Shopify GST Setup for India: CGST, SGST and IGST Rates

Shopify's help page for GST in India lists the rows a store starts with: a Country tax of 9% named CGST, an 18% IGST for every state except Karnataka, and a 9% SGST for Karnataka. Shopify calls them a starting point that isn't meant to be used until you've reviewed and updated it; the right rate depends on the product.

This guide turns those rows into working settings: what to type in Country tax, in your own state and in every other state for the rate you charge, how to charge different rates on different products, whether prices should include GST, and how to prove it all with test orders. Rates follow the structure in force since September 22, 2025, as amended to October 2026. It is a map of the official sources, not tax advice.

Which GST Setup Your Store Needs

Find your store in the first column; the third column points to the part of this page that covers it.

Before any rate goes in, make sure your store should be charging GST at all: our page on whether your Shopify store needs to register for GST in India covers who must register.

A store under the composition scheme is the one case that changes this whole page, so read what composition changes in the tax your store charges before you enter a single rate.

How Shopify Charges GST for an Indian Store

Shopify's GST in India page says the tax rate differs by type of product, so a specific rate can't be set automatically; Shopify sets defaults instead, and you must update them for your own needs.

Shopify's table of tax services by region doesn't name India in its Shopify Tax or Basic Tax rows. By our reading India falls under the row covering all countries and regions except five named ones, where you use Manual Tax to set and manage tax rates yourself.

The second constraint is the shape of the tax line itself, and Shopify states it plainly:

Which Orders Get CGST and SGST, and Which Get IGST

Shopify draws the line by your business location. For orders within your state you pay Central GST (CGST) to the central government and State GST (SGST) to your state government; for orders outside your state, a single Integrated GST (IGST) is payable to the central government.

The law says the same for goods. Section 7 of the IGST Act treats a supply as inter-State when the supplier and the place of supply are in two different states, two different Union territories, or a state and a Union territory; section 8 treats it as intra-State when both are in the same state or Union territory.

Orders shipped outside India are a separate question: read what Shopify's tax settings do for an export order before you rely on the rows below for them.

What “Added To” and “Instead Of” Do

Shopify's Manual Tax page explains the three behaviors on a general example, not an Indian one; the last column maps each to its job in an Indian store.

The same page names the classic mistake: if you find customers charged taxes twice, you might have sub-region taxes set to be added to the country's tax. In an Indian store that is right for your own state only; every other state's IGST row must say instead of.

Shopify's Default India Rates, and Why They're Only a Start

These are the rows Shopify's India page lists as the initial settings, copied value for value; it tells you to use them as a starting point.

Read together, the three rows fit one store: a business registered in Karnataka, selling goods at 18%. Its customers in Karnataka pay 9% CGST plus 9% SGST, and everyone else pays 18% IGST. If your business is elsewhere or your products carry another rate, the rows are wrong for you, and Shopify warns as much in a caution on the same page:

If you're not sure whether your rates need updating, the page sends you to a local tax expert, and so do we.

GST Rates Since September 22, 2025

Shopify's India page opens by saying GST took effect in India on July 1, 2017 and was updated on September 22, 2025. That date is the GST Council's rate change, as the Finance Ministry's FAQ on the 56th meeting puts it:

The Finance Ministry's press release on the 56th meeting describes the new structure as a standard rate of 18% and a merit rate of 5%, with a special de-merit rate of 40% for a select few goods and services.

The goods notifications that took effect the same day give the numbers you type. The central-tax notification 9/2025 sets CGST at 2.5%, 9% and 20% on its three main schedules, and the integrated-tax notification 9/2025 sets IGST at 5%, 18% and 40% on the same schedules.

That is where Shopify's example stops matching the law. Read on October 18, 2026, its page mentions the September 22, 2025 update and still sets up Maharashtra at 28%.

The Finance Ministry's FAQ explains that some goods moved to the 40% special rate on September 22, 2025 because they were already at the highest rate of 28%. The 28% Schedule VII, which held pan masala and the tobacco products the FAQ set aside, stayed until February 1, 2026, when an amendment omitted it and moved pan masala and tobacco products to 40% and biris to 18%. Our reading: Shopify's example now teaches where each number goes, not which number to use.

