Goods Sent for Job Work: ITC-04

Goods at a job worker’s premises still belong to the principal, but they are out of the principal’s sight and off its shop floor. The law lets them go out without tax, on two conditions: they must come back, or be sold from the job worker’s premises, within fixed periods, and every movement must be reported. FORM GST ITC-04 is that report. It is not a return in the usual sense, and it carries no late fee. But it is the record that shows when goods went out and came back. If inputs are not back within a year, or capital goods within three years, the principal is treated as having sold them on the day they left.

This guide covers who files, how often, what the tables ask for, the portal steps, and what follows if goods do not come back or the statement is not filed. Credit on the goods themselves is covered in Input Tax Credit: the Conditions in Section 16.

The legal frame

Section 143(1) of the CGST Act allows a registered person, the principal, “under intimation and subject to such conditions as may be prescribed”, to send inputs or capital goods “without payment of tax, to a job worker for job work”. From there the goods may go to another job worker, and so on.

The principal must either:

• bring them back to any of its places of business, inputs within one year and capital goods within three years of their being sent out (section 143(1)(a)), or
• supply them from the job worker’s premises within the same periods, on payment of tax, or for export (section 143(1)(b)).

Supplying from the job worker’s premises is allowed only if the job worker is registered, or if the principal declares those premises as an additional place of business, unless the goods are notified.

Three further points come from the Act and the circular.

• It is optional. Circular No. 38/12/2018-GST of 26 March 2018 notes that the principal “is not obligated to follow the said provisions”. Section 143 is a facility.
• The principal keeps the accounts. Under section 143(2), “the responsibility for keeping proper accounts for the inputs or capital goods shall lie with the principal”.
• ITC-04 is the intimation. Circular 38 states that “the FORM GST ITC-04 will serve as the intimation as envisaged under section 143”. It is the “intimation” in section 143(1).

Section 19(2) and (5) allow the principal credit even where inputs or capital goods go straight from the supplier to the job worker.

How long goods may stay out

The periods are one year for inputs and three years for capital goods. Moulds and dies, jigs and fixtures, and tools are outside both: no period applies to them.

A proviso inserted from 1 February 2019 allows the Commissioner, “on sufficient cause being shown”, to extend these periods by up to one year and two years respectively.

Where goods go directly to the job worker, the provisos to section 19(3) and 19(6) count the period “from the date of receipt” by the job worker. Section 143 does not say so expressly. The two sections are not worded identically on this point.

When goods are treated as sold

Under section 143(3) and (4), inputs or capital goods that are neither returned nor supplied from the job worker’s premises within the period are “deemed” to have been “supplied by the principal to the job worker on the day when the said inputs were sent out”. Rule 45(4) requires that supply to be “declared in FORM GSTR-1” and makes the principal “liable to pay the tax along with applicable interest”.

Circular 38 (paragraph 9.6) describes how this works in practice. The principal issues an invoice and declares the supply “in his return for that particular month in which the time period of one year / three years has expired”. The date of supply “shall be the date on which such inputs or capital goods were initially sent”, and “interest for the intervening period shall also be payable”. If the goods then come back late, the circular treats that as a supply by the job worker to the principal.

For example, suppose inputs leave on a challan dated 20 November 2025 and are still with the job worker on 20 November 2026. The supply is treated as made on 20 November 2025. The principal reports it with November 2026’s GSTR-1, and pays tax with interest under section 50(1) for the period in between. Late Returns: Late Fee, Interest, the Three-Year Bar and Notices explains how the interest is calculated.

How often ITC-04 is filed, and when

Rule 45(3) requires the challan details for goods sent to or received from a job worker “during the specified period” to be included in ITC-04. It must be furnished “on or before the twenty-fifth day of the month succeeding the said period”.

The specified period was substituted for “a quarter” by Notification No. 35/2021-Central Tax of 24 September 2021, with effect from 1 October 2021. The Explanation to rule 45(3) defines it as follows.

Principal’s aggregate turnover in the preceding financial year	Period	Due date
More than five crore rupees	April to September	25 October
More than five crore rupees	October to March	25 April
Up to five crore rupees	The financial year	25 April

Aggregate turnover is the PAN-wide, all-India figure defined in section 2(6).

Notification No. 79/2020-Central Tax is sometimes cited as the source of this change. It is not. That notification, of 15 October 2020, amended rules 46, 67A, 80, 138E and 142 and a series of forms from GSTR-1 to the DRC forms. It does not touch rule 45 or ITC-04.

The Commissioner may extend the due date by notification. The last extensions found were Nos. 87/2020, 11/2021 and 26/2021, all for quarterly periods before the change. None was found for any later period in the Central Tax notifications issued up to 7 May 2026.

The portal’s FAQ gives the same frequencies. For principals with turnover up to five crore rupees, it says annual filing applies “from FY 2022-23”. Parts of the same FAQ still describe the form as quarterly, as does the “Period: Quarter” field in the CBIC copy of the form itself. The rule, as amended, governs.

What to have ready

• Challans for every outward movement. Rule 45(1) and (2) require goods to move “under the cover of a challan issued by the principal” with the details in rule 55. These are:

  • challan date and number
  • names, addresses and GSTINs of consignor and consignee
  • HSN code and description
  • quantity
  • taxable value
  • place of supply for inter-State movement
  • signature

  This comes from the books.

