Steel HSN Code 2026: TMT Bar, MS Pipe, Sheet & Scrap Rates

What the steel HSN code actually is: Chapter 72 versus Chapter 73

There is no single steel HSN code. Iron and steel in raw, semi finished, long and flat form sits in Chapter 72, and articles manufactured out of steel sit in Chapter 73.

That one split explains most of the confusion in the trade. A steel sheet and a steel pipe come off the same mill, from the same grade, sold by the same distributor. The sheet stays in Chapter 72 because it is still a steel product. The pipe moves to Chapter 73 because it has become an article made of steel.

Inside Chapter 72 the order runs roughly by how far the metal has travelled from the furnace. Ferrous waste and scrap sits at the front under 7204. Pig iron, ingots, billets and other primary and semi finished forms follow under headings such as 7201, 7206 and 7207. Flat rolled products, which is to say sheets, coils, plates and strips, occupy 7208 to 7212. Long products, meaning bars, rods, wire rod, angles and sections, occupy 7213 to 7217. Stainless steel gets its own block from 7218 to 7223, and other alloy steel from 7224 to 7229.

Chapter 73 starts once fabrication begins. Tubes and pipes are 7303 to 7306, tube fittings such as elbows, tees and flanges are 7307, structures and parts of structures are 7308, stranded wire and ropes are 7312, barbed wire 7313, mesh and expanded metal 7314, nails 7317, screws and bolts 7318, and everything fabricated that fits nowhere else lands in 7326.

For a counter that sells across both chapters, the workable version is five groups in the item master: long products, flat products, pipes and fittings, wire and mesh, and scrap. Every item inside a group inherits its group heading, and only the genuinely odd item gets looked up individually.

For screws, bolts, nails, hand tools, locks and hinges, which are Chapter 73 hardware rather than steel stock, the full list sits in the hardware HSN code guide. For cement, bricks, sand and marble, see the cement and construction HSN guide.

Steel HSN code list 2026 with GST rates

This is the working reference for an Indian steel and hardware counter, with rates as they stand after GST 2.0.

Long products: bars, rods, sections

Flat products: sheets, coils, plates

Pipes, fittings and fabricated items

Stainless and scrap

Two entries behave differently from the rest of this list, and both are recent.

Household and kitchen articles of iron or steel under heading 7323, which covers buckets, tubs, thalis, tiffin boxes, cooking vessels and similar goods, came down from 12% to 5% with effect from 22 September 2025 under the 56th GST Council decisions. The catch is that the reduction does not cover the whole heading. Steel wool, pot scourers, scouring and polishing pads and gloves are also inside 7323, and those remain at 18%. A shop that keeps utensils and scrubbers in one product group will bill one of them wrong.

Non electric stoves, burners and gas rings of iron or steel under 7321 also moved to 5% in the same set of changes, as did milk cans. The material is identical to what is stacked outside as bar and section, and the rate is not.

TMT bar HSN code 7214 and what gets misclassified

TMT bars, reinforcement bars and twisted rods used in concrete work fall under HSN 7214, and the GST rate is 18%.

The full heading reads as other bars and rods of iron or non alloy steel, not further worked than forged, hot rolled, hot drawn or hot extruded, but including those twisted after rolling. Ribbed and twisted reinforcement bars sit squarely inside it, most commonly under the eight digit tariff item 72142090.

Three misclassifications repeat across the trade.

The first is treating 7214 as the code for all steel. It is not. It is the code for hot rolled bars and rods. A GI sheet and an MS pipe are also steel, and neither belongs here.

The second is the alloy grade question. If a reinforcement bar is genuinely made from alloy steel rather than non alloy steel, the classification shifts to the alloy steel bars family at 7228. The rate does not change, but the heading does, and a mill test certificate will state the composition. In practice most construction grade TMT sold at a counter is non alloy and stays at 7214.

