GST evasion and enforcement in India: the official data, 2020-21 to 2025-26

• Central GST formations detected evasion of ₹2,23,375 crore in 2024-25, up from ₹49,384 crore in 2020-21. Over five years ₹7,07,942 crore was detected and ₹1,29,175 crore deposited voluntarily, about 18% (our calculation).
• Fake input tax credit cases rose from 7,231 in 2022-23 to 30,162 in 2025-26, involving ₹74,781.56 crore and 358 arrests.
• Fake registrations made with forged PAN or Aadhaar fell from 5,699 in 2023-24 to 1,517 in 2025-26.
• The 2024 special drive found 68,393 of 74,060 flagged GSTINs to be non-existent, but recovered only ₹64.82 crore against suspected evasion of ₹25,346.19 crore.
• The GST Appellate Tribunal showed 95,776 appeals filed and 529 disposed on 24 October 2026, thirteen months after its launch.
• The 57th GST Council (8 October 2026) recommended no show cause notice below ₹10,000 of tax, the withdrawal of arrest powers, and a prosecution threshold of ₹5 crore.

All national series are Central GST (DGGI and CGST zones) unless stated. State GST departments keep their own enforcement records, which are not consolidated nationally.

Cases booked by DGGI and the CGST zones, including input tax credit fraud. "Detection" is the amount alleged when a case is booked; it is not a confirmed demand. "Voluntary deposit" is tax paid during investigation.

Source: Lok Sabha Unstarred Question No. 2417, 4 August 2025. *FilingBase calculation. News reports of the DGGI annual report attribute about ₹81,875 crore of the 2023-24 total to online money-gaming cases; that split is not in the Parliament reply.

Input tax credit claimed on fake invoices or through non-existent suppliers, detected by Central Tax formations. Case counts have quadrupled since 2022-23 while the amount has roughly tripled, so the average case is smaller.

Sources: Lok Sabha Unstarred Question No. 2417 (cases and amounts to 2024-25); Rajya Sabha Unstarred Question No. 1050, 28 July 2026 (2025-26); Rajya Sabha Unstarred Question No. 1847 (arrests to 2024-25). Gujarat accounted for 12,511 of the 2025-26 cases and Maharashtra for 9,629, per the same Rajya Sabha reply.

Registrations obtained by misusing someone else’s PAN or Aadhaar fell sharply as biometric Aadhaar authentication for GST registration was extended across the country.

Source: Rajya Sabha Unstarred Question No. 1050, 28 July 2026.

Source: Lok Sabha Unstarred Question No. 1081, 10 February 2025. The GSTINs flagged in 2024 were chosen by sharper analytics, so the two hit rates are not like for like. Drive end dates differ between official documents.

Source: Standing Committee on Finance, Ninth Report (19 March 2025). *In its reply recorded in the Public Accounts Committee’s 19th Report, the Ministry gave 8,166 appeals for the same date; the amount is not disputed.

As shown on the GSTAT website on 24 October 2026. GSTAT was formally launched on 24 September 2025.

On 8 October 2026 the 57th GST Council recommended a minimum of ₹10,000 of tax (CGST, SGST, IGST and cess together) before a show cause notice can issue under sections 73, 74 or 74A, with pending notices and appeals below that amount decided as if the threshold had applied; complete withdrawal of arrest powers by omitting section 69; a prosecution threshold of ₹5 crore instead of ₹1 crore; and a maximum general penalty of ₹10,000 instead of ₹25,000. These are recommendations and take effect only through law amendments and notifications (GST Council press release).

If you have received a notice, see our GST notice reply service and the guide to input tax credit.

• No national count of show cause notices under sections 73, 74 or 74A, by year.
• No national count of ASMT-10 scrutiny notices, or of DRC-01B and DRC-01C mismatch intimations.
• No national figure for suo motu cancellations of registration.
• No total for evasion detected in 2025-26 across all offence types; only the fake ITC part has been published.
• No final figures for the section 128A interest and penalty waiver.
• No consolidated State GST enforcement data.

Figures quoted elsewhere for these items come from unnamed officials and are not used here.

Figures are taken from replies to Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha questions, Parliamentary committee reports, GST Council and PIB releases and the GSTAT website, read in the original documents. Amounts are in rupees crore as published. Percentages and averages are FilingBase calculations on those figures and are marked as such. Each row of the dataset carries its source link and the date of the document.