Section 23 of CGST Act

Persons Not Liable for Registration

Section 23(1)

The following persons shall not be liable to registration, namely: –

(a) any person

engaged exclusively in the business of

supplying goods or services or both that

are not liable to tax or wholly exempt from tax

under this Act or under the IGST Act;

(b) an agriculturist,

to the extent of supply of

produce out of cultivation of land.

Section 23(2)

Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in sub-section (1) of section 22 or section 24, the Government may, on the recommendations of the Council, by notification, subject to such conditions and restrictions as may be specified therein, specify the category of persons who may be exempted from obtaining registration under this Act.

[Substituted by the Finance Act, 2023, w.e.f. 1-7-2017.

Prior to its substitution, sub-section (2) read as under:

The Government may,

on the recommendations of the Council,

specify the category of persons who

may be exempted from obtaining registration under this Act.

• Section 23 enforced with effect from 22-6-2017.

• For notified persons under section 23(2), see Notification No. 5/2017-Central Tax, dated 19-6-2017, Notification No. 65/2017-Central Tax, dated 15-11-2017.

• For notifying under section 23(2) casual taxable persons making inter-State taxable supplies of handicraft goods for giving the benefit of registration limit, see Notification No. 56/2018- Central Tax, dated 23-10-2018.

• For persons exempted from obtaining registration under section 23(2), see Notification No. 10/2019-Central Tax, dated 7-3-2019. For notified registered persons who shall follow special procedure for furnishing details of supplying online information and data base access or retrieval services from a place outside India to a person in India, see Notification No. 30/2019-Central Tax, dated 28-6-2019.

• For notification of job workers engaged in making inter-State supply of services to a registered person as the category of persons exempted from obtaining registration, see Notification No. 7/2017-Integrated Tax, dated 14-9-2017.

• For persons making inter-State supplies of taxable services and having an aggregate turnover, to be computed on all India basis, not exceeding an amount of twenty lakh rupees in a financial year as the category of persons exempted from obtaining registration under said Act, see Notification No. 10/2017-Integrated Tax, dated 13-10-2017.

• For persons exempted from obtaining registration, see Notification No. 3/2018-Integrated Tax, dated 22-10-2018 and Notification No. 2/2019-Union Territory Tax, dated 7-3-2019. For exemption to intra-State supplies of Handicraft Goods, see Notification No. 21/2018- Union Territory Tax (Rate), dated 26-7-2018.