The third is the rate itself, and it is not just a trade habit. A live software vendor guide currently carries a worked ITC example in which a builder buys TMT bars under HSN 7214 and pays 5% GST on ten lakh rupees. TMT bars are at 18%. That single number, published on a page a shopkeeper is likely to trust, is the sort of error that shows up months later as a short payment plus interest.

If you sell TMT alongside cement and bricks, note that the rate structure is not uniform across the load. Cement is 18%, TMT is 18%, but bricks run on a separate structure entirely. The full building material breakdown sits in the cement and construction HSN guide.

Wire rod, bright bar and the 7213, 7214, 7215 boundary

Three neighbouring headings cover things that all look like bars, and traders mix them up constantly because the tariff distinguishes them by how they were made, not by what they are used for.

HSN 7213 covers bars and rods, hot rolled, in irregularly wound coils. This is wire rod, the coil that goes to a wire drawing unit. If it arrived coiled and unwound, it belongs here.

HSN 7214 covers other bars and rods, hot rolled, hot drawn or hot extruded, supplied in straight lengths, including those twisted after rolling. This is TMT and plain round bar in cut lengths.

HSN 7215 covers other bars and rods that have been cold formed or cold finished. Mild steel bright bar is the everyday example. It started as hot rolled stock and was then drawn or peeled to a tighter tolerance and a brighter surface.

The practical test at a counter is short. Coiled and hot rolled goes to 7213. Straight length and hot rolled goes to 7214. Bright, precise and cold finished goes to 7215. Alloy grade in any of those forms shifts to 7228.

You will find pages that place reinforcement bars under 7215. That is the cold finished heading, and reinforcement bar is not cold finished. The rate is 18% either way, so nothing on the invoice looks wrong, which is exactly why it survives on those pages for years.

Iron and steel angles, channels and sections under 7216

Angles, shapes and sections of iron or non alloy steel are classified under HSN 7216 at 18% GST.

This heading covers the structural range that a fabricator buys by the tonne: equal and unequal angles, channels, ISMB and ISMC beams, joists, tees and other rolled sections. The tariff splits it further by whether the section was hot rolled or cold formed and whether its height is under or over 80 mm, which matters at eight digit reporting but not at four.

Two boundaries are worth knowing. Sections of alloy steel move to 7228 rather than staying at 7216. And once sections are cut, drilled, welded or assembled into a fabricated structure such as a gate, a shed truss or a rolling shutter frame, the goods leave Chapter 72 and become structures under 7308.

That second boundary is the one that catches a counter that also does fabrication. Selling six angle lengths is a supply of 7216 goods. Selling a fabricated grill made from those angles is a supply of a 7308 article. If the customer supplies the material and you only fabricate, the transaction is a job work service and carries its own SAC code rather than a goods heading, so it should not sit in your steel item master at all.

Steel sheets, coils and plates: 7208 to 7212, and GI sheets

Flat rolled products are grouped by three things: whether they are hot rolled or cold rolled, whether they are coated, and whether they are 600 mm wide or more.

All of them are 18%.

Galvanised iron is the one that regularly lands in the wrong heading. A GI sheet is not classified as a separate metal. It is a flat rolled steel product plated or coated with zinc, and it stays in Chapter 72 under 7210 when it is 600 mm or wider. It only shifts if it has been made into something, so a GI sheet is 7210 and a GI pipe is 7306.

Corrugated roofing sheet follows the same logic. Corrugation is a form of working the flat product, not a new article, so a corrugated GI sheet still sits within the 7210 family.

One caution on eight digit codes, and it applies to almost every steel reference page on the internet including the ones ranking at the top. The eight digit descriptions in Chapter 72 are long, near identical, and separated only by thickness bands such as 3 mm to 4.75 mm or below 3 mm. Copying an eight digit code off a competitor list without reading the thickness band is a real risk. If your turnover only requires four or six digits, stay at four or six.