So take each product's rate from its HSN line in the notification, take the placement of the rows from Shopify's example, and ask a tax adviser when a product's line is unclear.

How to Set Up GST for One Rate

If every product you sell carries the same GST rate, these steps are the whole setup. Shopify's Manual Tax page describes the general path; the India page supplies the rows.

1. In your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Taxes and duties and click India under Tax regions.
2. In the Base taxes section, find the Country tax row and the rows for states.
3. Set Country tax to your products' CGST rate and name it CGST.
4. Set your own state to the same rate, named SGST, with the behavior added to.
5. Set every other state to the full GST rate, named IGST, with the behavior instead of.
6. Save, then run the test orders described further down.

In Shopify adminOpen in your store

1. Settings
2. Taxes and duties

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If India isn't in that list, the hint above it is the fix: the page reads “Create a shipping zone to add a new tax region”, so add India to a shipping zone first. Shopify's India blog gave the same advice in February 2022, through Settings > Shipping.

The calculator below fills the rows for any goods schedule in the table above and shows the tax a test order should carry.

Why the same number twice? Shopify's example splits its 28% into 14% CGST and 14% SGST, and the two notifications pair up the same way: 2.5% CGST against 5% IGST, 9% against 18%, 20% against 40%. That SGST equals CGST is our reading of those pairs and of Shopify's example, so confirm the split with your tax adviser for any product outside these schedules.

Once you've typed your own rates, Shopify won't refresh them for you: its Manual Tax page says manually set rates aren't updated for new regulations unless you click Reset to default tax rates again. What that button restores for India isn't described on the Shopify pages we read, so after a GST Council rate change, re-enter the rows yourself.

For a walkthrough of the same screens, one practitioner's video below starts the tax setup at 08:00. Geon George published it in January 2025, before the rate change; it recommends tax-inclusive prices and explains why you might need the GST Pro app. Take the clicks from it and the rates from this page.

If Your Business Isn't in Karnataka

Shopify's default rows add SGST only for Karnataka, which fits a business registered there, so for any other state three rows end up different:

• Karnataka: rename it IGST, set the full rate, and choose instead of.
• Your state: add it as SGST at the CGST rate, and choose added to.
• Every remaining state: IGST at the full rate, instead of.

Shopify's India page walks through exactly this case with an example that still uses a 28% rate: suppose you're based in Maharashtra. To set up that example, it makes four changes to the default settings:

Keep its mechanics: Country tax for CGST, your own state added to it, every other state instead of it. Replace its 28% with your products' rate from the schedule table above.

How to Charge Different GST Rates on Different Products

The rows above give every product the same rate. For a mixed catalog Shopify's India page has one answer: create hidden collections for each tax category, assign your products to them, and override the tax rates for each collection.

Put Each Rate in Its Own Manual Collection

Shopify sets one hard rule: overrides work only with products you add to collections manually. Products added by conditions, by an existing collection or by an app source can't take one. As of October 2026 the collection form has no Manual or Smart switch: you choose by how you fill it, with Add products for a hand-picked list or Add condition for rules.

In Shopify adminOpen in your store

1. Products
2. Collections

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You can unpublish these collections so customers never see them. One collection per rate, named for it, keeps the override step simple.

Add an Override for Each Collection

1. Go to Settings > Taxes and duties and click India.
2. In Tax rates and exemptions, open Product overrides and click Add override.
3. Choose the collection, choose the region, and enter the Tax rate.
4. Click Add override again to finish, then repeat for every collection that needs its own rate.

Before you type a number into that Tax rate field, note what Shopify says it means:

What none of the Shopify pages we read describes is that rule in an Indian store: whether a state's override replaces CGST plus SGST, or is charged alongside the Country tax row. Until a test order shows you, treat any override number as unconfirmed.

Overrides can be set at the country or state level, never for a city or district. Shopify's India blog of February 2022 set them “for both India and individual states”, in menus the current Help Center names differently, so read it as a lead to test, not a current rule.

