India VAT rate
Goods and Services Tax standard rate. India's GST was rationalised in September 2025 ('GST 2.0') into a two-rate structure — Standard 18%, Merit 5% — plus a 40% de-merit rate; 18% is the official Standard Rate served here.
| Current value | 18 percent |
|---|---|
| In force from | 2025-09-22 |
| Official source | Recommendations of the 56th Meeting of the GST Council, PIB press release, 3 September 2025 (official PDF hosted by the GST Council Secretariat); implemented by Notification No. 9/2025-Central Tax (Rate) dated 17 September 2025, w.e.f. 22 September 2025 |
| Last verified | 2026-07-20 |
| Verification | primary — No verification limitation recorded — read from the official source cited. |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
56th GST Council (2025-09-03) rationalised the prior 4-tier structure (5/12/18/28) into a 2-rate 'Simple Tax': Standard Rate 18%, Merit Rate 5%, plus a special de-merit rate of 40% on select sin/luxury goods (large cars, sweetened beverages, tobacco); most 28% items moved to 18% and most 12% items to 5%, with compensation cess merged into the new rates. 18% is served as the single statutory Standard Rate per the Council's official designation. Nil-rated: UHT milk, paneer, Indian breads, individual life and health insurance, 36 lifesaving drugs. Special low rates on precious metals/stones (3% gold/silver, 0.25% rough diamonds, 1.5% cut and polished diamonds) were retained unchanged. Tobacco carve-out: pan masala, gutkha, cigarettes, zarda, unmanufactured tobacco and bidi stayed at pre-reform 28%+compensation cess until cess loan obligations were discharged, then moved to 40% (bidis 18%) w.e.f. 2026-02-01 via Notification No. 19/2025-Central Tax (Rate) dated 31 December 2025 (amending Notification 9/2025-CTR), with GST on these goods now levied on retail sale price; compensation cess ended 2026-02-01. GST is a dual levy: 18% = 9% CGST + 9% SGST intra-state, or 18% IGST inter-state. Access note: pib.gov.in HTML pages return 403 to automated fetchers; the identical press release PDF was loaded from gstcouncil.gov.in (117-page PDF incl. HSN annexures). CBIC rate notifications live on taxinformation.cbic.gov.in (dynamic portal, deep links unstable).
Earlier values
| From | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2017-07-01 | 18 | — |
Get it programmatically
curl https://asiaref.dev/v1/in/vat
# $0.001 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://asiaref.dev/v1/in/vat/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://asiaref.dev/provenance/in/vatOther India series: policy interest rate · minimum wage · public holidays · inflation rate (CPI) · corporate tax rate · income tax rates