Chartered Accountant · ICAI M.No. 153926 · FRN 136869W
How to claim
File RFD-01 with the statement of invoices and documents for your refund type; the officer processes it, often with a provisional refund for exports.
Common refund situations
Exports (with or without payment of tax), inverted duty structure (inputs taxed higher than outputs), and excess balance in the cash ledger.
The main refund types and the two-year clock
The common refund situations each have their own RFD-01 path. Exports of goods or services without payment of tax under a LUT give a refund of the accumulated input credit; exports with payment of IGST give a refund of that IGST (often processed automatically against the shipping bill for goods). An inverted duty structure — where inputs are taxed higher than the finished output — lets you refund the accumulated credit, by a prescribed formula. Excess balance lying in the electronic cash ledger, or tax paid in error or in excess, can also be refunded. You file RFD-01 with the relevant statement of invoices and supporting documents within two years of the ‘relevant date’, which differs by refund type (for exports, broadly the date of export or receipt of payment). The officer may issue a provisional refund (commonly up to 90% for zero-rated supplies) quickly and finalise later, or raise a deficiency memo (RFD-03) that resets the clock once you re-file. Keeping export documents, a clean 2B-matched credit, and the bank realisation evidence ready is what makes a refund move; missing or mismatched invoices are the usual cause of delay. File well before the two-year limit, since a late claim is simply barred.