Selling on Swiggy or Zomato from home? You may not need GST registration yet

No. A home kitchen does not have to register for GST just because it sells on Swiggy or Zomato; you need GST registration only when your total sales for the financial year cross ₹20 lakh (₹10 lakh in four north-eastern states). The catch is that the total includes your app sales and your WhatsApp and phone orders together, and the apps can still ask for a GSTIN under their own partner terms.

Many pages that rank for this question say anyone who sells through an app must register at any turnover. For most online sellers that is true. For food sold through delivery apps it has not been true since 1 Jan 2022, when the apps started paying the GST on restaurant orders themselves. This post shows the exact law, the maths for a kitchen with both app and direct orders, and what changes once you cross the limit.

Do you need GST registration for a home kitchen on Swiggy or Zomato?

Not if your sales are under the limit. Two sections of the CGST Act (Central Goods and Services Tax Act) decide this.

Section 9(5) lets the government notify services on which the app, not the seller, pays the GST. The text on CBIC's portal says the app is treated "as if he is the supplier liable for paying the tax." Restaurant service was notified under it by Notification 17/2021-Central Tax (Rate), and the apps have paid the GST on restaurant orders since 1 Jan 2022.

Section 24 lists people who must register whatever their turnover. Clause (ix) covers people who sell through an e-commerce app that collects tax at source, but it expressly leaves out "supplies specified under sub-section (5) of section 9". Your food orders on Swiggy or Zomato are exactly those supplies.

CBIC's Circular 167/23/2021-GST closes the loop. It says the apps "will be liable to pay GST on any restaurant service supplied through them including by an unregistered person." It also says the apps no longer collect TCS (tax collected at source) on these orders. So an unregistered home kitchen on an app is a situation the law expects, not a loophole.

That leaves the ordinary turnover limit in section 22 as the only legal trigger. Fig. 1 puts the whole decision on one page.

Why do so many guides say app sellers must always register?

Because for most online sellers they must. Section 24(ix) catches a seller on a marketplace that collects TCS under section 52, whatever their turnover. A home baker selling packed cookies on a general marketplace may fall into that rule. Guides written for those sellers, or written before 2022, carry the rule over to food delivery apps, where it no longer applies.

Two other mistakes show up often in the pages that rank for this question:

• "Register because the app needs a GSTIN." That may be true of an app's onboarding form, but it is a contract term, not GST law. More on this below.
• "The limit for food businesses is ₹40 lakh." Section 22 allows ₹40 lakh only for a supplier "engaged exclusively in the supply of goods". CBIC's Circular 164/20/2021-GST treats cooking and delivering food, including from cloud kitchens, as restaurant service. That is a service, so the services limit applies.

What is the GST registration limit for a home food business?

Section 22 of the CGST Act sets the limit on aggregate turnover in a financial year, which runs from 1 April to 31 March. It is not a rolling 12 months.

The ₹10 lakh states follow from the Act's definition of "special category States": the list in Article 279A(4)(g) of the Constitution minus Jammu and Kashmir, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Sikkim and Uttarakhand. That leaves Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura. If your kitchen is in one of these four, confirm the current limit with your CA, because the Act allows these states to raise it by notification.

Do Swiggy and Zomato sales count towards the ₹20 lakh?

Yes. This is the part most home kitchens miss. Circular 167/23/2021-GST says the aggregate turnover of a kitchen selling through apps "shall include the aggregate value of supplies made by the restaurant through ECOs" (e-commerce operators, meaning the apps), "for threshold consideration or any other purpose in the Act."

So the app pays the tax on those orders, but they still count when you check the limit. Add them to your direct orders every month.

Take a kitchen whose sales stay steady through the year:

At the end of January the total is exactly ₹20 lakh, which does not exceed the limit. During February it crosses ₹20 lakh, and from that day the kitchen has 30 days to apply under section 25. Counting only the app sales, ₹15.6 lakh for the year, would have hidden that.

The direct half of that total only exists in your own records. If your WhatsApp orders live in chats and a notebook, you will not see the ₹20 lakh line coming.

What changes once you cross the GST limit?

Registration does not change who pays tax on the app orders. Circular 167 is about the apps paying "on any restaurant service supplied through them", so they keep paying after you register, and you do not charge GST on those orders a second time.

What changes is everything outside the apps:

1. Direct orders become taxable. On WhatsApp and phone orders you charge GST at the restaurant-service rate, which is 5% without input tax credit (ITC, the credit for GST paid on your purchases) for most kitchens. CBIC's Circular 164/20/2021-GST says cooking and supplying food by takeaway or door delivery, including from cloud kitchens, is restaurant service at that rate, and the 56th GST Council kept standalone restaurants out of the 18% option. On a ₹500 order priced inclusive of GST, that is ₹476.19 of food and ₹23.81 of tax.
2. Your bills must carry your GSTIN and the invoice details the rules require. If you send bills as PDFs, see what a GST bill on WhatsApp must include.
3. You file GST returns, and your CA reports the app sales separately as supplies on which the app paid the tax.

You can also register before you reach the limit. Section 25(3) allows voluntary registration. If you do, the rules above apply from the date of registration, so your direct orders become taxable straight away. That is the real cost of registering early, not the registration itself.

Pocket Journal for Food keeps a GST rate on each product and works the tax out of tax-inclusive prices, so your WhatsApp bills carry the right numbers once you register.

Can Swiggy or Zomato insist on a GSTIN anyway?

They can ask, because onboarding is a contract. We could not find a current public statement from either app, as of 18 Oct 2026, saying whether a GSTIN is required for a home kitchen below the limit. Third-party onboarding guides disagree: some list a GST certificate as mandatory, others say "if applicable".

So check the partner agreement or the onboarding form you are given. If the app does require a GSTIN, you have two choices: register voluntarily and start charging GST on your direct orders, or ask the app's partner support whether there is a route for unregistered kitchens. Neither choice changes what the law says about your threshold.

Whatever the app asks for GST, it will ask for your FSSAI registration, which every food business needs. If you have not sorted that yet, start with FSSAI registration for a home kitchen.

Does the 57th GST Council change any of this?

Not yet. On 8 Oct 2026 the Council recommended an "amendment in section 9(5) of the CGST Act, 2017, to provide clarity regarding liability of the ECO to pay tax for the notified services, irrespective of the business models being followed by him" (PIB release).

That is a recommendation. It changes nothing until Parliament amends the Act and the change is brought into force. As worded, it is about making the app's liability clearer, not about the registration limit, so a home kitchen has nothing to do today. We will update this post if the final text says otherwise. Our post on the 57th GST Council for small businesses tracks every item from that meeting.