Which Registrations a Jewellery Seller Actually Needs

A jewellery seller in India is usually asking about four registrations at once: GST, Udyam, the state Shop and Establishment registration, and BIS. They sit under four separate laws, run by four separate departments, and whether one of them applies to you tells you nothing about whether the next one does.

GST is the one decided for you, by what you sell and where you sell it, and it is also the one that changes every bill you write afterwards. It belongs with the rest of what a jewellery seller decides before the first listing.

Take GST first. The form is the easy half. Every bill you write afterwards carries your GSTIN, the right HSN, and the rate your supply actually attracts: a finished piece sold ready-made is one supply and carries 3% on the whole value with the making inside it, while 5% is the rate where the making was supplied as a service in its own right and billed apart.

Where a particular bill lands between those two — and where the 18% answer half the internet quotes comes from — is worked through, section by section, in a guide of its own.

Jewellery business ke liye kya registration chahiye?

Four things, and the word licence runs them together. The paper closest to a general permission to trade is a municipal trade licence, which sits outside all four.

Hallmarked gold and plated stock in one catalogue, sold from one state into six, is the sort of mix a CA should see.

When does GST registration actually become compulsory for me?

Two doors lead in, and walking through either is enough. One is section 22 of the CGST Act, which catches you on turnover. The other is section 24, which catches you whatever your turnover.

Aggregate turnover under section 22 is worked out on the PAN and across the whole of India: taxable sales, exempt sales, exports and inter-state supplies added together, taxes excluded. Two counters and one online catalogue on one PAN are a single number.

The threshold figure itself is fixed by notification, differs for goods and for services, and sits lower in the special category states, so the only current one is on the GST portal.

Two of section 24’s clauses catch jewellery sellers almost every time. One is making any inter-state taxable supply: one necklace couriered from Jaipur to Pune, off your own website, puts you inside it. The other is supplying goods through an electronic commerce operator required to collect tax at source under section 52. A third clause catches anyone selling for a few days in a state where they keep no place of business, as a casual taxable person.

That second clause is where the law and the marketplace meet, because the operator’s collection under section 52 runs against your GSTIN. The law was relaxed for goods in 2023; no platform has to relax its onboarding to match.

Can I sell on Meesho without GST?

For goods, yes, through one narrow door.

Section 23(2) of the CGST Act lets the government exempt a class of persons from registration by notification. Notification No. 34/2023-Central Tax, dated 31 July 2023 and in force from 1 October 2023, uses it for people supplying goods through a marketplace, so section 24(ix) stops catching them. Its conditions are on the CBIC site, and every one of them has to be true at the same time.

• Your aggregate turnover stays inside the section 22 threshold.
• You make no inter-state supply.
• You supply through a marketplace in one state or union territory only.
• You have a PAN, declared with your place of business on the common portal and validated there.
• You hold an enrolment number from that portal, and you do not supply before it is granted.

What you come away with is an enrolment number. You charge no GST on it, take no input credit with it, and it stops being valid the day a registration under section 22 or 24 is granted. It counts you; it does not register you.

Category is the marketplace’s own policy, set in its own panel, so read which ones it onboards without a GSTIN off the onboarding screen on the day you sign up.

For jewellery the door is narrower than it looks. Aggregate turnover counts the metal, so a gold counter crosses the threshold on metal value long before it has earned anything, the earning being in the making. What fits through is imitation, plated and light silver stock.

Crossing over changes the maths in both directions. You start remitting tax out of a price the buyer has already paid. The GST on your marketplace fees stops being a dead cost and becomes credit.

What do Udyam and the Shop Act registration each do for me?

Udyam

Udyam registers the enterprise itself under the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Act, 2006, with a PAN and an Aadhaar. It is free. Agents still sell it as a service, and what they are selling is a form you can fill in an evening.

Classification as micro, small or medium is worked out on investment together with turnover. Both limits are set by notification and have been revised, so read the current pair on the portal.

Banks and tenders look for the registration, and so does the delayed-payment rule in the same Act: section 15 requires a buyer to pay a registered micro or small supplier by the date agreed, and in no case later than 45 days from acceptance. If you supply counters on credit, that section is the reason to hold it.

