Ask the internet how many GST slabs India has and the answer comes back with confidence: four. Zero, 5%, 18% and 40%, ever since the rate rework of September 2025. Ask the Gazette of India and the answer changes. 12% is still a live GST rate. So are 3%, 1.5% and 0.25%. If your shop sells bricks or roofing tiles, or anything a jeweller sells, this is not trivia, and if your billing software believed the internet, there may be a bill you cannot raise at all.
What the September 2025 rework did
The GST Council's 56th meeting, held in New Delhi on 3 September 2025, recommended moving most goods onto two main rates, 5% and 18%, with 40% for a short list of luxury and demerit goods. The changes took effect from 22 September 2025. The coverage called it the end of the 12% and 28% slabs, and "four slabs" has been the standard line since.
But rates are made by notification, not by headline. The rework arrived as Notification No. 9/2025-Central Tax (Rate), dated 17 September 2025, which replaced the original rate notification of 2017. Count the schedules in it and there are seven, not four. On the bill, after adding the state half to the central half the notification prints, they read:
- Schedule I: 5% on the bill (2.5% central + 2.5% state). Most everyday goods.
- Schedule II: 18%. The standard rate.
- Schedule III: 40%. The luxury and demerit list.
- Schedule IV: 3%. Silver (7106), gold (7108) and jewellery (7113). Headings 7102, 7103 and 7104 are not in it; they sit in Schedules V and VI at other rates.
- Schedule V: 0.25%. Rough diamonds, and precious and semi-precious stones under 7103 whether rough or worked. A cut and polished ruby, emerald or sapphire stays here.
- Schedule VI: 1.5%. Exactly two entries, diamonds (7102) and synthetic diamonds (7104). The cut and polished diamond rate, and nothing else.
- Schedule VII: 28%. Pan masala and tobacco, held at the old rate for a while longer. Its ending has a date most articles get wrong, covered below.
A reading habit worth forming: a Central Tax (Rate) notification states only the central half of each rate. Schedule IV literally says 1.5%, and that means 1.5% CGST plus 1.5% SGST, 3% on the customer's bill. If you ever check a notification yourself, double the printed figure.
The four tariff lines still at 12%
The 12% rate did not survive inside Notification 9/2025. It survived beside it. On the same day the government issued Notification No. 14/2025-Central Tax (Rate), dated 17 September 2025, a standalone levy of 6% central tax, 12% with the state half, on exactly four entries:
- 6815: fly ash bricks, fly ash aggregates, fly ash blocks
- 6901 00 10: bricks of fossil meals or similar siliceous earths
- 6904 10 00: building bricks
- 6905 10 00: earthen or roofing tiles
That is the whole list, in force from 22 September 2025, and it is not "construction materials" broadly; cement sits in Schedule II at 18%. If you run a hardware or building materials shop, though, those four lines may cross your counter every day, and a rate list without 12% cannot bill a single one of them correctly.
28% ended on 1 February 2026, not in September 2025
Notification 9/2025 kept Schedule VII at 28% for pan masala, tobacco and cigarettes; the Council had said those goods would move later. They moved on 1 February 2026. Notification No. 19/2025-Central Tax (Rate), dated 31 December 2025 omits Schedule VII and every entry in it from that date, sending biris to Schedule II at 18% and pan masala, cigarettes and other tobacco to Schedule III at 40%. So 28% is gone, but it went more than four months after the date most of the coverage gives. A paan shop or general store selling these goods billed them at 28% right through January 2026, correctly, and software that dropped the rate in September was wrong for over four months.
A rate missing from the picker stops the bill
This is the part that puts the subject on a software company's blog. In billing software a GST rate is a doorway. You pick a rate when you create a product. Every invoice line carries it. And GSTR-1, the return of your outward supplies, is built rate-wise: B2B invoices report the rate on each line, B2C sales are consolidated by rate, and the HSN summary wants a rate against every code. (Where GSTR-1 uploads fail is written up separately.) If a rate does not exist in the software's list, the product cannot be created, the invoice cannot be raised, and the return cannot be filed as the law expects. A brick seller with a four-slab rate picker cannot bill at all.
