the section’s proviso and Notification 10/2019 – Central Tax limit it to a person engaged exclusively in supplying goods.

Section 24 does require registration regardless of turnover from anyone making an inter-State taxable supply — but Notification 10/2017 – Integrated Tax exempts inter-State suppliers of SERVICES whose all-India aggregate turnover stays under the threshold. Billing a client in another State does not, on its own, force a freelancer to register.

Inside Invoise

Invoise fills all of this in for you

You can copy the layout above in an afternoon. But you would redo these three jobs on every invoice for the rest of the year — so Invoise does them instead.

You don’t look up the code

Type the work the way you’d say it out loud. The official service code arrives with it, and the GST rate that goes with that code on this invoice’s date.

On the sample’s first line

SAC 998314

You don’t work out the tax split

Same State as your client and one rate has to print as two components; a different State and it is a single integrated tax line. Invoise reads both registrations and picks — you can still override it.

On the sample’s totals

CGST 9% + SGST 9%

You don’t track invoice numbers

Numbers have to run in order with no gaps and never repeat inside a financial year. The number is assigned when you finalize, so it is not yours to remember.

Assigned on finalize

MN/26-27/014

Rule 46

What a tax invoice carries

The particulars rule 46 of the CGST Rules asks for, in the order they read on the paper above.

Supplier’s name, address and GSTIN: Yours. One business carries one seller GSTIN.
Invoice number: A consecutive serial of at most sixteen characters, unique for the financial year.
Date of issue: The date the invoice is raised.
Recipient’s name, address and GSTIN: Required where the client is registered. An unregistered recipient has no GSTIN to state, and the rule treats that case separately.
Description of the service: What was actually supplied, line by line.
Harmonised System of Nomenclature code: The classification code per line, for goods or services alike. Services sit in chapter 99, where it is usually called a SAC.
Total value of the supply: Before any discount is adjusted out of it.
Taxable value: The value the tax is actually computed on, after any discount.
Rate of tax: Stated per component — central tax, State tax, integrated tax, Union territory tax or cess.
Amount of tax charged: The money each of those components comes to.
Place of supply, with the name of the State: Required by name on an inter-State supply, and the field the whole split turns on.
Whether tax is payable on reverse charge: A field on every tax invoice. On ordinary freelance work it is not.
Signature of the supplier or an authorised representative: Handwritten or digital.

Invoise fills the supplier block, the numbering, the dates and the tax columns from your business and your lines. Nothing on this page is advice on your particular supply — where a rule is named, read the rule.

Billing a client abroad?Export invoice formatZero-rated under LUT or with IGST, the country line and the rupee conversion.

Need the code first?SAC code finderDescribe the work and get matching codes from the official service classification.

Selling goods too?HSN code finderThe goods half of the same dataset — 21,935 codes across the tariff.

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