I
IGST Act · Chapter I
Preliminary
2 sections authoredIGST Act, 2017
s. 1Short title extent and commencement
Section 1 names the Act, fixes its territorial reach and lets the Central Government bring it into force provision by provision. It was used exactly that way: the administrative provisions first, the charge a week later.
- Section 1 of the IGST Act, 2017 extends the Act to the whole of India; the original exclusion of Jammu and Kashmir was omitted with effect from 08.07.2017.
- Sections 1, 2, 3, 14, 20 and 22 of the IGST Act came into force on 22.06.2017 (Notification 1/2017-Integrated Tax dated 19.06.2017).
- Sections 4 to 13, 16 to 19, 21 and 23 to 25 came into force on 01.07.2017 (Notification 3/2017-Integrated Tax dated 28.06.2017).
- Under the proviso to section 1(3), a reference to "the commencement of this Act" in any provision means the date that provision came into force.
s. 2Definitions
Section 2 defines the vocabulary of inter-State and cross-border supply. Most clauses only point to another Act; the ones that decide disputes are export of services, intermediary, fixed establishment, the two "location" clauses and online information services. Anything not defined here takes its CGST Act meaning under clause (24).
- Under section 2(6) of the IGST Act, 2017 a supply of service is an export only if all five conditions are met: supplier in India, recipient outside India, place of supply outside India, payment in convertible foreign exchange (or Indian rupees where RBI permits), and supplier and recipient not merely establishments of one distinct person.
- An "intermediary" under section 2(13) arranges or facilitates a supply between two or more other persons; a person supplying on its own account is not an intermediary (CBIC Circular 159/15/2021-GST).
- In Ernst & Young Ltd v Additional Commissioner (Delhi High Court, 2023), services rendered by the Indian branch to overseas EY entities were held not to be intermediary services and to qualify as exports.
- Since 30.03.2026, when the Finance Act, 2026 omitted section 13(8)(b), an intermediary's place of supply for cross-border services is the location of the recipient, so intermediary services to foreign principals can qualify as exports.
- A service by an Indian subsidiary to its foreign holding company is not barred from being an export by condition (v) of section 2(6): they are separate legal persons (CBIC Circular 161/17/2021-GST).
- Words not defined in the IGST Act take their meaning from the CGST Act, the UTGST Act or the GST (Compensation to States) Act under section 2(24).