No. When a doctor or a clinic charges a patient for a consultation, that fee is exempt from GST. The exemption is written into entry 74 of Notification 12/2017-Central Tax (Rate), and it covers diagnosis, treatment, and care. So the ₹500 or ₹800 a patient pays to see the doctor carries no tax.
The part that trips clinics up is everything sitting next to that consultation.
What the exemption actually covers
The law exempts "health care services" supplied by a clinical establishment, an authorised medical practitioner, or paramedics. That last phrase matters: a single-doctor clinic gets the same treatment as a 50-bed hospital. There's no size test.
"Health care services" means any service for diagnosis, treatment, or care of an illness, injury, deformity, abnormality, or pregnancy, in any system of medicine recognised in India. Allopathy, Ayurveda, Homeopathy, Unani, Siddha all count. The exemption also stretches to transporting a patient to and from the clinic, which is why an ambulance ride isn't taxed either.
A consultation, a follow-up, a dressing, a minor procedure done to treat something: exempt. The mode doesn't change it. A teleconsultation is still a consultation, so it's exempt the same way an in-person visit is.
Where the exemption stops
Here's the line clinics actually need to watch. The exemption is for the care. It does not automatically cover the things a clinic sells alongside the care.
- Pharmacy and product sales. If you dispense medicines over the counter or sell anything as a retail item, that's a supply of goods. It's taxable at the rate for that product, and it carries an HSN code. Our HSN/SAC guide covers how those codes land on the bill.
- Cosmetic and aesthetic work. The definition of health care services specifically leaves out hair transplant and cosmetic or plastic surgery. The one exception is when the procedure restores or reconstructs the body after a congenital defect, a developmental abnormality, an injury, or trauma. So reconstructive surgery after an accident stays exempt. A purely aesthetic procedure does not, and since 22 September 2025 it's taxed at 5% without input tax credit (it was 18% before that).
- Room rent above a threshold. Rooms charged above ₹5,000 a day (other than ICU) attract GST at 5%. Most small clinics never touch this, but it's worth knowing it exists.
The takeaway: a clinic that only consults and treats is fully exempt. The moment it sells products or does aesthetic work, it's running a mix of exempt and taxable supplies, and the books have to show both.
Exempt doesn't mean off the hook
There's a quiet trap here. "Exempt" makes people think "no paperwork." It doesn't.
When you supply an exempt service, you still issue a document for it. It's just called a bill of supply instead of a tax invoice. A tax invoice is for taxable items and shows the CGST/SGST or IGST split. A bill of supply is for exempt ones and shows no tax. If your clinic does both, you're issuing both kinds of document, sometimes on the same day.
And if you cross the registration threshold on the taxable side, the exempt consultations don't make that go away. Whether you need a GSTIN at all depends on your taxable turnover, which is a separate question covered in the plain-English GST guide for clinics.
Common questions
Does a solo doctor charge GST on consultation fees?
No. An authorised medical practitioner is named in the exemption, so a single doctor's consultation fee is exempt just like a hospital's.
Is a teleconsultation taxed differently?
No. The exemption is about what the service is, not how it's delivered. A video or phone consultation is still a health care service.
A patient asked for a GST invoice on their consultation. What do I give them?
A bill of supply, not a tax invoice. The consultation is exempt, so there's no tax line to show. The bill of supply is the correct document.
My clinic sells medicines too. Is the whole bill exempt?
No. Split it. The consultation line is exempt and the medicine line is taxable. They're two different supplies even when they're printed on one receipt.
How Avinya Plus handles the mix
This is exactly the case Avinya Plus is built around. Every item in your catalogue carries its own tax setting, so a consultation can sit at exempt while a product or an aesthetic procedure carries its rate and HSN code. On a mixed bill, the exempt lines stay clean and the taxable lines split into CGST + SGST for same-state patients or IGST for inter-state ones. You print an A4 invoice or an 80mm thermal receipt without doing the tax maths at the counter.
This is general information, not tax advice. Rates, thresholds, and the room rent rule have changed before and can change again. Confirm your clinic's position with a chartered accountant.
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