How to Cancel an E-Invoice: The 24-Hour Rule

Cancelling an e-invoice means cancelling its IRN on the Invoice Registration Portal, and the portal allows it for only 24 hours. Inside that window it takes a minute; outside it, it cannot be done at all. This guide covers how to cancel an e-invoice on the portal and through the API, the e-way bill that often blocks it, the invoice number you lose when you do it, and what to do once the 24 hours are gone.

The cancellation rules in one table

Cancelling on the e-invoice portal

1. Log in to the IRP that generated the IRN — for most businesses the NIC portal. See e-invoice portal login.
2. Open e-Invoice → Cancel.
3. Enter the IRN, or search by the acknowledgement number or document details.
4. Check the invoice shown is the right one.
5. Select the reason and type short remarks.
6. Submit. The IRN status changes to cancelled, and the cancellation date is recorded.

Cancelling through the API or your software

Billing and ERP systems that generate IRNs through the API cancel them the same way: a cancel request with the IRN, a reason code and remarks. On the NIC API the reason codes are 1 duplicate, 2 data entry mistake, 3 order cancelled and 4 others. The response confirms the IRN and the cancellation date. To check the status of an IRN later — including whether a cancellation went through — use the get-IRN call, or see tracking IRN status and cancellation and, for many invoices at once, checking e-invoice status in bulk.

Cancel the e-way bill first

If an e-way bill was generated using the IRN, the IRP will not cancel the IRN while that e-way bill is active. Cancel the e-way bill first — it has its own 24-hour window and cannot be cancelled once verified in transit — and then cancel the IRN. The steps are in how to cancel an e-way bill. If the goods have already moved, cancelling is usually the wrong fix anyway; the invoice reflects a real supply, and any correction belongs in a credit or debit note.

Why the invoice number cannot be reused

The IRN is a hash of the supplier's GSTIN, the financial year, the document type and the document number. Send the same four values again and you get the same IRN, which the IRP rejects as a duplicate — even though the first one was cancelled. The practical rules:

• issue the corrected invoice under a new number in the series;
• keep the cancelled number in the register, marked cancelled, rather than leaving a gap;
• make sure your billing software does not "reuse" the number after cancelling the voucher.

Numbering rules are covered in our GST invoice format guide.

After 24 hours: credit note, not cancellation

Once the window closes, the IRN stands. If the invoice was wrong — wrong value, wrong rate, goods returned — issue a credit note for the excess, and report the credit note as an e-invoice so that it gets its own IRN. If the invoice was raised to the wrong buyer entirely, a credit note for the full value to that buyer, and a fresh invoice to the right one, achieves the same result. The mechanics and time limits are in debit and credit notes.

What cancellation does to GSTR-1

E-invoice details flow from the IRP into the supplier's GSTR-1 automatically. A cancelled IRN is removed from that auto-populated data, so the invoice does not appear as a supply. Check the auto-populated tables before filing — the status of each document is shown — and make sure that the replacement invoice, not the cancelled one, is what is reported. The GSTR-1 guide covers the review.

Frequently asked questions