The mandatory particulars a GST tax invoice must carry under Rule 46

A GST tax invoice is not a free-form receipt — Rule 46 of the CGST Rules fixes a specific list of particulars it must carry, and Section 31 of the CGST Act makes issuing one mandatory for a registered supplier making a taxable supply. The annotated invoice above labels each Rule 46 field on a worked example, so a business can check its own template against the statute clause by clause.

The supplier-side fields come first: the supplier's **name, address, and GSTIN** (Rule 46(a)), then a **consecutive serial number** unique for the financial year (Rule 46(b)) and the **invoice date** (Rule 46(c)). The number must run in an unbroken sequence — gaps and resets are an audit signal. Then the recipient block: the **buyer's name, address, and, if registered, GSTIN** (Rule 46(d)). Where the buyer is unregistered and the value is above the prescribed limit, Rule 46(e)–(f) still require the buyer's name, address, and state to be recorded.

The line-item fields carry the commercial substance: a **HSN code** for goods or **SAC code** for services (Rule 46(g)), the **description** (Rule 46(h)), the **quantity** (Rule 46(i)), and the **total and taxable value** (Rule 46(j)–(k)). On the tax side, Rule 46(l)–(m) require the **rate** and the **amount of tax**, shown as the split into CGST and SGST for an intra-state supply or a single IGST line for an inter-state supply. Rule 46(n) requires the **place of supply** together with the state name for an inter-state transaction — the field that decides which tax applies. Rule 46(p) requires a flag stating **whether the tax is payable on reverse charge**. Finally Rule 46(q) requires the **signature or digital signature** of the supplier or an authorised representative.

A document missing these particulars is not a valid tax invoice, and a buyer relying on it for input tax credit under Section 16 is exposed if the invoice cannot survive scrutiny. For high-turnover suppliers the fields are also the data the e-invoicing portal validates before returning an Invoice Reference Number. Getting the anatomy right at template level is what makes every downstream GST step — ITC, return reconciliation, audit — mechanical rather than contested.