The GST portal is back up and working normally on Tuesday, April 21, with a real-time status check confirming the website is operational as of 9:55 AM IST. Response time is showing at 318 milliseconds — healthy and functional — with zero user reports of issues in the last 60 minutes. The status monitor’s verdict is unambiguous: “GST Portal — Website is working. Working normally. Service appears to be operational.”
The portal that crashed completely on Monday, April 20 — the statutory deadline for filing GSTR-3B for the March 2026 tax period — is now accessible. But the question that matters most to the hundreds of thousands of taxpayers and chartered accountants who could not file yesterday remains unanswered.
Has the government announced an extension? No. Not yet.
The Portal Is Up. The Extension Question Is Not Resolved.
The status check shows 67 users reported issues in the last 24 hours — a number that reflects Monday’s widespread outage tapering off as the portal restored service. In the last 60 minutes, zero reports. The server is responding. The filing interface should be accessible.
What is not accessible is any official notification from CBIC, GSTN or the Ministry of Finance confirming that taxpayers who could not file on Monday due to the portal failure will be protected from late fees. Business Upturn has checked the official helpdesk and official handles — no extension notification has been issued at the time of writing. The CBIC official channels, the GSTN Twitter handle and the GST portal’s own notification section carry no announcement of an extended deadline for GSTR-3B March 2026.
This creates a deeply uncomfortable situation for taxpayers. The portal is working now. But the deadline was yesterday. Late fees of ₹50 per day for returns with tax liability and ₹20 per day for nil returns technically began accruing from today, April 21, for anyone who did not file by end of day Monday — regardless of the reason for non-filing.
What This Means for You Right Now
If you were unable to file your GSTR-3B on Monday due to the portal outage, the most important thing you can do right now is file immediately — today, Tuesday April 21 — while the portal is confirmed working. The longer you wait, the more late fee exposure accumulates.
Filing today does not waive your right to a late fee exemption if the government subsequently issues a retroactive extension notification — which, based on precedent from the May 2022 GST portal outage when CBIC issued notification 05/2022 extending the deadline and waiving late fees after a similar crash, is the most likely official response when it comes. But it does reduce the number of days for which late fees could theoretically apply if no extension is ever issued.
Document your Monday filing attempts — screenshots, error messages, timestamps — and keep them. If a retroactive extension or late fee waiver is issued, this documentation demonstrates your good-faith attempt to comply within the original deadline period.
The Government Must Still Respond
The portal being restored does not resolve the fundamental question of fairness. Taxpayers across India attempted to file on Monday and could not — through no fault of their own, on a government-operated system that the government’s own contractor Infosys is responsible for maintaining. The system failed. The deadline passed.
The chartered accountant community — which filed formal complaints tagging CBIC, GSTN, Infosys GSTN and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman throughout Monday — has not received an official response. The Gujarat State Tax Bar Association, CA Avinash Khandelwal, Advocate V K Jain, CA Abhas Halakhandi and dozens of other professionals made public representations throughout the day. None have been officially acknowledged with an extension announcement.
CBIC has the power to issue a retrospective extension notification under the GST Act. It has done so before. The expectation among the CA community is that such a notification will come — but every hour it does not, taxpayers who managed to file despite the portal difficulties on Monday wonder whether they were penalised for the efficiency of the government’s critics, while those who gave up rightly are penalised for the failure of the government’s system.
File today. Monitor the official CBIC and GSTN channels. And wait for the notification that the precedent says should come.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute tax or legal advice. No official extension has been confirmed at the time of writing. Readers are advised to consult their chartered accountant and monitor official CBIC communications for the latest guidance.