Answer 6 quick questions and get an instant, clear answer — including whether you may be exempt or outside OIDAR entirely — with next steps tailored to your situation.
Before you start: not every foreign digital business is covered by OIDAR. You may be fully exempt — for example if you have no Indian customers, supply only physical/offline services, or supply only GST-registered Indian businesses. This checker is built to surface those exemptions too, not just tell you when you owe tax.
OIDAR rules apply to companies that are incorporated or have their principal place of business outside India.
OIDAR covers digital services delivered automatically over the internet with minimal human involvement.
A customer is considered to be in India based on their IP address, billing address, or mobile country code.
OIDAR tax obligations differ depending on whether your Indian customers are registered businesses or individual consumers.
Foreign OIDAR providers register under a special category and receive a GSTIN starting with "99".
Real-money online gaming was carved out of OIDAR in 2023 into its own regime (Section 14A), with separate registration and rules — it is not filed or registered the same way as standard OIDAR.
Three conditions have to be met together. Your company is established outside India; you supply a service delivered over the internet with minimal human intervention; and you have customers located in India. If all three are true, the rules apply from your first paid Indian customer, with no revenue threshold and regardless of whether you have any Indian entity, office or staff. The main exception is not an exemption but a shift: where your Indian customer is a GST-registered business that provides its GSTIN, the customer accounts for the tax under reverse charge instead of you collecting it. Sales to consumers and unregistered businesses require you to register and charge 18%.
That is the most common grey area, and the test is which element the customer is actually paying for. A self-serve platform with a support desk attached is still automated delivery, because the human element is ancillary. A consulting engagement delivered by people, with a dashboard attached, generally is not. Where a single contract genuinely covers both — a software subscription bundled with substantive professional services — the sensible approach is to separate the elements and price them distinctly, rather than hoping one characterisation covers everything. If your product sits squarely in the middle, this is a judgement worth taking advice on, because the cost of getting it wrong accrues monthly.