CA India — Institute of Chartered Accountants of IndiaShah Upadhyay and AssociatesChartered Accountants · LLP
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GST · In force since 1 Aug 2026

Ship-to GSTIN is now mandatory for Bill-to/Ship-to

If goods go to an address different from the billing address, the system now insists on knowing exactly where — or the e-way bill fails.

What changed

From 1 August 2026, GSTN made the Ship-to GSTIN compulsory in Bill-to/Ship-to transactions on the e-invoice and e-way bill systems. Where the field is missing or wrong, generation fails — which in practice means a dispatch that cannot leave the gate.

Who is affected

Any GST-registered supplier issuing a B2B invoice where the delivery address differs from the billing address: shipments to a customer's branch, warehouse or retail outlet, deliveries to job-workers, and drop-shipment arrangements where your buyer's customer receives the goods.

The rules in brief

  • Capture the correct GSTIN of the delivery location in the Ship-to field.
  • If the consignee is unregistered, enter "URP" in the Ship-to GSTIN field.
  • Bill-to and Ship-to GSTIN must not be the same in this transaction type — and the field is not to be sent at all in regular or Bill-from/Dispatch-from transactions.
  • The validation is at the system level: the Ship-to GSTIN does not appear as a separate field on the printed e-way bill.

What to do

  • Update customer masters in your ERP/billing software with the GSTIN of each delivery location, not just the head office.
  • Brief the dispatch and billing teams on the URP rule for unregistered consignees.
  • Test a Bill-to/Ship-to invoice end-to-end so a rejection surprises you in a test, not on a loaded truck.

Get help updating your GST setup

Updated 15 September 2026 · This note is general information, not professional advice for a specific case.