What Is Mixed Supply?
A mixed supply is two or more separate goods or services sold together for a single price, where the items are not naturally bundled, and GST taxes the whole lot at the highest rate of any item in it.
The definition is in section 2(74) of the CGST Act, and the tax rule is in section 8(b). The Act’s own illustration reads like a Diwali order sheet: a package of canned foods, sweets, chocolates, cakes, dry fruits, aerated drinks and fruit juices, sold for a single price.
The Three Conditions
A bundle is a mixed supply only when all three hold:
- Two or more individual supplies. Each item could be sold on its own and does not depend on the others.
- One price for the lot. The customer pays a single amount for the package.
- Not a composite supply. The items are not naturally bundled with one main item.
Check the third first: CBIC’s guidance says a supply can be mixed only once composite supply, a natural bundle with one main item, is ruled out.
The Act adds the line that matters most for shops: “It shall not be a mixed supply if these items are supplied separately.”
Why the Highest Rate Hurts
For a regular GST-registered seller, every item in the package is pulled up to the rate of the most heavily taxed one. A composition-scheme seller pays a flat rate on turnover, so it is unaffected. A box that is mostly 5% food with one decorative piece in the 18% slab is taxed at 18% from top to bottom, food included.
The pull reaches exempt items too: anything carrying no GST becomes taxable inside a single-price hamper with taxed goods.
Services follow the same logic. CBIC’s illustration, from its service tax guide, is one rent deed covering a floor used as a home and another floor housing a printing press, with the whole rent treated as commercial letting.
Mixed Supply Example
A gift shop near Navsari’s Lunsikui builds a Diwali hamper for October 2026. Suppose it holds Rs.1,250 of items in the 5% slab and a Rs.250 decorative piece in the 18% slab, with all prices before GST.
| Billing | Taxable value | GST |
|---|---|---|
| Separately | Rs.1,250 at 5% plus Rs.250 at 18% | Rs.107.50 |
| As a hamper | Rs.1,500 at 18% | Rs.270 |
| Difference | Only the billing changes | Rs.162.50 more |
Note: this is an invented example for illustration only. The shop, prices and slab split are not real and are not a rate ruling on any item.
On one hamper, Rs.162.50 looks small. But on 600 hampers sold to a single corporate buyer, it is Rs.97,500 of GST that comes out of the margin or the customer’s pocket.
How to Keep Each Item at Its Own Rate
The law’s route is to genuinely sell the items separately. Itemising a box on the bill is not enough if the customer still pays one price.
- Give every item its own price on the shelf and the bill, so a customer could buy any one of them alone.
- Keep any festive discount item-wise, such as 10% off every diya, rather than an offer that applies only to the full set, which can look like one price. Under section 15(3)(a), a discount given at or before the sale and recorded on the invoice comes off that item’s taxable value.
- Check the slab of every item before you print the price card, using its HSN code, especially non-food pieces.
And none of this is a loophole, provided each item really sells at its own price. The Act itself says separately supplied items are not a mixed supply.
Avoid an Unplanned Mixed Supply at Billing
Separate prices mean several lines on every bill, each at its own rate. Petpooja Invoice makes accurate and automatic GST calculations on every invoice it generates, so the rate on each line is worked out for you. Use our GST calculator to compare both ways on your own hamper before Diwali orders come in.
Frequently Asked Questions
Not when it is served as part of restaurant service. CBIC treats restaurant service as a composite supply with its own specified rate. A packaged combo sold by a shop, or one that includes a toy, needs its own check.
Not on its own. Ordinary packing is usually treated as part of the goods it holds. A box sold as a gift in itself, such as a brass or wooden case, is one more item in the package.
The supplier does, when raising the invoice, and the GST officer can question it later. Where the answer is genuinely unclear, an advance ruling from the state’s Authority for Advance Ruling binds that business and its jurisdictional tax officer, under section 103.
It takes the character of the highest-taxed item. If that item is goods, the whole supply is treated as goods, including for time of supply.
