Every fee an Indian marketplace charges a seller is a supply of services and attracts GST. Commission (referral fee), closing or fixed fees, fulfilment and storage charges, shipping, and advertising all fall under support services to business (SAC 9985) or related headings in Notification 11/2017-Central Tax (Rate), and are taxed at 18%. Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, Meesho and the quick commerce platforms issue a GST tax invoice for these fees each month against your GSTIN. Because the fees are used for business, the 18% is input tax credit (ITC) that you set off against the GST you collect on your own sales, provided the invoice appears in your GSTR-2B and the other conditions of section 16 of the CGST Act are met.
How it is calculated
GST is applied on the fee, not on the sale. The platform deducts fee plus GST from your settlement, so the cash impact is immediate even though the credit comes back on your return.
Worked example: you sell an item at ₹1,000 on Flipkart. Suppose the commission is 15% (₹150), the fixed fee is ₹20 and shipping is ₹60, so fees total ₹230. GST at 18% on ₹230 is ₹41.40. Flipkart deducts ₹271.40 and, ignoring TCS, pays you ₹728.60. On your GSTR-3B you claim the ₹41.40 as ITC, so the real fee cost is ₹230. If you sell 3,000 such units a month, that is ₹1,24,200 of ITC riding on the platform's invoices being filed correctly. The fee percentages here are illustrative; use each platform's rate card.
Two related items are easy to confuse with fee GST. TCS (tax collected at source) under section 52 is 0.5% of net taxable sales that the platform collects and deposits against your GSTIN; it is a credit against your output liability, not a fee. And where an Indian seller pays commission to a foreign marketplace with no Indian GST registration, the seller must pay 18% under reverse charge and can then claim it as ITC.
Why it matters for sellers
Fee GST is one of the largest recurring ITC sources for a marketplace seller, and it is also the one most often lost: the platform's invoice is issued to the wrong GSTIN, the seller has several GSTINs and claims on the wrong one, or the invoice is never reconciled with GSTR-2B and the credit lapses. Lost ITC is a straight 18% increase in the cost of selling.
How to manage it
- Download each platform's monthly GST fee invoice from the seller portal and match it to GSTR-2B before filing GSTR-3B.
- Make sure the GSTIN on your seller account is the one that files the returns for that state.
- Book fees net of GST in your P&L and GST as a receivable; do not treat the 18% as a cost.
- Reconcile TCS credits in the GST portal separately from fee ITC; they are different mechanisms.
- Keep advertising invoices too; ad spend on Amazon and Flipkart carries the same 18% and the same credit.
Blooprint reconciles fee invoices and ITC as part of Amazon account management and Flipkart account management. For the fee heads themselves, see Flipkart seller fees explained and Amazon seller fees in India explained.