New GST rates list: every slab change under GST 2.0
The complete, verified list of what changed on 22 September 2025 — slab by slab, item by item — and the two things almost every other rate list gets wrong.
GST 2.0 is the rate rationalisation the GST Council approved on 3 September 2025 and brought into force on 22 September 2025. It replaced the old four-slab structure of 5%, 12%, 18% and 28% with three main rates — 5%, 18% and a 40% demerit rate — alongside Nil, and moved several hundred items between slabs. Everything below is checked against the notifications rather than copied from another list, and each category links to a page that shows the HSN code and a calculator set to the right rate.
The new GST slabs at a glance
Five rates are live today, plus one residual band that most rate lists forget.
| Slab | What sits here now | What changed |
|---|---|---|
| Nil | Fresh produce, printed books, exercise books, UHT milk, pre-packaged paneer, Indian breads, individual life and health insurance, 36 life-saving drugs | Expanded — several items moved here from 5% and 12% |
| 3% | Gold, silver, platinum and jewellery on the metal value; making charges at 5% | Unchanged |
| 5% | Medicines, packaged food, clothing and footwear up to ₹2,500, hotel rooms up to ₹7,500, restaurant food, EVs, bicycles, toys, candles | Absorbed most of the old 12% slab |
| 18% | Most goods and services — electronics, cement, steel, tyres, small cars, bikes up to 350cc, furniture, mattresses, commercial construction, professional services | Absorbed most of the old 28% slab, plus a few items that moved up from 12% |
| 40% | Luxury cars and large SUVs, motorcycles above 350cc, aerated and caffeinated drinks, tobacco and pan masala | New demerit rate replacing 28% plus compensation cess |
| 12% | Building bricks, fly ash bricks and blocks, earthen roofing tiles — and very little else | Withdrawn for everything else, retained for these by Notification 14/2025-CT(R) |
What moved down
The reform was sold as a cut, and for most households it was one. The reductions came in two large blocks.
From 28% to 18%
The old top slab was emptied into 18%. This is where the biggest rupee savings sit, because the goods are expensive.
- Cement — every type under HSN 2523, a cut the construction industry had asked for since 2017
- Tyres for cars, bikes and trucks, and lead-acid batteries, which brought all batteries under heading 8507 to a uniform 18%
- Air conditioners, refrigerators, washing machines, dishwashers, televisions and monitors
- Small cars — petrol up to 1200cc and diesel up to 1500cc, both under four metres. With the compensation cess gone as well, the effective burden fell from roughly 29–31% to a flat 18%
- Motorcycles and scooters up to 350cc, plus parts under HSN 8714
From 12% to 5%
The 12% slab was dissolved, and most of what lived there dropped to 5%.
- Medicines — most finished drugs under HSN 3004, along with vaccines and AYUSH products
- Hotel rooms up to ₹7,500 a night — with a condition: the 5% is mandatory and comes without input tax credit for the hotel
- Clothing and footwear priced between ₹1,000 and ₹2,500 — the concessional threshold was raised from ₹1,000 to ₹2,500
- Candles, bicycles, non-electronic toys and small tractors
- Packaged food — namkeen, biscuits, sauces, pasta, butter, ghee and similar processed items
To Nil
A smaller group went all the way to zero, and it includes the single most-missed change in the whole reform.
- UHT milk, pre-packaged and labelled paneer and chhena, and every Indian bread — chapati, roti, paratha, parotta — along with pizza bread and khakhra. Pre-packaged paneer had been brought into tax at 5% only in July 2022; a great many lists still show that figure
- Individual life and health insurance premiums, exempt from 22 September 2025 under Notification 16/2025-CT(R). Group and employer policies, and all general insurance, stay at 18%
- 36 life-saving drugs — 33 moved from 12% and 3 from 5% — covering cancer, rare-disease and severe chronic-condition medicines
- Exercise books and notebooks under HSN 4820, along with pencils, erasers and sharpeners
What moved up
This is the part that gets left out of most coverage. Collapsing 12% into 5% and 18% meant some items in the old 12% band moved up, and the new 40% rate raised the headline on a few categories even where the effective burden fell.
| Item | Old rate | New rate | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mattresses, cushions, pillows (HSN 9404) | 12% | 18% | Now the same rate as the bed frame |
| Commercial under-construction property | 12% with ITC | 18% | ITC still available to a registered buyer; residential 1% and 5% unchanged |
| Premium economy, business and first class | 12% | 18% | Economy stays at 5% |
| Clothing and footwear above ₹2,500 | 12% | 18% | The top of the old band; below ₹2,500 went the other way, to 5% |
| Motorcycles above 350cc | 28% + 3% cess | 40% | A genuine increase of about 9 points |
| Luxury cars and larger SUVs | 28% + 17–22% cess | 40% | Headline up, but the total burden often fell from close to 50% |
| Aerated and caffeinated drinks | 28% + cess | 40% | Replaces the cess structure |
What did not change
Several categories that people expected to move stayed exactly where they were, and a couple of “changes” that circulate widely never happened at all.
