What must a restaurant GST tax invoice show?

Your legal name, address and GSTIN; a consecutive, unique invoice number and the date of issue; a description of each item with quantity; the HSN or SAC code, where restaurant service commonly uses SAC 9963; the taxable value; the GST rate with the CGST and SGST amounts shown separately, or IGST for an inter-state supply; the place of supply; the invoice total; and a signature or digital signature. Registered business customers must also be identified by name, address and GSTIN.

Is a restaurant bill the same as a GST tax invoice?

No. A token, an order slip and a KOT are internal documents. A cash memo or receipt proves payment. A GST tax invoice is the tax document, and only a business registered under the regular scheme issues one. A composition dealer issues a bill of supply instead, carrying the declaration that it is not eligible to collect tax on supplies. Get the document type right before you worry about the layout.

Can menu prices include GST on the bill?

Yes, you may price inclusive of tax, and many outlets do because round numbers are easier at the counter. The invoice must still break the amount down: it has to show the taxable value and the CGST and SGST separately, back-calculated from the inclusive price. Printing only a single all-in total, with GST mentioned nowhere, is where inclusive pricing goes wrong.

Does a restaurant invoice number have to be sequential?

Yes. The invoice number must be consecutive and unique within a series for the financial year, and it must not exceed sixteen characters. Gaps and duplicates are exactly what an assessing officer looks for, which is why the number should be generated by your billing software and never typed by a cashier. If you cancel a bill, keep the cancelled number in the series rather than reusing it.

Restaurant Bill Format in India: Every Field a GST Invoice Must Show

General information for restaurant owners, not tax advice. Invoice rules and thresholds are amended from time to time — confirm the current requirements for your business with a qualified chartered accountant, and check the invoice rules on the CBIC GST portal at cbic-gst.gov.in.

First: which document are you issuing?

Half the confusion about "bill format" is really confusion about document type. Four different pieces of paper get called "the bill" in an Indian restaurant, and only one of them is a tax document.

Document	Who issues it	What it is for
Token / order slip / KOT	Anyone	Internal. Tells the kitchen what to cook. No tax meaning.
Receipt / cash memo	Anyone	Proof that the guest paid. Not a tax invoice.
GST tax invoice	Registered under the regular scheme	The tax document. Carries GSTIN and the tax break-up.
Bill of supply	Composition dealers, and exempt supplies	Issued instead of a tax invoice; carries a declaration that tax is not collected.

If you are under the composition scheme you must not issue a tax invoice or show GST as collected — you issue a bill of supply with the prescribed declaration that you are a composition taxable person and not eligible to collect tax on supplies. If you are on the regular scheme, everything below applies. Not sure which you are? Start with our 5% versus 18% GST guide.

The fields, one by one

Field	What it means	Common mistake
Supplier legal name and address	The registered name, not just the brand on the signboard	Printing only the trade name
GSTIN	Your 15-character GST identification number	Missing, or a stale GSTIN after a re-registration
Invoice number	Consecutive, unique, within a series for the financial year, up to 16 characters	Gaps, duplicates, or restarting mid-year without a new series
Date of issue	The date the invoice is issued	Backdating to fit a shift
Recipient details	Name, address and GSTIN for a registered buyer	Skipping it on B2B bills, so the customer loses their credit
Description of service or goods	The dishes, readable, with quantity	"Food" as a single line
HSN / SAC	Restaurant service commonly uses SAC 9963; goods sold as-is have their own HSN	One code applied to the whole menu including packaged items
Taxable value	The amount before tax, after any discount	Discount applied after tax instead of before
Rate and amount of tax	The rate, then CGST and SGST separately — or IGST for inter-state	One combined "GST" figure with no split
Place of supply	The state where the supply happens; decides CGST/SGST vs IGST	Ignored, so IGST cases are billed as CGST/SGST
Invoice total	Taxable value plus tax, with rounding shown	Rounding that doesn't reconcile with the tax lines
Signature	Signature or digital signature of the supplier or an authorised person	Omitted entirely on thermal receipts

For an unregistered walk-in guest you do not normally need their name and address. Above a value threshold in the invoice rules — commonly cited as ₹50,000 — you do need to record the unregistered recipient's name and address. That figure has been stable for a long time but is exactly the kind of number to confirm with your CA rather than trust from a blog, including this one. It matters for large party bookings and catering, not for a table of four.

Inclusive pricing: allowed, but show the break-up

Most Indian menus are priced in round numbers, tax included, because ₹250 is easier at the counter than ₹238.10 plus tax. That is fine. What is not fine is printing ₹250 and nothing else. The invoice must still show the taxable value and the CGST and SGST separately, back-calculated from the inclusive amount. Your billing software should do this arithmetic and print all three lines. If yours prints one all-in total with GST mentioned nowhere, that bill is not a tax invoice, whatever it says at the top.

Service charge is not a tax — keep it out of the tax block

If you levy a service charge, it is your own charge, not a government levy. Print it as its own line, clearly labelled, well away from the CGST and SGST lines, so nobody can mistake it for tax. Consumer-protection guidance on making service charge optional and clearly disclosed has been litigated in India, so treat it as a policy decision — with signage on the menu — rather than a default line item nobody mentioned.

Every field, on every bill, automatically

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Numbering: the field that gets you audited

Of all the fields, invoice numbering is where restaurants most often come unstuck. The rule is simple to state and hard to keep by hand: consecutive, unique, within a series for the financial year, up to sixteen characters, no gaps, no duplicates.

Two practical consequences. First, the number must be generated by the system, never typed by a cashier — a human will duplicate one on a busy Saturday. Second, if a bill is cancelled, keep the cancelled number inside the series and mark it cancelled; do not reuse it for the next guest. If a bill needs correcting after issue, issue a credit note against it rather than editing or deleting it. Deleting an issued invoice is how a gap appears, and a gap is what an assessing officer looks for first.

Rounding, duplicates and copies

Round the invoice total to the nearest rupee and show the rounding as its own line so the tax figures still add up. Keep the tax amounts at two decimals internally; if your POS rounds each tax line before totalling, you will get a bill whose parts do not sum to its whole, and that is the kind of thing customers photograph and post.

On copies: keep your record of every invoice, and keep it retrievable. A digital record held in your POS is far easier to produce during an assessment than a shoebox of thermal rolls, which fade. Records must be retained for the period prescribed under the GST law — ask your CA for the figure that applies to you and set a calendar reminder rather than guessing.

When the bill becomes an e-invoice

Once your aggregate turnover crosses the notified threshold, B2B invoices must be reported to the government portal and carry an IRN — an Invoice Reference Number — and a QR code. That threshold has come down in steps, so more mid-size restaurants get pulled in each year. The current figure is published on the GST portal at gst.gov.in. The practical advice is unglamorous: get on e-invoice-ready software before you cross, not in the month you cross. Our e-invoicing guide covers what changes on the day it applies.

A five-minute audit of your own bill

Print one bill from a normal table and check it against this list. Legal name and GSTIN present? Invoice number consecutive with yesterday's? Items readable with quantities? SAC or HSN shown? Taxable value, rate, CGST and SGST as separate lines? Place of supply? Total with rounding? Signature line?

If any answer is no, that is your next job — and it is a software setting, not a habit to train into staff. The point of GST billing software is that every bill comes out right without anyone at the counter thinking about it. Do it once, correctly, and your month-end becomes an export rather than a reconstruction.