GSTR 3B: Eligibility, Filing Process & Penalty

The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) came up with a list of forms for filing the Goods and Service Tax (GST) in India. GSTR 3B is one of the essential ones. If you are an eligible business owner in India, it is mandatory to file GSTR 3B at the right intervals to avoid legal complications.

Do you wish to know the meaning of GSTR 3B? Keep reading this article to get a complete overview.

GSTR 3B is mainly your return summary every Month/Quarterly. As a registered taxpayer, you must file GSTR 3B monthly, even if it did not have significant returns during a month. It is a consolidated summary of every inward and outward supply that your business dealt with during this month/quarter.

The general format of a GSTR 3B form includes the following:

• Section 1: A questionnaire regarding your business activities and tax rates in the current month.
• Section 2: A section on GST details, including your return status.
• Section 3: A section on tax levied on your inward and outward supplies, which can bring reverse charges. Then, it shall ask for data regarding inter-state supplies made to UIN holders and unregistered buyers.
• Section 4: This section shall ask for details regarding your input tax credit based on your eligibility.
• Section 5: It includes information regarding supplies of your business that are exempted from GST payment (if any). Moreover, it shall ask for information regarding applicable interest and any late fee payment.
• Section 6: Here, you need to enter all the details regarding your payment of GST liabilities for your business for that quarter.

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People often wonder if they should file GSTR 3B. It is important to know the eligibility criteria here. It is safe to say that every taxpayer under the GST regime is required to file this form.  You need to file it even if your monthly transaction is nil. However, you can avoid filing this form in the following exceptional cases.

• Taxpayers registered under the composition scheme can be exempted.
• Non-resident taxable people do not need to file this form.
• Input service distributors can avoid filing this form.
• Non-resident suppliers of Online Information Database Access and Retrieval (OIDAR) services can be exempted.

Now that you have an idea about its meaning, you must be curious to know how to file GSTR 3B. Here are the steps to file this form online.

Step 1: Visit the official portal of GST. Log in with your credentials.

Step 2: Select “Services” and click on “Returns”. Next, click “Returns Dashboard” to proceed.

Step 3: The screen will be redirected to the “File Returns” page. Select the relevant financial year.

Step 4: Click on "Return filing" from the drop-down list. Next, click on “Search” to proceed.

Step 5: Click on “Monthly Returns GSTR 3B” from the list of GST return forms. Select “Prepare Online” next.

Step 6: Fill up this form with your details. Keep clicking on "Save" through the various steps, and finally, click on "Submit.”

Step 7: After submitting the form, go to the "Payment of Tax" section of your returns. Then, click on "Offset Liability" and then on "Ok" on the pop-up message. 

Step 8: Click on “Proceed” on the warning message to complete the GSTR 3B filing and tax payment process. You will see a success message after completing this process.

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Now that you know how to file GSTR 3B online, here are the details you must keep handy while completing this process.

• GSTIN or provisional ID.
• The legal name of the registered person or organisation.
• Details of inward and outward supplies on reverse charges.
• Outward taxable supplies, only those on which GST is charged.
• For other outward supplies, where the GST rate is zero or no GST is charged.
• Inward supplies, which are liable to reverse charge.

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It is mandatory to file GSTR 3B for every tax period within the due date. You must file it on the 20th (For Monthly Tax Payers) and 22nd (for Quarterly tax payers )the subsequent month/quarter. Taxpayers are not required to provide any invoice with the GSTR 3B returns. 

Laws regarding taxes keep amending with the changes in the environment and fluctuations in the economy. A major recent change is that taxpayers are not allowed to file their GSTR-3B after the expiry of a period of three years from the due date.

Furthermore, from the July 2025 tax period, the auto-populated liability in GSTR-3B based on your GSTR-1 has become non-editable (hard locked). Any changes or corrections to outward supplies must be made via GSTR-1A before filing GSTR-3B.

If you are still dubious, here are the benefits of filing GSTR 3B.

• It is easier to get the real-time status of GSTR 3Bs in one place with GSTINs. Even if there are multiple GSTINs across several branches, it will help you keep track of GSTR 3B in one place.
• It helps taxpayers to get summary data to compare with books of accounts and GST annual returns.
• With this, taxpayers can easily download data from the GSTIN. It helps them maintain their details.