A cancelled GSTIN still checksums. The portal is the status check.

The supplier's shop is still open. The invoices still arrive every week. But last month they filed for cancellation on the GST portal. The photocopy still carries the same GSTIN. The checksum still passes. The row still exports. Nobody checks the portal because the number looks right.

The checksum post is about typing. This page is about whether that well-formed number still belongs to a taxpayer who can issue a tax invoice you may credit. Those are different facts. Capture tools that say "GSTIN verified" after a regex are lying about the second one.

How to check, without a screenshot tour

Open gst.gov.in taxpayer search. Paste the GSTIN from the scan. Read legal name, status, and whatever the portal shows for that day. If it is cancelled or inactive, do not treat the photocopy as a normal ITC invoice. What credit is allowed on such paper is a live compliance topic. Read CBIC circulars and ask the CA. This blog will not invent a yes/no.

Invoice date vs search date: a GSTIN can be active when they printed the bill and cancelled when you scanned it in June. Or the reverse. The portal is a snapshot. Note the date you searched on the review row if policy requires a status check.

What we do not do

There is no GSTN API in validate_invoice. No nightly batch against the public search. If a vendor demo "verifies GSTIN online," ask whether that is a live call, a cached list, or a checksum. We are checksum plus format. Say it in the bake-off so nobody is surprised at filing.

Composition status is the same class of miss: scheme is not in Mod-36. See composition invoices. Cancelled and composition both need the portal. Do not merge them into one "bad GSTIN" bucket when you score.

What the clerk should do

If finance says "no cancelled GSTINs in Tally," the review script is: checksum already ran; open portal; if cancelled, do not confirm auto-export; park for the CA. If finance has no such rule, the row may still export. That is a policy choice, not a silent product claim that we blocked it.

Do not replace a cancelled GSTIN with a neighbour's number so the row exports. That is how you steal someone else's 2B line, or none. Required GSTIN exists so empty rows fail, not so you invent a live one.

Inactive, suspended, and "cancelled suo moto"

The portal uses more than one word. Inactive, cancelled, suspended, ready to file. I will not map each to an ITC outcome. Those mappings live in circulars that get replaced. Your job at entry is: if status is not a normal active filer, do not treat AUTO_EXPORT as a green light for credit. Park it. The CA reads the current circular.

Suo moto cancellation and taxpayer-applied cancellation are different stories in notices. Capture software that collapses them into "GSTIN bad" will make you write the wrong reply. We do not classify them at all. That is better than a wrong classifier.

When the bill is still a bill

You may still owe the supplier. Goods arrived. Tally still wants an expense. ITC is the part that dies or waits. Same split as composition: post vs claim. Link composition. Do not refuse to pay a vendor because the gate could not see GSTN. Do not claim ITC because the gate saw a checksum.

Group companies: one GSTIN cancelled, another live under the same PAN. That is the PAN vs master join. Status search on the scan's GSTIN, not on the sister's.

Review note

Write: "checksum pass; portal 10 Sep 2026: cancelled; not confirmed for ITC." Date the search. Next month's clerk should not repeat a stale screenshot from January. Status changes.