GST on a Wedding Venue, Catering and Rooms: 5% or 18%?

Last updated: 8 November 2026 · Rates from the CBIC notification text · Worked examples from our November 2026 cost model

Is GST on a wedding venue 5% or 18%?

Both rates are in force, and they apply to different suppliers. A hotel that sold any room above ₹7,500 a night in the previous financial year charges 18% on its food and banquets. A caterer or venue outside that test charges 5%, even when the hall is on the same bill. Rooms follow their own ₹7,500 line, and decor, photography and planning sit at 18%.

The notification numbers are there so your accountant can check them. Many wedding quotes say “plus taxes” and stop there, and the gap between 5% and 18% is 13 points on the largest bills of the wedding. No notification names a wedding hall, a decorator, a photographer or a planner in words. For those rows we read CBIC’s classification annexure, and we say so in the table.

Why does the same plate cost 5% at one venue and 18% at another?

Because the rate follows the hotel’s room tariff, not the menu. A ₹5,500 plate comes to ₹6,490 with 18% GST and ₹5,775 with 5%. For 200 guests at two functions, ₹22 lakh of food becomes ₹25.96 lakh at a five-star and ₹23.1 lakh from a caterer outside the test.

The test is called “specified premises”, and Notification 05/2025-Central Tax (Rate) rewrote it from 1 April 2025. A premises is specified for a financial year if, in the year before, it supplied any room above ₹7,500 a night. A hotel can also opt in: by filing a declaration between 1 January and 31 March of the previous year, or within 15 days of applying for registration. Every restaurant meal, banquet and outdoor catering order from a specified premises is then billed at 18%, with input tax credit.

So nearly every five-star resort and city hotel you shortlist charges 18% on food, and the hall goes on that bill at the same rate when it comes with the catering. A lawn, farm, villa or convention hall that brings in an outside caterer charges 5% on food and hall together, under the entry for catering supplied with “hotel, convention center, club, pandal, shamiana or any other place, specially arranged for organising a function”. The government’s own worked example in Notification 06/2026 is a ₹1,00,000 wedding function billed at 2.5% central tax.

Ask the hotel one question before you compare quotes: is this property specified premises for the current financial year? A mid-range hotel that sells no room above ₹7,500 can still be at 18% if it opted in.

What GST applies to hotel rooms for wedding guests?

5% for a room up to ₹7,500 a night and 18% above it. The 5% rate has applied since 22 September 2025, when Notification 15/2025 moved these rooms down from 12%, and a hotel charging 5% gives up most of its input tax credit on them.

The notification measures the value of one unit of accommodation per day, which is the rate you are actually charged for that room, so a negotiated block rate can land on either side of the line. A room at ₹7,500 a night comes to ₹7,875 with tax. At ₹7,600 it comes to ₹8,968. Sixty rooms for two nights at ₹7,000 cost ₹8.4 lakh plus ₹42,000 of GST. The same block at ₹9,000 a night costs ₹10.8 lakh plus about ₹1.94 lakh.

At a five-star, a wedding room block sits well above ₹7,500, so plan on 18%. The Goa resorts we track are a good example, and our Goa pricing guide works through their room figures. If you are booking on the AP plan, where meals are in the room rate, our AP plan cost guide shows the per-night bands we use. Ask for the block rate, the GST rate and the attrition terms on one page.

Is a hall hired without food taxed differently?

Usually yes. A hall or lawn hired on its own, with your food coming from somewhere else, falls under renting of non-residential property in CBIC’s classification (SAC 997212), which is taxed at 18%. When the same venue supplies the food and the hall together and is not specified premises, the combined bill is 5%.

This row is our reading of the classification annexure, not a sentence any notification states about weddings, so treat it as the question to put to the venue. Ask which SAC code the hall rental is billed under and at what rate. If a venue quotes a rental and a per-plate rate separately, check whether they will be invoiced as one supply or two, because that decides whether the rental sits at 5% or 18%.

Is GST charged on decor, photography and the planner’s fee?

Yes, at 18%. Decorators and planners bill as event organisation (SAC 998596) and photographers as event photography and videography (SAC 998383). Both sit under general entries taxed at 9% central and 9% state tax, and GST 2.0 left both rates where they were.

Panigrahana charges a flat planning fee quoted for the agreed scope and takes zero vendor commissions. Planning starts at ₹2 lakh a day for two events and decor at ₹5 lakh, and both are quoted plus GST, each on its own line. Because you pay every vendor directly, each vendor’s GST sits on that vendor’s own invoice at its own rate, and ours sits on our fee alone. Nothing is folded into a single “package” figure where the tax is hard to see.

When you compare decor quotes, check that each one states its GST the same way. Our guide to comparing wedding decor quotes line by line covers the rest of that sheet.

How much GST does a 200-guest five-star wedding pay?

About ₹22–31 lakh in Goa, ₹12–17 lakh in Bangalore and ₹22–30 lakh in Kerala, on the food, rooms, decor, photography and planning of a two-day Premium luxury wedding at our November 2026 cost model’s rates. Every guest is housed in Goa and Kerala; in Bangalore, 25 rooms are booked for close family.

Rooms carry about 61% of the tax in Goa and 63% in Kerala, because 100 rooms for two nights at an AP rate is the biggest bill a destination wedding has. In Bangalore, where most guests sleep at home, decor is the largest GST line. That is why the room rate is the first number to settle for a destination wedding and the decor scope for a city one.

The food line is where the venue type shows. If the Bangalore food bill came from an outside caterer at a venue that is not specified premises, its GST would be ₹52,000–₹73,000 instead of ₹1.9–2.6 lakh. Run your own guest count, days and rooms through our wedding cost calculator, which adds service charge and a contingency on top.

What should a venue proforma show?

One line for each supply, each with its own rate and its own tax. If a quote says “plus taxes as applicable”, ask for it again with the rate written against every line.

• Rooms: the rate per room per night, the number of nights, and 5% or 18% against it.
• Food: the plate rate, the guaranteed minimum, and the GST rate. At a five-star this is 18%.
• The hall or lawn: whether it is billed with the food as one supply or on its own, and at what rate.
• The service charge, on its own line, and whether GST is charged on it.
• The bar, priced separately from the plate.
• Whether the property is specified premises for the current financial year.

That one sheet is also the thing to share with parents who are funding part of the wedding. When every line carries its own tax, the total you approve is the total you pay. Our list of hidden costs at Indian weddings covers the deposits, overtime and corkage that sit outside these lines.

Did GST on wedding venues change in 2025 and 2026?

The rates moved once, on 22 September 2025: rooms up to ₹7,500 a night went from 12% to 5% without input tax credit. Notification 06/2026, in force from 1 November 2026, changed only the credit that 5% hotels, restaurants and caterers may claim on services bought from others in the same business. Your rate did not change.

The other change came earlier. From 1 April 2025, Notification 05/2025 defined specified premises by the previous year’s room tariffs and let hotels opt in, which is why food at a hotel with no room above ₹7,500 can still be billed at 18%. Older articles that quote 12% for mid-range rooms, or a single 18% rate for every banquet, were written before these notifications.

For Goa, where most wedding resorts sell rooms above the line, our Goa pricing guide explains the 18% food rate, the Goa destination wedding cost guide carries the full budget, and the 500-guest Goa guide works out food for a large wedding. For Kerala and Bangalore, see the Kerala wedding cost breakdown and the Bangalore wedding cost guide.

Updated 8 November 2026