There is a quieter version of the same failure. A shop that bought stock at 28% before February 2026 still has purchase records at that rate, and may yet see a credit note against one. Software that deletes a retired rate, instead of keeping it readable on old documents, mangles history it once recorded correctly.
We are not writing from a safe distance. On 7 August 2026 we removed 12% from the rate picker in Layerdots ERP because we believed the slab was gone. We had read the coverage and not the notification. On 18 August 2026 we checked Notification 14/2025 itself, saw four tariff lines still levied at 12%, and restored the rate the same day, along with 3%, 1.5% and 0.25%, which our list had also lost. For eleven days our rate list said, in effect, that a building brick could not exist. No customer reported it before we caught it, which is luck rather than a defence. The corrected list has shipped in every release since 3.0.0 on 30 August 2026.
The rates a picker has to offer today
As of September 2026, a retail rate list that matches the notifications carries 0%, 0.25%, 1.5%, 3%, 5%, 12%, 18% and 40%. In the Layerdots list the trade-specific rates carry a short note under the figure so a kirana or a chemist cannot land on a jeweller's rate by a slip of the finger: 0.25% is marked for rough diamonds and gemstones, 1.5% for cut and polished diamonds, 3% for gold, silver and jewellery, 12% for bricks and roofing tiles, 40% for demerit goods. The list also offers 6%, marked for brick kilns that have opted for the separate composition-style scheme under Notification No. 2/2022-Central Tax (Rate), dated 31 March 2022, in force from 1 April 2022, without input tax credit. That scheme is not part of Notification 14/2025. 28% is not offered on new products, but a bill or purchase that carries it from before February 2026 still displays exactly as it was recorded. A shop can also hide the rates its trade never uses, so a pharmacy's dropdown need not show the jeweller's rates at all.
Common questions
Is 12% GST still applicable in 2026?
Yes, as a standalone levy under Notification No. 14/2025-Central Tax (Rate) dated 17 September 2025, in force from 22 September 2025. It covers four tariff entries: fly ash bricks, aggregates and blocks (6815), bricks of fossil meals (6901 00 10), building bricks (6904 10 00) and earthen or roofing tiles (6905 10 00). Everything else that used to sit at 12% moved, mostly to 5% or 18%.
Is gold still taxed at 3% GST?
Yes. Schedule IV of Notification No. 9/2025-Central Tax (Rate) dated 17 September 2025 puts silver (7106), gold (7108) and jewellery (7113) at 1.5% central tax plus 1.5% state tax, so 3% on the bill. Headings 7102, 7103 and 7104 are not in that schedule. Rough diamonds, and precious and semi-precious stones under 7103 whether rough or cut and polished, are at 0.25% under Schedule V. Schedule VI at 1.5% has exactly two entries, diamonds (7102) and synthetic diamonds (7104), so 1.5% is the cut and polished diamond rate only.
When was the 28% GST slab removed?
On 1 February 2026, not in September 2025. Notification No. 9/2025-Central Tax (Rate) kept a Schedule VII at 28% for pan masala and tobacco products. Notification No. 19/2025-Central Tax (Rate) dated 31 December 2025 omitted that schedule with effect from 1 February 2026, moving biris to 18% and pan masala, cigarettes and other tobacco to 40%.
My billing software no longer offers 12%. What should I do?
If you sell any of the four headings under Notification 14/2025, ask your vendor to restore the rate and point them at the notification. Do not work around it by billing at 18%, which charges your customer tax the law does not ask for, or at 5%, which short-pays it. GSTR-1 is filed rate-wise, so a wrong rate on the bill becomes a wrong return.
This article is general information for shop owners, not legal advice, and rates change by notification. Figures verified against Notifications 9/2025, 14/2025 and 19/2025-Central Tax (Rate) as of 19 August 2026. For a dispute or a notice, speak to your CA or a GST practitioner.