GST mop-up up 14.7% to ₹2.04 lakh crore in September — but Tamil Nadu's collections fell 5%

India's gross goods and services tax collections rose 14.7 per cent year-on-year to about ₹2.04 lakh crore in September 2026, staying above the ₹2 lakh-crore mark for the third straight month, according to government data released on October 1.

Domestic GST revenue grew 10.1 per cent to ₹1.38 lakh crore, while import-linked GST jumped 25.9 per cent to ₹65,525 crore. Net collections after refunds rose 18.1 per cent to ₹1.77 lakh crore, with total refunds falling 3 per cent year-on-year to ₹27,001 crore.

For the April–September half, gross collections stood at ₹12.46 lakh crore (up 11.6 per cent) and net collections at ₹10.66 lakh crore (up 10.4 per cent) — the strongest half-year run in the tax's history.

But the national cheer has a Tamil Nadu-shaped hole. The state's domestic collections fell 5 per cent year-on-year to ₹10,188 crore — a striking outlier among the large states. Maharashtra collected ₹29,986 crore (up 15 per cent), Karnataka grew 16 per cent, Gujarat 17 per cent, and Uttar Pradesh and Telangana 18 per cent each. On the six-month cumulative measure, Tamil Nadu is down 3.2 per cent — one of the few major states in contraction.

The picture is more nuanced on the post-settlement SGST measure, where Tamil Nadu grew 17 per cent to ₹7,320 crore. But the persistent domestic-revenue lag raises a revenue-management question for the TVK government: The Hindu BusinessLine had already flagged that Tamil Nadu's SGST collections were in negative territory in the first quarter of FY27.

Commercial Taxes Minister Logesh Tamilselvan has recently credited data-analytics measures — including a tie-up with IIT-Hyderabad — for augmenting revenues, with ₹6,220 crore said to have been realised since December 2023. The September numbers will test how far that story holds.

Analysts also urged caution in reading the headline. Grant Thornton's Manoj Mishra noted that the import-led jump should not be read as pure domestic-consumption strength — a caveat that applies both to the national figure and to states claiming credit for it.