Place of supply self check: the eight questions
Answer these before the invoice is raised, not after the notice arrives.
Run these eight questions for every new product flow or service line. Record the answers with the contract. The determination is worth more than any later argument.
The questions
One. Is this a supply of goods or of services? For goods, go to Sections 10 and 11; for services, to Section 12 or 13.
Two. Is either party located outside India? If yes, Section 13 applies to services and the import or export analysis begins.
Three. For goods, does the supply involve movement, and is a third person directing delivery? If yes, Section 10(1)(b) fixes the place of supply at that person's principal place of business.
Four. For services within India, is the recipient registered? If yes, the default is its location; if not, the address on record.
Five. Does a specific rule displace the default — immovable property, performance, event, transportation, admission, banking, telecommunication?
Six. For cross border services, is the service intermediary, performance based, immovable property related, or event related? Each has its own rule.
Seven. Which head of tax follows — IGST, or CGST and SGST of which state?
Eight. What evidence establishes the answer, and where is it filed?
Recording it
One page per flow, signed off by tax and by the business, kept with the contract.
Reviewed when the contract changes, when the customer's registration changes, and when the law changes.
For cross border services, the note should address the intermediary risk expressly, because that is where the department starts.
What to do on Monday
Create a one page place of supply note for every service line and product flow.
Have the business sign off on the facts, not just the tax team on the law.
Address the intermediary risk expressly in every cross border services note.
Review on any change in contract, counterparty registration or law.
This page states the general position. A reader with a specific question on their own facts may write to the GST practice at AMLEGALS.
Write to the GST practiceQuestions we are asked on this
Who should own this note?
Tax, with the business signing off on the facts. A note based on assumed facts is worthless.
How often should it be reviewed?
On any change in the contract, the counterparty's registration, or the law.
Does a note protect us if we are wrong?
It establishes a disclosed, reasoned position, which defeats suppression and the higher penalty even if the position fails.
In this cluster
- Place of supply under GST: the full decision tree
- Intermediary services: characterisation, exposure and structuring
- Export of services: the five conditions and where claims fail
- Dharmendra M. Jani: the constitutional attack on intermediary taxation, and where it stands
- Mohit Minerals: ocean freight, composite supply, and the sentence that changed GST federalism
- Import of services and reverse charge under Section 5(3) of the IGST Act
- OIDAR services: registration, compliance and the 2023 amendment
- Bill to ship to transactions and Section 10(1)(b)
- High seas sales, bonded warehouse transfers and Schedule III
- Merchant trade and out and out supplies
GST Insights is published by AMLEGALS for general information. Law stated as on 3 September 2026. Not advice on any particular set of facts; not an advertisement or a solicitation under Rule 36 of the Bar Council of India Rules. Readers with a question on their own facts may write to the GST practice of their own accord.