Restaurant & Café Bill Format under GST (Dine-In, Takeaway & Cloud Kitchen)

A restaurant bill is one of the most familiar documents in India — yet GST on food service still confuses many café and cloud-kitchen owners. Is dine-in the same as takeaway? What about alcohol? How do you show CGST and SGST on a thermal receipt? This guide walks through a practical GST bill format for restaurants, cafés, bakeries and cloud kitchens.

Educational content for MSME owners — not tax advice. Restaurant GST rates and composition options have changed more than once; confirm the current slab and scheme with your CA before you reprint menus or reconfigure POS.

Key Takeaways

• Restaurant / food-serving services generally attract GST at a notified rate (commonly discussed as 5% without ITC for many restaurant supplies — verify the rate that applies to your outlet today).
• Serving alcohol for human consumption is outside GST (state excise / VAT applies). Food lines and alcohol lines should never be mixed carelessly.
• Composition restaurants typically issue a bill of supply and do not collect GST on the customer bill; regular scheme restaurants issue a tax invoice with tax breakup.
• Service charge, if added by the restaurant as a compulsory charge, usually forms part of the taxable value — tips paid voluntarily to staff are different.
• Cloud kitchens and delivery aggregators add place-of-supply and e-commerce nuances — get CA help before you scale on Swiggy/Zomato-style platforms.

Regular Scheme vs Composition for Restaurants

Most neighbourhood cafés that mainly serve walk-in customers care more about a clean, fast bill than about buyer ITC. Corporate catering clients, however, often ask for a proper tax invoice.

Mandatory Fields on a Restaurant Tax Invoice

1. Restaurant legal/trade name, address, GSTIN.
2. Invoice number (sequential for the FY) and date/time.
3. Table number / order ID / token number (helpful operationally).
4. Item description, quantity, rate, taxable value.
5. SAC for restaurant services (commonly under heading 9963 — confirm the exact code you use).
6. GST rate with CGST and SGST amounts (intra-state dine-in is the usual case).
7. Total payable, payment mode (UPI / card / cash).
8. Signature / digital acknowledgement where applicable.

For small B2C bills, customer address is often omitted. For billed corporate parties, capture the company name and GSTIN.

Worked Example: Café Bill (Regular Scheme Illustration)

Assume a Bengaluru café on the regular scheme bills two coffees and a sandwich. For illustration, use 5% GST without claiming that this is forever fixed:

If the same café were on composition, the customer bill might simply show ₹357 as a round menu price with no tax breakup — and composition tax would be paid later on turnover. Menu pricing strategy differs between schemes; align POS and printed menus with your CA.

Service Charge, Packaging and Delivery

• Compulsory service charge: If you add it on the bill as your revenue, it generally increases taxable value. Disclose it clearly; many customers dislike surprise service charges.
• Voluntary tip: Paid directly to staff and not retained by the restaurant is usually not billed as restaurant supply — keep it off the tax invoice if it never enters your revenue.
• Packaging for takeaway: Often treated as part of the restaurant supply; do not invent a separate "exempt packing" line without advice.
• Third-party delivery fees: Aggregator commissions and customer delivery charges follow platform contracts and GST rules that need separate review.

Thermal Printer Tips for Cafés

80mm thermal rolls are common. Keep the header readable: name, GSTIN, FSSAI number if you print it, and invoice number. Put UPI QR near the total. Avoid tiny fonts that become unreadable after a few hours of heat fade. For WhatsApp-first cloud kitchens, a PDF invoice with UPI often works better than a paper slip.

Common Mistakes

• Printing "GST inclusive" without ever showing the breakup when you are on the regular scheme and should issue a proper tax invoice.
• Mixing liquor and food on one GST invoice without understanding that alcohol is outside GST.
• Using one invoice series across two GSTINs or two branches incorrectly.
• Charging GST while unregistered, or showing GST on a composition bill of supply.
• Ignoring advance receipts for large catering contracts.

Cloud Kitchens vs Dine-In Counters

Cloud kitchens rarely hand over a thermal bill to a seated guest. Their "bill" is often a WhatsApp PDF or an aggregator invoice. Still maintain your own sequential invoice series for orders you fulfil directly (WhatsApp, Instagram, private catering). Do not assume the aggregator's customer receipt replaces your GST document for your own supplies.

For private party catering billed to a company, capture GSTIN, billing address and place of supply. A Saturday birthday cake sold to a walk-in parent is B2C; a Monday office lunch subscription is often B2B.

Menu Engineering and Tax-Inclusive Prices

Many cafés advertise tax-inclusive menu prices for simplicity. That is fine if your POS still calculates the taxable value and tax correctly underneath. When rates change, update both the menu board and the POS master — forgotten masters are how outlets keep charging an obsolete percentage for months.

If you offer buffet + soft drinks + packaged sweets for takeaway, split lines when different tax treatments could apply. Ambiguous "combo" lines are where audits get messy.

Staff Training Checklist

• How to void/cancel a bill without breaking the number series.
• When to ask for company GSTIN.
• How to explain service charge vs tip.
• Where the UPI QR is placed and how to verify payment screenshots.

FSSAI Number on Bills

Customers and delivery partners often look for FSSAI on food bills. Printing it under your GSTIN builds trust. It is not a substitute for GST fields, but it belongs on restaurant stationery when you hold a licence.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is hotel restaurant GST the same as a standalone café?

Not always. Hotels above certain room tariffs historically had different treatments. Confirm your specific category.

Do I need the customer's GSTIN for every bill?

No for typical walk-in B2C. Yes when a registered business wants ITC on a catering invoice.

Can I send the bill on WhatsApp instead of printing?

Yes for many small outlets. Keep a sequential archive. A clear PDF plus UPI link improves collections for cloud kitchens.

What SAC should I use?

Restaurant services commonly fall under SAC heading 9963. Pick the most accurate sub-code with your CA or software defaults that your CA has approved.

Disclaimer: Restaurant GST rates, composition options and hotel-linked rules change through notifications. This guide is educational only. Confirm with a Chartered Accountant before changing POS tax settings.