India’s gross GST collections for the month of May 2025 stood at Rs 2.01 lakh crore, up 16.4 per cent as against Rs 1.72 lakh crore collected in May 2024.
India’s gross Goods and Services Tax (GST) collections for the month of May 2025 stood at Rs 2.01 lakh crore, recording a rise of 16.4 per cent as against Rs 1.72 lakh crore collected in May 2024, data released by the Ministry of Finance showed on Sunday.
This comes after the record-breaking GST revenue of Rs 2.37 lakh crore in April, marking back-to-back months of strong tax collections.
Saurabh Agarwal, Tax Partner, EY, said, “While last month’s higher collections likely included year-end business-to-business sales pushed due to targets, this large decrease points to some bit of change in consumer spending possibly due to global uncertainties.”
The year-on-year growth was driven by a 25.2 per cent increase in GST collected from imports and a 13.7 per cent rise from domestic transactions. During the month in review, gross GST revenue from imports stood at Rs 51,266 crore and domestic sources contributed to Rs 1.50 lakh crore.
Vivek Jalan, Partner, Tax Connect Advisory Services LLP, said, “It is very clear that this month’s growth in GST revenue is import driven rather than domestic consumption driven. In fact the YTD figures also depict a similar trend. This coupled with the fact that exports refunds are not growing correspondingly, reflect the fact that import growth far exceeds export growth.”
In May, the gross central GST (CGST) revenue stood at Rs 35,434 crore, State GST (SGST) revenue was at Rs 43,902 crore and integrated GST (IGST) came in at about Rs 1.09 lakh crore. Additionally, the government collected Rs 12,879 crore through the GST compensation cess. Meanwhile, total refunds during the month of May dropped by 4 per cent to Rs 27,210 crore.
Reacting to this, Saurabh Agarwal said, “On a positive note, GST collections have consistently increased in states and union territories like Bihar, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Tripura, Meghalaya, Assam, Lakshadweep, and Andaman & Nicobar, indicating broader development across the country.
Looking ahead, he added, similar GST collection numbers are expected with slight increases in June because of ongoing geopolitical tensions across the globe.
Pratik Jain, Partner, Price Waterhouse & Co LLP, said, “If the growth continues in this range for next couple of months, it might provide the cushion for the Government to look at rate rationalization on which a lot of work has already been done.”
