Your GSTIN shows as cancelled. You cannot raise a tax invoice, your customers cannot claim credit on what you have already billed, and the portal will not let you file your way out of it. There is a route back, it has a deadline, and it depends entirely on who cancelled the registration.
Pick the speed and depth that matches your need. Same quality, same CA team — only the timeline changes.
Timeline: 15–30 days
Timeline: 20–40 days
Timeline: 30–60 days
Government fee — paid by you at actuals
Nil on the revocation application itself — Form GST REG-21 carries no government charge, and neither does REG-16 or GSTR-10. What you do pay the government is the tax, interest, penalty and late fee on every pending return up to the cancellation date, all at actuals. For someone who stopped filing eighteen months ago that backlog is the real cost of getting back in, and it is usually much larger than the professional fee. We quantify it before you commit.
Every price above is a professional fee, excluding GST and government charges. 50% on delivery.
All fees and charges listed are indicative only and do not constitute a binding offer. Final amounts may vary depending on the volume of work and the complexity involved.
If the department cancelled it, revocation under Section 30 is available. If you cancelled it yourself by filing REG-16, there is no revocation and the only route is a fresh registration. This decides everything else.
Every pending GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B up to the cancellation date must be filed and all tax, interest, penalty and late fee paid before REG-21 will be accepted. We put the number in front of you before you commit.
There is no way around this. We clear the returns and the dues in sequence so the portal will take the application.
Aadhaar authentication has been mandatory for revocation since 1 January 2022. The application goes in Form GST REG-21 within 90 days of service of the cancellation order, with a written explanation and documents behind it.
Approval restores the GSTIN to Active in REG-22. Returns that fell due while the registration was cancelled appear as pending the moment it goes live again — we file and pay them promptly, because late fee keeps running on them.
Tell us your requirement, a CA will call you in 30 minutes.
The department almost always cancels for non-filing of returns — six consecutive months for a regular taxpayer, three consecutive quarters for a composition taxpayer. You got a show cause notice in REG-17 and then a cancellation order in REG-19, and revocation under Section 30 is available. If you cancelled it yourself by filing REG-16, there is no revocation: Section 30 applies only to cancellations made by the proper officer on his own motion, and your only route is a fresh registration in REG-01 with a new GSTIN. That is worth knowing before anyone surrenders a registration they might need again.
Revocation is applied for in Form GST REG-21, within 90 days from the date of service of the cancellation order. The Commissioner or Additional Commissioner may extend it. A lot of published guidance still says 30 days — that was the position before the amendment effective 1 October 2023 and it is out of date.
Before REG-21 will be accepted: every pending GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B up to the cancellation date must be filed, all outstanding tax, interest, penalty and late fee must be paid, and Aadhaar authentication must be completed — mandatory for revocation since 1 January 2022. There is no way around the first two.
Returns that fell due while the registration was cancelled appear as pending the moment the GSTIN goes live again. File and pay them promptly, because late fee keeps running on them.
A revocation application with a specific, credible explanation and documents behind it clears faster than one with the reason box left blank. Proof the business is genuinely operating — bank statements, invoices, a rent agreement or electricity bill for the principal place of business — is what turns a paper application into an approved one.
If you genuinely want out: file all pending returns to the intended cancellation date, reverse input tax credit on closing stock of inputs, semi-finished goods, finished goods and capital goods under Rule 44 and pay it, file REG-16 with the reason, effective date and stock and liability details, take the cancellation order in REG-19, then file GSTR-10 — the final return — within three months of cancellation or of the order, whichever is later. GSTR-10 is the step people skip. It has its own late fee and the department does chase it. Voluntary cancellation, REG-16 plus GSTR-10, starts at ₹3,999.
Three options, best first. Appeal in APL-01 within 30 days if the rejection order is recent. Apply to the Commissioner for extension if the delay has a reason the department will accept. Failing both, apply for a fresh registration — which requires the old GSTIN's dues and returns to be settled anyway. Writ relief before a High Court has been granted in genuine hardship cases; for most small taxpayers it costs more than a fresh registration, and we will say so rather than sell you the expensive option.