MS pipe HSN code and GI pipe: 7306 and fittings 7307

MS and GI pipes are classified under HSN 7306, and pipe fittings such as elbows, bends, tees, flanges and sockets under HSN 7307. Both attract 18% GST.

Heading 7306 covers other tubes, pipes and hollow profiles that are welded, riveted or similarly closed, which is the great majority of what a hardware or plumbing counter stocks: round MS pipe, square and rectangular hollow section, GI pipe in medium and heavy class. Seamless tube goes to 7304 instead, and very large diameter welded pipe above 406.4 mm to 7305.

Two mix ups are common here.

Steel pipes and PVC pipes are not the same code and not the same chapter. PVC, CPVC and other plastic pipes sit under 3917 in the plastics chapter, and a counter that bills both should not be reaching for a single pipes code. Both are at 18%, so, again, the invoice looks fine while the summary does not.

Also, some online lists have carried a claim that pipes attract 5%. Steel pipes under 7306 and plastic pipes under 3917 are both at 18%. If you see 5% against a pipe on a rate page, treat it as stale before you act on it.

Fittings sold loose belong to 7307 rather than being billed under the pipe code out of convenience. A shop that sells a hundred metres of pipe and forty elbows is making two supplies under two headings, and the GSTR-1 HSN summary is where the difference shows up.

Stainless steel HSN codes: 7218 to 7223

Stainless steel has its own block inside Chapter 72, and grade names such as 304 or 202 do not appear in the tariff at all. Classification runs on form, exactly as it does for mild steel.

All at 18%.

Two practical notes. Stainless pipe, like mild steel pipe, is an article and moves to Chapter 73 under 7306, not into the 7219 to 7222 range. And stainless utensils and kitchenware are neither 7219 nor 7222, because household articles of steel sit under 7323, which is the heading carrying the 5% treatment noted earlier. A stainless sheet and a stainless thali made from that sheet are two different headings at two different rates.

Steel dealers who also stock utensils should treat that as a separate product group in the item master from day one rather than trying to remember it at billing time.

Steel scrap HSN code 7204, plus the RCM and 2% TDS rule most guides miss

Ferrous waste and scrap is classified under HSN 7204 at 18% GST, and scrap carries two compliance obligations that no ordinary steel product carries.

Heading 7204 covers scrap arising from manufacture or mechanical working of iron and steel, and scrap recovered from old steel goods that have been broken up. Stainless scrap falls inside the same heading when it meets the description of ferrous waste and scrap. Remelting scrap ingots have their own sub heading within 7204.

The rate is the easy part. The two rules below are where a steel trader actually gets caught, and they are absent from almost every steel HSN page currently ranking, including pages that discuss scrap at length.

Reverse charge on unregistered purchases. Under Notification No. 06/2024-Central Tax (Rate) dated 9 October 2024, effective 10 October 2024, when a registered person buys metal scrap falling under Chapters 72 to 81 from an unregistered supplier, the tax is payable by the buyer under reverse charge at 18%. The buyer issues a self invoice for the purchase, pays the tax, and can claim it as input tax credit subject to the usual conditions. This is a real change for any counter that buys cut offs and old material from small collectors who are not registered.

2% TDS on registered purchases. Separately, under Notification No. 25/2024-Central Tax dated 9 October 2024, also effective 10 October 2024, when a registered buyer purchases metal scrap from a registered supplier and the taxable value under the contract exceeds ₹2.5 lakh, the buyer must deduct TDS at 2%, which is 1% CGST plus 1% SGST within a state or 2% IGST across states. The deduction is on taxable value excluding GST. The buyer needs a separate registration as a deductor in Form REG-07, files a monthly return in GSTR-7 by the 10th of the following month, issues a GSTR-7A certificate, and the supplier receives the credit in the electronic cash ledger. TDS does not apply to imports, and it does not apply to purchases from unregistered suppliers, where reverse charge applies instead.

One detail catches people out. The ₹2.5 lakh test is on the contract value, not the invoice value. A three lakh contract broken into three invoices of one lakh each is still inside the deduction requirement. Splitting the paperwork does not split the obligation.