When a 0% Base Works Better

Shopify documents one more route for countries with federal and regional taxes: override the defaults to 0% in Base taxes and let overrides carry the tax. Its page frames this for stores whose products are mostly exempt; using it for a catalog split across several GST rates is our extension, and it means every collection, the 18% one included, needs its own override. So keep the base rows when most of your catalog shares one rate, and reach for the 0% base when most of your products are exempt, the case Shopify writes it for.

Where Overrides Don't Apply

Five cases from Shopify's tax-override and shipping-tax pages change what an override does:

Should Your Prices Include GST?

By default Shopify shows prices without tax and adds it at checkout. To show GST-inclusive prices instead, go to Settings > Taxes and duties and select Include sales tax in product price and shipping rate.

Shopify then calculates the tax inside each price as Tax = (Tax Rate × Price) / (1 + Tax Rate). At 18%, a ₹1,180 price holds ₹180 of GST; with prices that exclude tax, the same ₹1,180 price gains ₹212.40 at checkout and the customer pays ₹1,392.40. The subtotal and total are the same, and the order still shows the tax you need to remit.

After you switch, leave Charge tax on this product selected on your product pages, so that taxes are included in the displayed price.

In Shopify adminOpen in your store

1. Products

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Including tax in prices doesn't affect your tax reporting. It has one visible side effect, which Shopify's India page warns about: with tax inside the price, it might appear that tax has not been charged.

Shipping, HSN Codes and GST Invoices

The rows above decide the rate on products. Shipping, product codes and invoices each need a setting or a tool of their own.

GST on Shipping

India isn't one of the eight countries and regions where shipping is taxed regardless of the shipping-tax setting. If your shipping should carry GST, Shopify's shipping-tax page points to its Charge tax on shipping rates setting, and Shopify's Manual Tax page adds that you must manually set up shipping tax rates for each region where it's required. A product override never changes shipping tax; if you also need to override the shipping tax, Shopify says you must create a separate shipping override. Which rate the shipping itself should carry is a GST question of its own, answered in our page on how to charge GST on shipping in Shopify for India.

HSN Codes

Shopify's India page suggests storing each product's HSN code in its HS tariff code field, which requires codes of at least 6 digits; shorter codes go into metafields or product tags. Our page on where to add an HSN code in Shopify walks through the field.

GST Invoices and Returns

Shopify says it doesn't create a GST-compliant bill and points you to a local third-party GST invoicing service or an app from the Shopify App Store. A tax invoice under Rule 46 of the CGST Rules shows the tax split into central, State and integrated tax, which Shopify's single tax line doesn't give you. Our page on which app makes GST invoices and GSTR reports compares the listings.

Large inter-State invoices to unregistered buyers are reported one by one in GSTR-1, so check the B2CL invoice limit in GSTR-1 before your first filing.

Refunds bring a reporting step of their own: see where credit notes to unregistered buyers go in GSTR-1.

How Do You Check Your GST Setup Before Real Orders?

Shopify's India page says it plainly: once you know what you should charge and have entered your rates, perform some test orders to make sure taxes are charged correctly. Its Test payment gateway simulates the transaction without a real payment.

Shopify's test-order guide asks you to test different shipping addresses with particular attention to how the tax is calculated. In India that means at least one address in your own state and one in another.

A draft order is a second way to check without a checkout: Shopify's draft-order guide says draft orders include taxes based on your store's tax settings and the customer's shipping address by default. The India page we read doesn't mention draft orders, so treat this as our shortcut, not Shopify's GST advice.

When a number is off, Shopify's India page says to check the behavior of your regional rates if the tax is too high; tax charged twice may mean a state set to added to that should say instead of; and tax that seems to be missing may simply sit inside a tax-inclusive price. For other causes, our guide to why Shopify charges the wrong tax amount works through them.

The check is yours because the filing is yours, as Shopify's India page says:

The checklist below puts the whole setup in order. Steps one and two happen outside Shopify; step seven only applies if you sell at more than one rate.

The Bottom Line

Shopify gives an Indian store the rows but not the rate, and as of October 2026 its own example shows a 28% rate that no goods schedule of the CBIC rate notifications has carried since February 1, 2026. The work is short once you know which number goes where; the proof is a test order, not the settings page.

Frequently Asked Questions