- Gold, silver and jewellery — 3% on the metal value, 5% on making charges. Untouched
- Petrol and diesel — still outside GST altogether, taxed through central excise and state VAT
- Restaurant food — 5% without input tax credit for standalone restaurants, 18% inside hotels with rooms above ₹7,500
- Electric vehicles at 5%, economy air travel at 5%, mobile phones and laptops at 18%
- Commercial rent, labour charges and commission — 18%, with the reverse-charge rules unchanged
Two things almost every rate list gets wrong
We checked the notifications behind each of the 31 categories on this site, and the same two errors appeared again and again on other pages.
1. “The 12% slab was abolished.” It was withdrawn for almost everything, but not for everything. Notification 14/2025-Central Tax (Rate) fixed building bricks, fly ash bricks and blocks, and earthen roofing tiles at 12% from 22 September 2025. If you buy or sell bricks, the 12% rate is still yours. Any list that puts bricks at 5% is wrong.
2. “Ceramic tiles came down from 28% under GST 2.0.” They did not. Tiles moved from 28% to 18% on 15 November 2017, at the 23rd GST Council meeting. The September 2025 reform did not touch them. The confusion comes from lumping tiles in with cement and sanitaryware, which genuinely did move in 2025.
The timeline
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| 3 September 2025 | The 56th GST Council meeting approves the rationalisation |
| 17 September 2025 | CBIC issues the rate notifications, including 9/2025, 14/2025 and 16/2025-Central Tax (Rate) |
| 22 September 2025 | New rates take effect, timed to the first day of Navaratri |
| 1 February 2026 | Budget 2026 makes no further change to the GST slabs |
Manufacturers were not required to recall or re-label stock made before 22 September, which is why packs printed with the old MRP were still on shelves for months afterwards. The MRP on a pack includes GST, so an old pack was simply priced higher than a new one, not taxed differently at the till.
Why the slabs were collapsed
The stated aims were simplification and relief. Four slabs had produced years of classification disputes over which side of the 12%–18% or 18%–28% line a product fell on, and the compensation cess added a second layer of arithmetic on top. Moving to two working rates plus a demerit rate cut those disputes sharply. The revenue cost of the cuts was to be offset partly by the 40% rate on discretionary and harmful goods, and partly by the consumption boost the government expected from cheaper everyday items.
What it means for your bill
For a consumer, the practical points are short. Prices on most packaged goods, medicines and appliances should have fallen, and where they did not, the seller kept the difference — there is no rule forcing a price cut. The MRP printed on a pack is inclusive of GST, so no tax is added on top of it. And an invoice should still show the rate applied to each line, which is the only way to check that a hotel is charging 5% on a ₹6,000 room rather than the old 12%.
For a business, the work was heavier. Item masters and HSN mappings had to be reclassified, and the 5% rate on hotel rooms and restaurant food comes with a condition — no input tax credit — that turns a headline cut into a real cost. Several 5% items, including medicines and footwear, still have inputs taxed at 18%, so the inverted duty problem did not go away. The filing calendar was unchanged; only the rates were.
Find the exact rate for your item
This page gives the shape of the reform. For a specific product, the rate finder has 31 categories, each with the HSN or SAC code, the CGST/SGST split, worked examples and a calculator already set to the right rate. Every one was verified against the notification it depends on, and each carries the date it was last checked. For a quick number, the GST calculator handles any slab, including the residual 12%.
Common questions
On 22 September 2025, the first day of Navaratri. The GST Council approved the changes at its 56th meeting on 3 September 2025 and the rate notifications were issued on 17 September 2025.
Four main rates: Nil, 5%, 18% and 40%. Gold, silver and jewellery stay on a special 3% rate, and a residual 12% survives only for building bricks, fly ash blocks and earthen roofing tiles.
Almost, but not entirely. The 12% slab was withdrawn for practically everything, with most items moving to 5% and a few to 18%. It was specifically retained for building bricks, fly ash bricks and blocks, and earthen roofing tiles by Notification 14/2025-Central Tax (Rate).
Yes. Everything that sat at 28% moved either down to 18% (cement, tyres, air conditioners, refrigerators, washing machines, small cars) or into the new 40% demerit rate (luxury cars, motorcycles above 350cc, aerated drinks, tobacco). The compensation cess that sat on top of 28% was folded into the 40% rate.
GST 2.0 is the name widely used for the September 2025 rate rationalisation that collapsed the 5%, 12%, 18% and 28% structure into 5%, 18% and a 40% demerit rate, plus Nil. It was the largest restructuring of GST since the tax launched in July 2017.
No. Gold, silver and jewellery stayed at 3% on the metal value, with making charges at 5%. The Council left the precious-metals rate untouched.
Cement, tyres, air conditioners, refrigerators, washing machines and televisions came down from 28% to 18%. Medicines, hotel rooms up to ₹7,500 a night, bicycles, toys, candles and most packaged food came down from 12% to 5%. UHT milk, pre-packaged paneer, Indian breads and individual life and health insurance became Nil-rated.
Mattresses and bedding, commercial under-construction property, and business-class air travel moved from 12% to 18%. Clothing and footwear priced above ₹2,500 moved from 12% to 18%. Motorcycles above 350cc and aerated or caffeinated drinks moved to the 40% rate.