HSN Code List with GST Rates: How to Read It Correctly

Searching for an HSN code list with GST rates gets you thousands of PDFs and spreadsheets, and most of them are wrong — not because whoever compiled them was careless, but because the underlying rate schedules changed on 22 September 2025 and a static file has no way of telling you that. There is no single official "HSN code list with GST rates". What exists is a set of CBIC rate notifications organised into schedules, and learning to read one entry properly is worth more than any list you can download.

Why an "HSN code list" is the wrong mental model

People look for a list because they want a lookup: put a product name in, get a code and a percentage out. The GST rate structure is not built that way. It is built as a legal instrument — a notification with numbered schedules, each schedule corresponding to one rate, and each schedule containing serial-numbered entries. An entry names a chapter, heading, sub-heading or tariff item and then gives a description of goods. The description does the real work. The code is the address; the description is what actually lives there.

This matters practically because one HSN heading can appear in more than one schedule. Two products sharing the same four-digit heading can land at different rates because the entries carve them up by description — by material, by whether they are packaged and branded, by end use. If you build a rate master keyed only on a four-digit code, you will eventually bill the wrong rate on something and not find out until a reconciliation or a notice.

How an HSN code is built, digit by digit

The Harmonized System of Nomenclature is a World Customs Organization standard used by most trading nations, which is why the first six digits of an Indian HSN code mean the same thing to a customs officer in Rotterdam. India then extends it for its own tariff purposes.

Chapters are themselves grouped into sections, and sections have notes attached to them that are legally binding on classification. Section and chapter notes are the single most commonly ignored part of the structure, and they routinely decide cases — a note can explicitly exclude a product from a chapter that otherwise looks like an obvious fit. If you have not read the notes for the chapter you are classifying under, you have not finished classifying. Our explainer on what an HSN code is covers the basics of the system; this post is about reading the schedules built on top of it.

The chapter-wise map of the schedules

Because the rate schedules follow the customs tariff sequence, knowing roughly where a chapter sits saves a lot of scrolling. The ordering is broadly agricultural first, then minerals and chemicals, then materials, then manufactured articles, then machinery and vehicles.

Services are not in this map at all. They run on a parallel nomenclature under Chapter 99 — the Services Accounting Code — with its own rate notification and its own structure. If you are supplying services, the SAC code reference is the right starting point rather than any of the goods chapters above.

How the rate schedules are laid out

The GST rate structure for goods has always been carried in rate notifications issued under the CGST, SGST, UTGST and IGST Acts in parallel. The original framework used Notification No. 1/2017-Central Tax (Rate) for the rate schedules and Notification No. 2/2017-Central Tax (Rate) for exemptions, both dated 28 June 2017, with matching notifications on the IGST side. Everything since has been an amendment to, or replacement of, that framework — including the large-scale restructuring that came with GST 2.0.

Two features of the layout confuse first-time readers:

• The CGST notification shows half the rate. A schedule headed 2.5% in the Central Tax (Rate) notification is the 5% GST slab: 2.5% CGST plus 2.5% SGST for an intra-state supply. The IGST notification shows the full 5%. If you read a central notification and think the rates look impossibly low, this is why.
• Exemption and rate live in separate notifications. A product can be rated in one notification and then exempted — sometimes conditionally, sometimes only for a particular class of supplier — in another. Reading only the rate schedule can give you a rate for something that is actually nil-rated in your circumstances.

Alongside the schedules sits a residual entry, which sweeps up goods not specified anywhere else and taxes them at the standard rate. It exists so the notification is exhaustive, not as an invitation to stop looking. For the current slab structure the schedules are built on, see our breakdown of the GST rate slabs after the 2025 reform.

Reading a single notification entry

An entry in a rate schedule has three columns, and reading it correctly means reading all three in order.

Three habits make the difference. First, treat the description as controlling and the code as descriptive: if the description excludes your product, the matching code does not save you. Second, watch the dash convention in tariff extracts — a single dash marks a subdivision of the heading above it, a double dash a subdivision of that, and a double-dash entry only ever applies within the single-dash entry it sits under. Third, when an entry says "Any Chapter", the code column has deliberately been left open and you are being asked to classify purely on description.

Why the HSN lists circulating online are stale

The GST 2.0 rate reform took effect on 22 September 2025 and moved most goods into a 0 / 5 / 18 / 40 structure, retiring the 12% and 28% slabs for general goods. Every compiled list published before that date is now wrong for a large share of its rows, and compiled lists rarely carry a visible date. A file named something like "GST HSN code list with rates" tells you nothing about which notification it was built from or when.

Before trusting any list you did not compile yourself, check three things:

1. Does it cite a notification number and date? If not, discard it — there is no way to tell what it is a copy of.
2. Does it still show 12% or 28% rows for ordinary goods? Then it predates 22 September 2025.
3. Does it reproduce the description column in full, or only the code and a percentage? A code-to-percentage two-column sheet has thrown away the part that decides the rate.

The same problem affects rate masters inside billing software and ERPs. A rate master is a compiled list too; it just happens to live in a database rather than a PDF. After a reform of this size the sensible move is a spot-check of a sample of your catalogue against the current notification rather than trusting that a bulk update caught every line.

The General Rules of Interpretation problem

When a product plausibly fits two headings — and composite or multi-material products usually do — you do not get to pick. The General Rules of Interpretation of the tariff decide, and they are applied in sequence, not picked from.

• Rule 1. Section and chapter titles are for ease of reference only. Classification is determined by the terms of the headings and by the section and chapter notes. This rule outranks the others and settles most cases on its own.
• Rule 2. Extends a heading to incomplete or unfinished articles that have the essential character of the finished article, and to articles presented unassembled. It also extends a material heading to mixtures and combinations of that material.
• Rule 3. Applies when two or more headings are in play. Rule 3(a) prefers the most specific description; Rule 3(b) classifies composite goods and sets by the component giving them their essential character; Rule 3(c) is the tiebreak — the heading occurring last in numerical order.
• Rule 4. Goods that cannot be classified under the earlier rules go with the goods they are most akin to. Rarely reached in practice.
• Rule 5. Deals with cases, containers and packing materials presented with the goods.
• Rule 6. Sub-headings are compared only at the same level, using the sub-heading notes. You cannot compare a one-dash entry against a two-dash entry from a different branch.

The practical failure mode is skipping Rule 1 and reaching for Rule 3(b) essential-character reasoning because it feels intuitive. If a chapter note explicitly excludes your product, no amount of essential-character argument brings it back. Read the notes first, apply the rules in order, and write down which rule you relied on. That written reasoning is what defends the classification later.

How many HSN digits you have to print

The number of HSN digits required on a tax invoice is set by notification and is tied to a supplier's annual aggregate turnover, with the required precision increasing as turnover rises and B2B supplies subject to a stricter requirement than B2C. The same digit-level requirement flows through to the HSN summary table you report in your GSTR-1, which is the point at which a sloppy code on an invoice becomes a visible reporting mismatch.

Because these thresholds have been revised more than once and are keyed to turnover computed on a PAN-India basis, confirm the digit requirement that applies to you against the current notification on cbic-gst.gov.in rather than carrying forward whatever your billing template was configured with two years ago. If you are unsure how your turnover figure itself is computed, see our note on annual aggregate turnover under GST.

One last point that connects classification to counterparty risk: your input tax credit depends on the supplier's invoice being valid and on the supplier actually being registered and active. Getting your own HSN right does nothing for you if the invoice came from a GSTIN that was cancelled three months ago, so a classification review and a vendor GSTIN check belong in the same compliance routine rather than in separate ones.

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