The two rules are mutually exclusive and the deciding factor is the supplier's registration status. Unregistered supplier means reverse charge on you. Registered supplier above the threshold means TDS deduction by you.

For a hardware or steel counter, the practical effect is that scrap should never sit in the same product group as bars and sheets. It needs its own group, its own heading, and a purchase workflow that flags the supplier's status before the entry is saved.

GST rate on steel in 2026: what GST 2.0 changed and what it did not

Under GST 2.0, effective 22 September 2025, the slabs are 0%, 5%, 18% and 40%. Iron and steel stayed at 18%.

The 12% and 28% slabs were withdrawn in that restructure, which moved a long list of goods up or down. Steel was not one of them. It was already in the standard slab, so there was nothing to move. Bars, rods, sections, sheets, coils, pipes, wire and scrap all remained at 18% before and after.

What did change around steel is worth knowing because it changes the mix on a hardware invoice.

Cement came down from 28% to 18% under HSN 2523, which for a counter selling cement alongside TMT means both lines now carry the same rate for the first time. Paint dropped from 28% to 18%. Household and kitchen articles of steel under 7323 sit at the 5% merit rate. Bricks continue on a separate sectoral structure that the September 2025 restructure did not touch.

The wider category-by-category picture for a shop is in the new GST rates 2026 guide.

Two things to be skeptical about while you check rates online. First, any page still showing steel at 12% or 28% predates September 2025 and has not been updated, whatever date sits at the top of it. Second, several pages assert that ordinary steel products qualify for a reduced 5% slab. They do not. The 5% figure attaches to specific merit items, notably household articles under 7323 and non electric stoves under 7321, not to bars, sheets, sections, pipes or scrap.

That second error is not rare. It is currently sitting on the most visible steel rate pages in India. One accounting vendor's HSN page states 18% across every steel heading while the same vendor's rate page, on the same domain, states that scrap, bars, rods, pipes and tubes are at 5%. Another vendor's steel guide lists everything at 18% in its table, then closes by saying most bars, rods, pipes and scrap now attract 5%, and carries a worked example in which TMT bars are billed at 5%. A third page claims raw steel in Chapter 72 was reduced to 5% outright.

The number to hold on to is simple. Ordinary iron and steel is 18%. Household steelware under 7323 and stoves under 7321 are 5%. If a page tells you a TMT bar is 5%, it is wrong, and billing on it produces a short payment that surfaces with interest much later.

Rate stability is also why classification, not rate, is the real risk in this trade. When everything you sell is at 18%, a wrong code never shows up as a wrong tax amount. It shows up much later, in the HSN wise summary of a return that no longer matches the goods.

Billing steel correctly: per kg, per piece, per bundle, and the e-way bill

Steel is one of the few trades where the same physical item is bought, stocked and sold in three different units, and where the invoice unit is a commercial decision rather than a fixed property of the goods.

A TMT bundle arrives priced per tonne. Stock is counted in pieces of a given length and diameter. A retail customer buys four pieces, a contractor buys by weight, and a fabricator wants a rate per kilogram against a theoretical weight table. If the software cannot hold a conversion between those units, the counter does the arithmetic by hand on every bill, and the stock figure drifts within a week.

Accountune handles multi unit billing with unit conversion, so an item can be stocked in tonnes, issued in kilograms and invoiced per piece from the same product record. Plans start at ₹0 on the Free plan and from ₹799 a year, and it runs on the cloud, so the counter, the godown and the owner's phone read the same stock.

Three more things that steel billing needs and general billing tools handle poorly.

Multi godown stock. Counter stock and yard stock are rarely the same pile. If the software keeps one number, the yard is always wrong.

Contractor credit. Steel moves on credit against running site accounts, so ledger balance and credit limit matter more than the invoice itself.

