QRMP — Quarterly Return, Monthly Payment — lets eligible taxpayers file GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B once a quarter instead of every month, while still paying tax monthly via a simple challan (Form PMT-06). It's available to businesses with aggregate turnover up to ₹5 crore in the preceding financial year, and it's opted into (or out of) at the GSTIN level, quarter by quarter.
The Genuine Benefit
For a small business with straightforward, relatively low-volume transactions, QRMP means filing one detailed return every three months instead of three separate ones — less paperwork overall, fewer discrete opportunities to make a filing error, and meaningfully less time spent on routine compliance across the year. Buyers aren't left entirely in the dark between quarters either: the optional Invoice Furnishing Facility (IFF) lets you push specific B2B invoices through for the first two months of the quarter, so your larger buyers can still see and claim ITC on those invoices roughly on time.
Where It Gets Genuinely Complicated
The monthly tax payment obligation doesn't disappear under QRMP — you're still calculating and depositing tax every month via PMT-06, using one of two methods:
- Fixed sum method — pay 35% of the net cash liability from your last quarter's GSTR-3B for each of the first two months, a simple percentage-of-last-quarter calculation requiring no fresh number-crunching
- Self-assessment method — calculate the actual tax due on that month's real supplies and pay accordingly
If your business has irregular, seasonal, or fast-growing month-to-month sales, self-assessment requires nearly the same monthly bookkeeping discipline you'd need under the regular monthly filing scheme — you're doing the work of monthly accounting without the monthly return acting as the forcing function that actually makes you do it. Businesses that pick QRMP expecting less monthly effort, then fall back on the fixed-sum method during a growth quarter, often end up with a large true-up payment (plus interest on the shortfall) when the quarterly return is finally filed and reality catches up with the estimate.
There's also a real cost to your buyers under QRMP if you're not diligent with IFF: a buyer expecting to claim ITC promptly can be frustrated by a QRMP supplier whose invoices only fully populate their GSTR-2B once a quarter, rather than monthly — for buyers with tight cash-flow needs around ITC timing, this can quietly strain the relationship even when nothing has technically gone wrong.
Our Rule of Thumb, After Running This for Dozens of Clients
QRMP works well for small, largely B2C-facing businesses with simple, steady transaction volumes where the monthly return genuinely was pure overhead. It works poorly for businesses with large B2B buyers who expect timely ITC visibility, or for businesses whose sales swing significantly month to month, where self-assessment effectively erases the administrative benefit QRMP was supposed to provide.
If you're genuinely unsure which camp you're in, it's worth running one quarter's actual numbers both ways — what would the fixed-sum payments plus quarterly true-up have looked like, versus straightforward monthly filing — before committing. The scheme can be changed at the start of any quarter, so a wrong initial choice isn't permanent, but it's still worth getting right rather than defaulting to it purely because the option exists.
Frequently Asked Questions
If I opt for QRMP, do I still need to reconcile GSTR-2B monthly? Yes — GSTR-2B is generated monthly for everyone regardless of filing frequency, and your ITC eligibility is still tracked against it every month. QRMP changes when you file your return, not when you should be checking your credit position.
What happens if I miss a monthly PMT-06 payment under QRMP? Interest at 18% per annum applies on the shortfall from the due date, exactly as it would under monthly filing — QRMP doesn't relax the interest exposure on late tax payment, only the return-filing frequency.
Can I use IFF for all my invoices, or only some? IFF has its own monthly value cap per invoice category — it's designed for pushing through invoices your buyers specifically need visibility on that month, not as a full substitute for quarterly GSTR-1. Invoices not pushed through IFF still get reported in the quarterly GSTR-1.