A Pune exporter who lets the Letter of Undertaking lapse finds it out on the first export invoice of April. Without a live undertaking that invoice carries IGST at the full rate, the tax leaves the bank account that month, and the money returns only through a refund claim. Nothing renews on its own. The undertaking filed last year stops working on 31 March, and the new one is a separate filing in Form GST RFD-11 for the new financial year. LegalX India files it for Pune exporters from ₹499, usually inside 3 to 5 working days.
Does an LUT apply to what you sell out of Pune?
The test is not what you make. It is what your supply counts as under GST. You need the undertaking if you hold a GST registration and you export goods, export services, or supply goods or services to a unit or developer inside a Special Economic Zone. A wholesale trading firm in Camp that buys from local suppliers and ships abroad on its own invoice is an exporter for this purpose. So is a consultancy that only ever emails its work.
Two lines are worth drawing early. An exporter content to pay IGST and claim it back each time is not obliged to file at all, because the undertaking is the alternative to that route and not an extra licence on top of it. And it is closed to anyone prosecuted for tax evasion where the amount involved crosses ₹2.5 crore, who furnishes a bond instead.
An undertaking is also not your GST registration and not your IEC. Those are separate files. A new exporter here usually needs all three in place before the first consignment moves.
What actually goes wrong when the undertaking lapses?
The damage is cash, not paperwork. Say a Camp trading firm ships ₹25 lakh of goods in April on an expired undertaking. IGST on that value has to be funded out of working capital and then claimed back, and the claim sits in the refund queue while the next consignment is already being packed. Nobody writes to warn you that the year rolled over.
There is a second exposure. Exporting without paying IGST and without a valid undertaking on record is not a neutral position under GST. Interest and penalty follow the tax, and the gap surfaces later when export invoices are reconciled against what the portal shows. Repairing it after the event costs more than the filing ever did.
Which dates decide the LUT year?
The undertaking runs with the financial year and nothing about it is pro rata. Filed in June, it still ends on 31 March. That is why the sensible sequence is to file in the second half of March, before an April invoice exists.
| What the date fixes | When it falls | What turns on it |
|---|---|---|
| Fresh undertaking for the coming year | Filed before 1 April | Export invoices go out without IGST from the first one |
| Last year's undertaking | Ends 31 March | Nothing carries forward and a fresh Form GST RFD-11 is required |
| Exports raised before the new filing | Date of the invoice | IGST is payable and comes back only as a refund |
| Profession tax enrolment for the entity | On or before 31 March | ₹2,500 a year under its own Schedule I entry |
The last row is a local reminder rather than an export rule. A GST registration in Maharashtra pulls its holder into profession tax enrolment, and so does being a company or an LLP. Each of those carries the ₹2,500 annual rate set by its own Schedule I entry. Several other classes sit at lower Schedule I rates. Clearing both March dates in one sitting beats chasing them a fortnight apart.
How does the Maharashtra layer of an export filing work?
Form GST RFD-11 goes in on gst.gov.in against your own GSTIN, and every Maharashtra GSTIN begins with state code 27. The form is national. The officer who reads it is not.
Two administrations divide the city's registrations between them. Yours belongs either to a state officer of the Maharashtra Goods and Services Tax Department, which runs mahagst.gov.in, or to a Central GST officer. The state side is cut into six nodal divisions. Pune East and Pune West take one part of the city, Pune North and Pune South another, and Pune South East with Pune North West complete the set. Pincode decides which of the six an address falls in, so two exporters a few kilometres apart, one in Kharadi and one in Kothrud, can sit with different divisions and different officers.
Centrally, two commissionerates cover the district, Pune-I and Pune-II, both answering to the Chief Commissioner of Central Tax, Pune. Taluka fixes that split first, and pincode fixes it inside the taluka that holds the city, so two addresses in one suburb can end up with different commissionerates. Before we file we check your pincode against the current notification, and we tell you which officer holds the file.
What does the filing cost, and what do you hand over?
Our fee starts at ₹499 for the filing, with no separate charge for the renewal reminder. Against that sits the tax you would otherwise fund on a single consignment, which is almost always the larger number.
The paperwork is short:
- GST registration certificate and the PAN of the business
- Last year's approved undertaking, where this is a renewal
- A cancelled cheque of the business bank account
- Name, address and occupation of the two witnesses the form carries
- Authorisation letter where a CA or a representative signs for you
- IEC, plus the Aadhaar and PAN of the proprietor, partners or directors
A trading firm sending goods out needs the IEC in place first, and IEC applications from here route through DGFT's Regional Authority at Pune. We confirm the regional authority for your registered address before filing. A services exporter billing from a leased office rarely has to produce anything beyond the registration papers already on file.
Which Pune businesses are filing this?
- A wholesale trading firm in Camp that buys from local suppliers and exports on its own invoice, needing the undertaking before the first shipping bill of the year
- A software and SaaS company at Hinjawadi billing clients outside India in foreign currency, where every one of those invoices is an export of services
- A manufacturer at Chakan or Talegaon supplying an SEZ unit or developer instead of shipping across a border, which is treated the same way
- A newly registered exporter holding a GSTIN and an IEC but no undertaking, with an order to ship this month
How we run your LUT filing
- We check eligibility against the prosecution bar, confirm the GSTIN and establish whether an undertaking was ever filed for the year running now.
- We collect the documents, draft the undertaking and prepare the witness details the form asks for.
- We file Form GST RFD-11 on gst.gov.in against your Maharashtra GSTIN and record which officer, state or central, holds the file.
- We send you the acknowledged undertaking with its reference number and confirm the financial year it covers.
- We diarise the renewal against 31 March so the April invoices leave without IGST.
Why LegalX India for a Pune exporter?
We are a CA and CS team filing GST work for Maharashtra businesses every week, and more than 15,000 customers have come through us across our services. The whole undertaking runs online, so you send documents and we file. Our office at Yashwant Nagar, Near Bharatiya Samajseva, Yerwada, Pune 411006 is there if you would rather sit with someone. Call +91 96356 85435 and you get a callback within 30 minutes.
If you want the national picture before the local detail, read how LUT filing works across India. It sets out the form, the validity rule and the bond alternative. This page is about the officer who will read your file and the March date that decides your April invoices.