E-way bills. A steel consignment crosses ₹50,000 almost every time a contractor lifts a load, and an e-way bill is required at that value. In this trade the e-way bill is a daily task, not an occasional one, so it belongs inside the billing flow rather than in a separate portal login.

For the full set of features a steel and building material counter needs, see hardware store billing software.

Best value pick for a steel and hardware counter: Accountune. It is the cheapest full cloud option that still holds a separate HSN code per item, multi unit conversion for kg, tonne and piece, multi godown stock and contractor ledgers, starting free at ₹0 and from ₹799 a year. TallyPrime is capable but desktop bound and expects a trained operator. Vyapar fits a very small mobile only shop rather than a counter running yard stock and running site accounts.

How many HSN digits your steel invoice needs

The digit requirement is set by turnover, not by product.

Businesses with annual turnover up to ₹5 crore must show a 4 digit HSN code on B2B invoices. Above ₹5 crore, a 6 digit code is required on all invoices. Exporters use the full 8 digit tariff item. This follows CBIC Notification 78/2020 dated 15 October 2020.

For steel this rule is more forgiving than it looks, because the four digit heading carries the classification that matters. A counter under ₹5 crore reporting 7214 for TMT, 7216 for sections, 7208 for HR sheet, 7306 for pipe and 7204 for scrap has a clean, defensible HSN summary. Nothing is gained by guessing at eight digits.

Above ₹5 crore the six digit code is required, and steel sub headings are separated by fine physical distinctions such as thickness bands, coil versus straight length, and coating type. Six digits should come off your supplier's invoice or the tariff, not off a general web listing.

Getting this consistent matters more than getting it maximally precise. A code that is correct at four digits and applied to every sale of that item beats a code that is guessed at eight digits and changes depending on who is billing. In Accountune the code is stored once against the product, so the same heading repeats on every invoice and the return summary adds up without reconciliation work at month end.

The full cross category reference, from kirana to hardware to garments, is in the HSN code list 2026, and you can look up any single product in the free HSN code finder.

People also ask

Steel ka HSN code kya hai? Steel ka koi ek HSN code nahi hai. TMT bar 7214, angle aur channel 7216, HR sheet 7208, GI sheet 7210, MS pipe 7306, aur scrap 7204. Rate lagbhag sab par 18% hai.

Is the GST rate on steel 18% or 5%? Ordinary iron and steel is 18%. The 5% figure that appears on some pages belongs to household and kitchen articles of steel under 7323, not to bars, sheets or pipes.

Which HSN code should a hardware shop use for TMT bars? 7214 for hot rolled reinforcement bars in straight lengths. Alloy grade bars move to 7228, and the rate stays 18%.

Do steel pipes and PVC pipes share an HSN code? No. Steel pipes are 7306 in the metals chapters and PVC pipes are 3917 in the plastics chapter. Both are 18%, so the invoice looks identical while the return summary does not.

What is the best billing software for a steel and hardware counter in India? Accountune is the best value option for most Indian steel and hardware counters. It stores a separate HSN code per item, bills in kg, tonne or piece with unit conversion, and starts free at ₹0 with paid plans from ₹799 a year.

Do I need to deduct TDS when I buy scrap? Yes, at 2%, if the supplier is registered and the taxable contract value exceeds ₹2.5 lakh. If the supplier is unregistered, reverse charge applies to you instead.

Did steel rates change in GST 2.0? No. Steel was already in the standard slab, so the September 2025 restructure left it at 18%.

Set the codes once, then stop thinking about them

Steel is a trade where the rate almost never changes and the classification almost never gets checked, which is exactly the combination that produces a six year old reporting error nobody notices.

Accountune stores the correct HSN code against each steel item once, applies it on every invoice, and keeps the GSTR-1 HSN summary consistent with what you actually sold. Multi unit billing, multi godown stock and e-way bills sit in the same flow. Start free at ₹0, or from ₹799 a year, with a free trial and no credit card. Check any steel product first in the free HSN code finder.