GST Notice on the Portal? A Survival Guide: Check, Reply, Appeal

A Surat trader found out about his GST demand the way most people do: not from the portal, but from his bank, when his account was provisionally attached. The notice had been sitting in his GST portal inbox for five months. He had never opened it, because nobody had told him the portal is the mailbox. His case is not unusual — it is the standard way GST trouble starts. This guide is the routine that prevents it.

Read this alongside our GST hub and our GSTR-3B late fee and interest guide — late-filing exposure and notice exposure are the two halves of the same compliance problem.

Rule one: the portal is the only mailbox that matters

Under the GST system, notices, orders and communications are served electronically on the common portal (and to your registered email and mobile as an alert — an alert you may never see if the email on file is an old CA’s address). The legal fiction is blunt: service on the portal is service on you, whether you logged in or not. “I didn’t see it” is not a defence that survives on its own; it is, at best, a supporting argument in an appeal, and only if you act immediately on discovering the order.

That is why the single highest-value habit in GST compliance costs nothing: open the portal once a week and read the Notices and Orders tab. Put it in the same slot as your bank reconciliation. Businesses that do this catch notices when they are still reply-able; businesses that don’t catch them as attachments, assessments and blocked ITC.

A practical note from October 2026: some states have begun supplementing portal service with postal intimations — Rajasthan’s Speed Post intimation push was reported this month — but treat any letter as a reminder, not as the notice itself. The operative document, with its deadlines, lives on the portal. Check there first, whatever arrives by post.

Know the three notices you will actually meet

DRC-01 — the show-cause notice. This is the formal “explain why we should not demand this tax” notice, usually for mismatches between GSTR-1, GSTR-3B and GSTR-2B, or for ITC claims the department disputes. It states the tax, interest and penalty proposed, and gives you a date to reply and, if you want, a personal hearing. Reply in writing, point by point, with documents — never with a phone call alone.

ASMT-10 — the scrutiny notice. This flags discrepancies the system found in your returns (a gentler, earlier-stage notice). It asks for an explanation or a corrected position, often within 30 days. Many ASMT-10s die quietly if answered properly with reconciliations; ignored, they graduate into DRC-01s.

DRC-07 — the order. This is what an unanswered DRC-01 becomes: a confirmed demand. Once DRC-07 lands, you are no longer “replying” — you are appealing, against a clock, with a pre-deposit.

Here is the catch that surprises people: interest keeps running while you delay. A demand you could have cut in half with a good reply becomes a demand plus months of interest because the reply came late. Speed is not just administrative tidiness; it is money.

The weekly routine (15 minutes, genuinely)

1. Log in and open Notices/Orders. Note every new item: notice number, date, type, and the reply date printed on it.
2. Check the registered email and mobile on the portal. If they still show a former accountant’s address, update them now — alerts going to someone else’s inbox are how notices get missed.
3. Diary the reply date with a 7-day early warning. Replies need documents, and documents need a CA’s time. A deadline diarised for the day itself will be missed.
4. Download and file everything. Portal documents can be hard to retrieve later; keep your own copies with the reply you sent.
5. Never let a notice age past 30 days without action. If you cannot reply fully, file an interim reply asking for time and stating the reason. A short reply beats silence, always.

If an order has already passed: the appeal clock

If you discover a DRC-07 order after the fact, do not panic and do not ignore it further. The appeal window is generally 3 months from the order date (with a further month’s condonation for sufficient cause in many cases — do not bank on condonation). An appeal usually requires a pre-deposit — 10% of the disputed tax for the first appeal — so budget for it immediately and get professional advice before the window closes. And check whether the order can be rectified for an apparent mistake first; rectification is cheaper than appeal where it applies.

One more trap: do not pay the full demand just to “make it go away” before taking advice. Payment can be treated as acceptance in some contexts, and it weakens your appeal position. Pre-deposit for appeal and full payment are different things — ask your adviser which one you are making.

What changes from April 2027 — and what does not

The 57th GST Council (8 October 2026) approved, among other reforms, that no show-cause notice will be issued for demands below ₹10,000, and the general penalty falls from ₹25,000 to ₹10,000. As per the 57th GST Council press release and subsequent CBIC statements, measures needing law amendments — including the ₹10,000 threshold — are targeted for 1 April 2027, while process reforms roll out from 1 November 2026. Until April 2027, the old position applies: small demands still arrive, and still need replies. Do not treat an approved reform as a present exemption — that mistake is currently being made at scale.

Meanwhile, the reforms that do arrive from November 2026 — faster refunds and simpler registration — are covered in our GST reforms phase-1 guide. The direction of travel is genuinely taxpayer-friendly. It just does not rescue a notice you ignored in 2026.

FAQs

Is a GST notice served only on the portal?
Yes — service on the GST portal is the operative service. Email/SMS alerts and any postal intimation are supplementary; the portal document carries the deadlines.

What happens if I miss a DRC-01 reply date?
The department can pass an ex-parte order (DRC-07) confirming the demand. You then move from replying to appealing, with a pre-deposit and a 3-month clock.

How often should I check the portal?
Weekly, without exception — plus immediately after filing any return or responding to any query.

Will small notices really stop from April 2027?
The 57th Council approved a ₹10,000 floor for show-cause notices, targeted for 1 April 2027 via law amendment. Until the amendment is in force, small notices remain live.

Should I reply to ASMT-10 even if I think it is wrong?
Especially then. An answered ASMT-10 with a reconciliation often closes the matter; an unanswered one becomes a DRC-01.

Sources

57th GST Council decisions, 8 October 2026 (press release / Finance Minister’s briefing) — removal of arrest powers, prosecution threshold ₹1 crore to ₹5 crore, no show-cause notice below ₹10,000, general penalty ₹25,000 to ₹10,000; CBIC Member (GST) statement, 22 October 2026 — process reforms from 1 November 2026, law-amendment measures targeted for 1 April 2027. CGST Act appeal framework — first appeal within 3 months of the order, with pre-deposit. Rajasthan postal-intimation reporting, October 2026.