HSN Code for Hardware Items

"Hardware" is a shop, not a tariff heading. The Harmonised System classifies goods by what they are made of and what they do, and a hardware shop's stock spans at least six chapters — base metal fittings, fasteners, tools, plumbing, electricals and plastics. The heading most people mean when they search for a hardware HSN code is 8302, base metal mountings and fittings, but that covers hinges and handles and very little else in the aisle.

Why "hardware" has no single code

The tariff asks two questions about every article: what material is it made of, and how far has it been worked? It never asks where it is sold. A brass hinge, a steel bolt, a PVC elbow and a screwdriver end up in four different chapters even though they sit on four adjacent shelves. Classifying by aisle is the fastest way to build an item master that fails GSTR-1 validation.

The useful mental model is to sort the catalogue into six buckets — fittings, fasteners, tools, plumbing, electrical, and everything moulded in plastic — and code each bucket once. Our explainer on how HSN codes are structured covers the chapter and heading hierarchy behind that.

Chapter 83: fittings, mountings and locks

Note where 8306 lands: a metal photo frame is Chapter 83, while a wooden one is Chapter 44 and a plastic one is Chapter 39. Same product, three chapters, decided entirely by the material.

Fasteners: screws, bolts, nails and washers

Fasteners are split first by metal and then by whether they are threaded.

• 7317 — nails, tacks, drawing pins, corrugated nails, staples and similar driven articles of iron or steel.
• 7318 — screws, bolts, nuts, coach screws, screw hooks, rivets, cotters, cotter-pins, washers and spring washers of iron or steel. This is the heading for nut-and-bolt hardware.
• 7415 — the same family of nails, screws and washers in copper.
• 7616 — the same family in aluminium, within other articles of aluminium.
• 7320 — springs and leaves for springs of iron or steel, which are not fasteners but are stocked alongside them.

Stainless steel fasteners stay in 7318: stainless is a steel, and the tariff splits it at the eight-digit level rather than moving it to another heading.

Hand tools and power tools

Pipes, fittings, valves and sanitary ware

• 7303 – 7306 — tubes and pipes of iron or steel, including GI and MS pipe.
• 7307 — tube and pipe fittings of iron or steel: couplings, elbows, sleeves, flanges.
• 3917 — tubes, pipes and hoses of plastics and their fittings, which is where PVC, CPVC and UPVC pipe and fittings belong.
• 8481 — taps, cocks, valves and similar appliances for pipes, boilers and tanks, including ball valves, gate valves and pressure-reducing valves. This heading is metal-agnostic: a plastic ball valve is still 8481.
• 6910 — ceramic sanitary ware: sinks, wash basins, water closet pans, cisterns. 3922 covers the same articles in plastic.
• 3925 — builders' ware of plastics not elsewhere specified: tanks, doors, shutters, gutters.

Electrical hardware

The electrical aisle sits almost entirely in Chapter 85. Switches, sockets, plugs, holders, junction boxes and circuit breakers fall under 8536 for apparatus rated up to 1,000 volts, with boards and panels under 8537. Insulated wire and cable is 8544. Lamps and LED bulbs are 8539, and complete light fittings and luminaires are 9405 in Chapter 94. Insulating fittings of plastic are 8547. Fans are 8414.

Rates across a mixed hardware catalogue

A hardware catalogue spanning six chapters will not sit on a single rate, and the 2025 rate rationalisation moved a number of these lines. Because the rate is assigned per notification entry at six or eight digits, this article does not reproduce rate lines — confirm each of your codes against the current notification on the CBIC GST portal. Our overview of the current GST rate slabs explains the structure they sit in.

Running the item master

Hardware retail is high-line-count, low-value-per-line billing, which is exactly the profile where manual code entry fails. Three things keep it under control:

1. Code by material first, function second. If a staff member can answer "what is it made of?" they can get the chapter right, and the chapter is most of the work.
2. Treat sets as products. Kits, combos and assorted boxes need their own codes.
3. Confirm your digit requirement against your current aggregate annual turnover; see how many HSN digits to show for the rules and the GSTR-1 Table 12 validation that enforces them.

On the purchase side, hardware distribution runs through a long tail of small traders whose registrations change status more often than a large supplier's would. Before you rely on a purchase invoice for input tax credit, check that the supplier's GSTIN is active and filing — our guide to vendor GSTIN verification covers building that into onboarding rather than discovering it at reconciliation.

Frequently asked questions