OIDAR — Online Information and Database Access or Retrieval — is a special category of services defined under Section 2(17) of the IGST Act, 2017 covering digital services delivered over the internet or an electronic network with minimal human intervention and essentially impossible to render without information technology. When an overseas provider supplies OIDAR services to Indian recipients, a unique tax framework kicks in — the foreign supplier is generally required to register and pay GST in India on B2C supplies, while B2B supplies are taxed in the hands of the Indian recipient under the reverse charge mechanism (RCM).

Typical OIDAR services include cloud storage and SaaS subscriptions, streaming of music, movies, and video content, e-books and digital magazines, online gaming, digital advertising, online courses and MOOCs, digital data or information retrieval, mobile app purchases, and domain / hosting services. The 2023 amendment in the Finance Act significantly widened the definition by removing the "essentially automated" and "minimal human intervention" conditions, bringing a much broader set of digital services into the OIDAR net — making proper classification, registration, and compliance more critical than ever for both overseas providers and Indian users of such services.

We offer end-to-end OIDAR GST Services — from classifying whether a service qualifies as OIDAR, handling foreign supplier registration under Form GST REG-10, appointing an Indian authorised representative, filing monthly GSTR-5A returns, advising Indian B2B recipients on reverse charge liability, managing ITC eligibility, and handling OIDAR audits / notices from the GST department — so that both foreign service providers and Indian enterprises operate within a fully compliant and tax-efficient OIDAR framework.