As per Section 39(11) of the CGST Act, 2017, effective from October 1, 2023, taxpayers are prohibited from filing GST returns after three years from the due date, under Notification No. 28/2023. Additionally, the GST portal has implemented a data retention policy, whereby taxpayers’ return data will only be available for seven years. Starting in August 2024, the GST portal began archiving returns older than seven years. For instance, data for July 2017 was archived on August 1, 2024, and data for August 2017 followed on September 1, 2024. This archival process will continue monthly, meaning data for September 2017 will be archived on October 1, 2024, and so forth. Taxpayers are urged to download their return data from the GST portal for any future reference, as data beyond seven years will no longer be accessible.
Goods and Services Tax
Government of India, States and Union Territories
Archival of GST Returns data on GST portal
Sep 24th, 2024
1. Section 39 (11) of the CGST Act, 2017 , implemented w.e.f 01-10-2023 vide Notification No. 28/2023 – Central Tax dated 31th July, 2023, provides that the taxpayers shall not be allowed file their GST returns after the expiry of a period of three years from the due date of furnishing the said return.
2. Further, as per GST portal data policy, data for view of taxpayer to be retained for seven years only. Therefore, the same data policy is being implemented on the GST portal. Thus, return data will not be available to view beyond 7 years for taxpayers.
3. Accordingly, on 01st August 2024 return filed for July 2017 has been archived and on 01st September 2024, data for August 2017 has been archived. Further, this data archival is going to be a monthly activity hence on 01st October, 2024 data of September 2017 shall be taken down from the GST portal and so on so forth.
4. Hence, hereby the taxpayers are advised to download their relevant data from the GST portal for any future reference, if required.
Thanks,
Team GSTN
