GST Billing for Restaurants: A Complete 2026 Guide

What you charge depends on where and how you serve:

• Standalone restaurants (dine-in, takeaway, delivery): 5% GST, with no input tax credit, or ITC.
• Hotel restaurants, room rate under ₹7,500: 5%, again with no ITC.
• Hotel restaurants, room rate of ₹7,500 and up: 18%, and you may claim ITC.
• Outdoor catering: 18% with ITC, in most cases.

For most small places, cafes and cloud kitchens, the answer is just 5%. On the bill it shows as 2.5% CGST plus 2.5% SGST. Zomato and Swiggy orders are taxed at 5% too. But here’s the catch. Since 2022 the app collects that tax and pays it in, so your books treat those sales another way.

Each tax invoice needs these fields. Miss one and the bill isn’t valid:

• Your legal business name, address and GSTIN
• A bill number that runs in order, plus the date
• Each item, with quantity, rate and taxable value
• CGST and SGST on their own lines, with the rate for each
• The total amount due, in figures

Hand-written bills drop these fields all the time. Basic cash registers do the same. A proper restaurant billing software prints all of it on every receipt, so your staff never have to keep it in mind.

If your yearly sales stay under ₹1.5 crore, you can join the composition scheme. You then pay a flat 5% on sales, and you don’t collect GST bill by bill.

The trade is a real one, though. You can’t issue a tax invoice. You can’t claim ITC. And you can’t sell on Zomato or Swiggy at all.

For a tiny dine-in eatery, that can still be worth it. Want delivery money? Then the regular 5% route is your only real option.

• Charging GST on app orders. The app already pays it. Charge again and you push your price up and muddle your books.
• Leaving out HSN or SAC codes when your sales figure means you need them.
• Bill numbers that skip or repeat, which is what happens when a paper book runs next to software.
• Dressing up service charge as a tax. It’s optional, and it sits on its own line.
• Late GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B filing, because the sales data is stuck in a pile of paper bills.

Good GST billing software picks the right slab for each item. It splits CGST and SGST on its own. Bill numbers stay in order. And the GST summary comes out ready for your CA, with no cleanup first.

Billing Rasoi does this on every kind of order: dine-in, takeaway, QR table orders, and app orders too. The trail stays clean if an audit ever lands on you. Take the 14-day free trial and print a proper bill today.