GST Refund for Export of Services With Payment of Tax

To claim a GST refund for export of services with payment of tax, file Form GST RFD-01 on the GST portal within two years of the relevant date, attach Bank Realization Certificates or Foreign Inward Remittance Certificates matching each export invoice, and make sure the same figures appear in Table 6A of your GSTR-1 and Table 3.1(b) of your GSTR-3B. The IGST you paid on the exported services comes back to your registered bank account, with 90% released provisionally within seven days of the acknowledgment and the balance after final verification.¹

Under Section 16 of the IGST Act, exported services are zero-rated. That gives you two routes: ship under a Letter of Undertaking without paying tax, or pay IGST upfront and claim it back. The route below is the second one, which many exporters prefer when they have input credit balances to burn off.²

Confirm the Transaction Qualifies as an Export of Services

Section 2(6) of the IGST Act sets five conditions, and all five must hold. The supplier is located in India; the recipient is located outside India; the place of supply is outside India; payment is received in convertible foreign exchange (or in Indian rupees where the Reserve Bank of India specifically permits it); and the supplier and recipient are not merely two establishments of the same person.³

The foreign exchange condition trips up more exporters than any of the others. Payment has to actually land in the supplier’s bank account in the approved currency within the RBI realization window. For most service exporters that window is nine months from the invoice date.⁴ If the money does not arrive in time, the transaction loses its export status, and any refund already received has to be returned with interest.

The Two-Year Filing Deadline

Section 54 of the CGST Act gives you two years from the “relevant date” to file. For export of services with payment of tax, the relevant date depends on the sequence of events:

If the service was completed before payment, the two-year clock starts on the date you received the foreign exchange in your bank account.
If an advance was received before the invoice was issued, the clock starts on the date of the invoice.

Partial advances are common in services work, and each portion can have its own relevant date. File after the two years and the claim is time-barred; officers have no discretion to extend the limit.¹

Line Up Your Documents and Returns First

Rule 89 of the CGST Rules requires the application to be accompanied by a statement listing each export invoice number, invoice date, and the corresponding BRC or FIRC confirming that foreign exchange was received.⁵ The banking certificates are what prove the transaction brought foreign currency into India, and a claim without them fails on the merits.

Your GST returns for every period covered by the refund need to be filed and internally consistent before you touch RFD-01. Export invoices belong in Table 6A of GSTR-1, and the IGST paid on those exports belongs in Table 3.1(b) of GSTR-3B. Reporting exports under Table 3.1(a) instead of 3.1(b) is a common misclick that blocks the portal’s validation entirely.⁶

CBIC Circular No. 125/44/2019-GST sets out the full document checklist. Along with BRCs or FIRCs and the correctly filed returns, you provide a copy of GSTR-2A for the relevant period, self-certified copies of invoices whose details do not appear in GSTR-2A, and a self-declaration on non-prosecution for provisional refund.⁷ Minor exchange-rate variance between the invoice date and payment date is normal; keep a short note ready for any significant difference.

One check that people leave to the end and regret: confirm the bank account on your GST profile is active and validated on the Public Financial Management System. Refund payments route through PFMS, and a failed validation holds up disbursement even after the tax officer approves the claim.⁸

Filing Form GST RFD-01

The application is filed electronically through Form GST RFD-01 on the GST common portal.⁵ From the refund type dropdown, choose “Refund of IGST paid on export of services with payment of tax.” Picking the wrong category is one of the fastest routes to a procedural rejection.

Inside RFD-01, Statement 2 is where you enter invoice-level details and the matching BRC or FIRC reference for each transaction.⁷ The portal cross-checks these figures against your GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B, and any mismatch is flagged before you can submit. Companies sign off with a Digital Signature Certificate; individuals and partnerships can use an Electronic Verification Code. On submission the portal generates an Application Reference Number.

What Happens After You Submit

The proper officer has 15 days to review the application for completeness. A clean file is acknowledged in Form GST RFD-02. Gaps or errors bring a deficiency memo in Form GST RFD-03, which effectively closes the current application: the amount debited from your electronic credit or cash ledger is re-credited, and you must file a fresh RFD-01 after fixing the issues.⁹ If you leave the corrected application unfiled, the claim simply lapses.

Provisional 90% Refund

Section 54(6) allows the officer to release 90% of the claimed amount provisionally within seven days of the RFD-02 acknowledgment, through Form GST RFD-04.¹ This is the cash-flow benefit of the pay-and-claim route: most of the money arrives before final verification is complete. The remaining 10% is released once the officer finishes verification.

Show Cause Notice, Final Order, and Payment

If the officer intends to deny part or all of the refund, a show cause notice is issued in Form GST RFD-08. You have 15 days to reply in Form GST RFD-09.¹⁰ Sanction of the claim, in whole or in part, comes through Form GST RFD-06, followed by a payment order in Form GST RFD-05 that instructs PFMS to credit the money to your bank account.¹¹ Any rejected portion is re-credited to your electronic credit ledger via Form GST PMT-03. Status is visible on the GST portal dashboard and on the PFMS portal.⁸

How Much You Get Back

For this refund category the calculation is direct: you receive the actual IGST paid on the exported services as shown on your invoices. There is no turnover-based proportioning, unlike the accumulated input tax credit route under Rule 89(4).⁵ The officer verifies that the IGST claimed matches what was reported in GSTR-3B and that the invoices appear in GSTR-1. The refund cannot exceed the tax liability you actually discharged for the period. Interest and late fees paid during filing are not refundable.

Interest If the Refund Is Delayed

Section 56 of the CGST Act entitles you to interest at up to 6% per year when the refund is not issued within 60 days of your application. If the refund is payable as a consequence of an appellate order, the rate rises to up to 9% per year.¹² Interest is credited along with the refund amount without a separate application. In practice the 60-day clock runs from the ARN date, not from when the officer picks up the file, which is worth knowing if your application is sitting untouched.

Where Claims Commonly Fail

Most rejections come from preventable errors, not disputed substance:

GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B do not reconcile, or exports were reported under Table 3.1(a) of GSTR-3B instead of 3.1(b).
BRC or FIRC coverage is missing or incomplete, or partial remittances do not add up to the invoice value.
The wrong refund category was chosen on RFD-01, creating a mismatch the portal cannot reconcile.
The application was filed after the two-year deadline under Section 54.¹
A deficiency memo (RFD-03) closed the original application and a fresh one was never filed.
The bank account on the GST profile is not validated on PFMS, so approved refunds cannot be disbursed.⁸

The GSTR-3B table error is worth extra attention because it is invisible until you reach the refund stage, at which point the portal blocks validation of the data. Getting the table right at the time of return filing is the only clean safeguard.⁷

1
Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs. Central Goods and Services Tax Act 2017 – Section 54
2
Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs. Integrated Goods and Services Tax Act 2017 – Section 16
3
Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs. Integrated Goods and Services Tax Act 2017 – Section 2
4
Reserve Bank of India. Master Circular on Export of Goods and Services
5
Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs. Central Goods and Services Tax Rules – Rule 89
6
Goods and Services Tax. Refund of ITC Paid on Exports of Goods and Services Without Payment of Integrated Tax
7
Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs. Circular No. 125/44/2019 – GST
8
Goods and Services Tax. Advisory – Tracking GST Refund Application Status on the GST Portal and PFMS
9
Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs. Central Goods and Services Tax Rules – Rule 90
10
Goods and Services Tax. File Reply – FAQs
11
Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs. Circular No. 17/17/2017 – GST
12
Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs. Central Goods and Services Tax Act 2017 – Section 56