• Challans for movement between job workers. Under rule 45(1), these may be issued by the principal or the sending job worker, or the principal’s challan may be endorsed with “the quantity and description of goods”.

• Fresh challans for part returns. Circular 38 (paragraph 8.4(v)) says that where goods come back “in piecemeal quantities”, the original challan “cannot be endorsed and a fresh challan is required to be issued by the job worker”.

• Invoices for goods supplied from the job worker’s premises. These are also reported in GSTR-1.

• Losses and wastes, by quantity, for each return or onward supply.

• E-way bills. Rule 55(3) and rule 138 apply. For inter-State movement to a job worker, the third proviso to rule 138(1) requires an e-way bill “irrespective of the value of the consignment”.

• The preceding year’s aggregate turnover, to fix the period.

• A running register of open challans, showing each item’s date of dispatch against the one-year and three-year limits.

The tables

The portal names the tables as follows. The CBIC copy of the form labels the last three as 5, (A) and (B).

• Table 4. Inputs or capital goods sent for job work, including goods sent directly to the job worker. Each line shows the job worker’s GSTIN (or State, if unregistered), challan number and date, description, unit, quantity, taxable value, type of goods, rate, and tax by head.
• Table 5A. Goods received back from the job worker to whom they were sent, with losses and wastes.
• Table 5B. Goods received back from a different job worker from the one they were originally sent to, with losses and wastes.
• Table 5C. Goods sent to a job worker and then supplied from its premises, with the principal’s invoice number and date, and losses and wastes.

The form’s instructions say that the original challan number and date “may not be filled” where “one-to-one correspondence between goods sent for job work and goods received back after job work is not possible”. The job worker’s own challan number and date are mandatory where a fresh challan was required.

Filing on the portal

The portal’s user manual for ITC-04 describes these steps.

1. After login, the principal goes to Services, then Returns, then ITC Forms, and chooses PREPARE ONLINE on the GST ITC-04 tile.
2. The principal selects the financial year and return filing period.
3. In each tile (4, 5A, 5B, 5C), the principal chooses whether the job worker is registered or unregistered, enters the GSTIN or State, the challan details and the item details, and adds and saves each challan. Above 500 challans, the manual points to the offline tool.
4. The principal clicks PROCEED TO FILE, refreshes until the status reads “Ready to File”, and opens the summary.
5. The principal ticks the verification, selects the authorised signatory and files with a DSC or EVC. The portal issues an ARN.
6. The filed statement can be downloaded in Excel.

The FAQ states that “there is no option to preview Form GST ITC-04 before filing”. The manual shows an error where no record has been added and the filer tries to proceed, and it describes no facility to amend a filed ITC-04.

Who signs

The principal’s authorised signatory verifies the statement. Under rule 26(1), a company registered under the Companies Act, 2013 must use a DSC.

If ITC-04 is late or missed

No late fee. Section 47(1) charges a late fee only for details or returns under sections 37, 39, 45 and 52, and ITC-04 falls under none of them. The portal’s FAQ says that “there is no late fee, penalty or interest for late filing”. The Act does, however, contain a residuary penalty. Section 125 allows a penalty “which may extend to twenty-five thousand rupees” for contravening any provision “for which no penalty is separately provided”.

The larger exposure is the deemed supply. Without a clear record of what came back and when, the principal has no easy answer to a claim that goods stayed out beyond the period. Section 143(2) puts the burden of keeping those accounts on the principal. Tax on a deemed supply, with interest, is recovered under section 73, 74 or 74A if it is not paid voluntarily. GST Notices: DRC-01A, DRC-01 and Sections 73, 74 and 74A covers that procedure.

Goods in transit without a proper challan. Two single-judge decisions of the Allahabad High Court upheld detention and penalty under section 129. In M/s Famus India v. State of U.P. (Writ Tax No. 57 of 2021, order dated 10 March 2025), steel was unloaded at a job worker’s premises on a challan that lacked the particulars required by rule 55. In Nippon Tubes Ltd v. State of U.P. (Writ Tax No. 6 of 2021, 17 September 2025), coils were sent to a job worker and the court found that neither a rule 45 challan nor an e-way bill accompanied them. Both cases are about the challan, not ITC-04. They show the paperwork that ITC-04 later summarises being tested on the road.

Errors in a deemed-supply invoice or in GSTR-1 are corrected through the routes in Correcting Mistakes in Returns.

The procedure in summary

1. Send goods on a rule 45 challan with the rule 55 details, and an e-way bill where rule 138 requires one.
2. Record receipts back, onward movements between job workers, supplies from the job worker’s premises, and losses and wastes, against the original challans.
3. Track each open challan against the one-year limit for inputs and three-year limit for capital goods. Moulds, dies, jigs, fixtures and tools are excluded.
4. Where a period expires, issue an invoice dated as at dispatch, report it in the GSTR-1 of the month of expiry, and pay tax with interest.
5. Fix the ITC-04 period from the preceding year’s aggregate turnover: half-yearly above five crore rupees, annual otherwise.
6. Enter tables 4, 5A, 5B and 5C on the portal (there is no preview) and file with a DSC (mandatory for companies) or EVC by the 25th of the month after the period.

The next guide in this set covers answering FORM GST DRC-01C, the intimation issued when credit claimed in GSTR-3B exceeds GSTR-2B.