Shop and Establishment

This one is state law, so there is a version of it for every state — in Maharashtra the trade calls the certificate a Gumasta — and it governs working hours, the weekly off, leave, and how wages are paid.

A certificate from one state does not carry to another, and what triggers it differs from state to state: some register every establishment, some only those employing staff, some ask for an intimation instead.

One reason to hold it has nothing to do with labour law: a bank asks for proof of business before opening a current account in the shop’s name, and this certificate or the Udyam one is usually what it accepts.

How much cash can I take at the counter, and when do I need the buyer’s PAN?

Start with whose PAN the sales land in, because all four registrations are taken in that name. A proprietorship trades on the proprietor’s own PAN; a partnership, an LLP or a company holds one of its own. Changing that later means taking all four again.

Then the counter, where two different rules both sit at ₹2,00,000. The first is section 269ST of the Income-tax Act: no person may receive that much or more in cash from one person in a day, or in respect of a single transaction, or in respect of transactions relating to one event or occasion. The penalty under section 271DA falls on the receiver and equals the amount received.

Read all three parts, because a bridal sale tests each one. Two bills to one buyer on one day is caught by the first. A part payment today and the balance tomorrow against one set, by the second. A wedding is an occasion, so pieces bought for it across several days can be caught by the third.

The second limit is the buyer’s. Rule 114B of the Income-tax Rules requires a buyer to quote PAN on a sale of goods exceeding ₹2,00,000 per transaction, whatever the mode of payment: card, UPI and bank transfer sit inside it as cash does. Where the buyer has no PAN, Form 60 is taken instead. The word is exceeding, so rule 114B starts just above the figure that section 269ST already catches.

One more law can sit above both of these. Dealers in precious metals and stones can be brought inside the Prevention of Money-laundering Act as reporting entities once cash dealing crosses a notified size. That size, and who is covered, are set by notification; the Department of Revenue publishes the text in force. Ask your CA before assuming it does not reach you.

Do I need an e-way bill to move jewellery between cities?

For the piece itself, usually not. Rule 138 of the CGST Rules requires an e-way bill for consignments above a notified value, and the annexure to rule 138(14) lists goods left outside it. Chapter 71 — jewellery and goldsmiths’ and silversmiths’ wares — is on it.

Your own state is the exception. Rule 138F lets a state require an e-way bill for movement of these goods inside its own borders, and states have not answered that the same way. Only your commercial tax department’s notification settles it.

The paperwork in the box is settled either way. A sold piece moves on a tax invoice; unsold stock moves on a delivery challan under rule 55, whether that is goods sent on approval, exhibition stock, or metal going out to a karigar.

A parcel stopped in transit with nothing in the box to explain it costs you an afternoon, so the challan number should tie back to your own issue entry.

Where does BIS hallmarking fit into all this?

Sellers put BIS off because it reads as a fifth tax registration. Granted under the Bureau of Indian Standards Act, 2016 and the hallmarking order made under it, it follows the metal you sell and the outlet that sells it. A wholesaler’s registration does not come across with the stock.

Gold jewellery hallmarking is mandatory for sale. Silver hallmarking is voluntary, so a silver counter registers by choice, and plated or imitation stock has no purity to certify at all.

The obligation, the exemptions, the fee and the validity are all published on the BIS portal, and the fee and the validity have both changed since 2021.

In what order should I take these?

Two decisions, then the four that follow from them.

1. Settle the entity — proprietorship, partnership, LLP or company — because every registration below is taken in that name.
2. Answer the GST question against sections 22 and 24, on your own facts, before opening a form.
3. Register for GST, or take the enrolment number under the 2023 notification if you qualify and can stay inside its conditions.
4. Open the current account. This is where a bank asks for the proof of business that sends sellers to the Shop Act or to Udyam.
5. Take the Shop Act registration your own state asks of you, and Udyam for the standing it gives.
6. BIS last, triggered by the gold jewellery articles you sell, whatever your size. On silver it stays a choice.

Write three lines on paper before you open any form: the state you sell from, every state you have sent a parcel to this year, and whether any of those sales went through a marketplace. Between those three lines, sections 22 and 24 are settled. Take the paper to a CA for one hour.