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Restaurant bills are read more carefully in 2026 than ever — customers know the service charge rules, corporate diners photograph bills for reimbursement, and one wrong GST line can end up as a consumer-court complaint that costs far more than the meal. If you run a restaurant, cafe, cloud kitchen or catering counter, your bill format is worth getting exactly right.
The fields every restaurant bill needs
- Restaurant name, address, phone, FSSAI licence number (mandatory on invoices under FSSAI labelling rules), and GSTIN if registered
- Bill number and date/time
- Table number / order number / KOT reference — ties the bill to the kitchen order ticket, which is your internal audit trail
- Itemised list: each dish, quantity, rate, amount
- Subtotal
- GST shown separately (CGST + SGST split)
- Service charge, if any, as a clearly separate, labelled line
- Grand total, rounded per standard rounding rules
- Payment mode
- A "Thank you" line costs nothing and reads well
For dine-in bills, time matters: reimbursement teams use bill timestamps, and your own analytics (peak hours, table turnover) depend on them.
Restaurant GST: 5% or 18%?
The rate depends on what kind of establishment you are:
| Establishment | GST rate | Input tax credit? |
|---|---|---|
| Standalone restaurant (AC or non-AC) | 5% | No ITC |
| Restaurant inside hotel, room tariff ≤ ₹7,500 | 5% | No ITC |
| Restaurant inside hotel, room tariff > ₹7,500 | 18% | Yes |
| Outdoor catering | 5% (standalone) / 18% (in high-tariff hotels) | Varies |
| Cloud kitchen / delivery | 5% | No ITC |
Two things restaurant owners get wrong:
Charging 18% as a standalone restaurant. You can't opt into 18% to claim input credit — standalone restaurants are locked at 5% without ITC. If your bill shows 18%, you're overcharging customers, and they increasingly know it.
Zomato/Swiggy orders. For food delivered through e-commerce operators, the platform collects and remits the 5% GST since January 2022. Don't charge GST again on your own printed slip for those orders — that's double taxation and shows up in reconciliation.
Composition scheme restaurants (turnover up to ₹1.5 crore) pay 5% but cannot charge GST on the bill at all — the bill must say "Composition taxable person, not eligible to collect tax." Our composition scheme guide covers whether that trade-off makes sense.
The service charge line
Since the CCPA's 2022 guidelines (upheld by the Delhi High Court in 2025), service charge is voluntary. You may print it on the bill, but:
- It must be clearly labelled and separable
- You cannot refuse service or bundle it into food prices to force it
- The customer can ask for it to be removed, and you must comply
The compliant approach: print "Service charge 5% (voluntary — may be removed on request)". Restaurants that fight diners over ₹80 of service charge trade a small tip for a one-star review.
Note: GST is charged on the bill total including service charge if the customer accepts it, since it forms part of the value of supply.
Sample bill structure
CAFE KANHAIYA — Indiranagar, Bengaluru
GSTIN 29AAFCK9012L1Z3 | FSSAI 21252030001234
Bill: 0451 Table: 7 KOT: 118 Date: 24-07-2026 13:42
Item Qty Rate Amount
Paneer Tikka 1 320 320
Dal Makhani 1 280 280
Butter Naan 4 60 240
Masala Chaas 2 80 160
Subtotal 1,000
Service charge 5% (voluntary) 50
CGST 2.5% 26.25
SGST 2.5% 26.25
TOTAL (rounded) ₹1,103
Paid: UPI — Thank you, visit again!
Cloud kitchens and caterers
Cloud kitchens follow the same 5% no-ITC rule for direct orders, with platform orders taxed at source by the aggregator. Wedding and event caterers are a different animal — per-plate contracts, guaranteed minimums, advances, and outdoor catering GST treatment. We've covered that end-to-end in the catering quotation guide and wedding caterer business guide.
If you cater events, your billing needs are closer to invoicing than POS billing: advance receipts, balance tracking, and a final tax invoice per event. That's exactly the workflow BrightDesk handles — event-wise bookings, advance and payment history, and GST-ready invoices from the GST invoice generator. For a quick one-off bill, the free invoice generator works without an account.
Quick checklist before you print your next bill book
- GSTIN and FSSAI number on every bill
- Correct rate for your category (almost certainly 5%)
- CGST/SGST shown split, not as one "GST" line
- Service charge labelled voluntary
- Serial bill numbers, no gaps
- Composition scheme? Then no tax collected, declaration printed
A clean bill is cheap insurance. The restaurant that gets billing right never has to argue about it publicly — and in the review economy, that's worth real money.