Selling on GeM: what registration needs and how a buyer is allowed to buy

What GeM is, and why a buyer has to use it

Government e Marketplace is the government's own online marketplace for common-use goods and services, run by a Section 8 company under the Department of Commerce. Its About page puts the reason a seller should care in one line: purchases through GeM by government users “have been authorised and made mandatory by Ministry of Finance by adding a new Rule No. 149 in the General Financial Rules, 2017”.

The rule itself is short. Procurement of goods and services by ministries or departments “will be mandatory for Goods or Services available on GeM”. The Department of Expenditure's goods manual repeats it for the buyer who has to act on it: common-use goods and services available on GeM “are required to be procured mandatorily through GeM as per Rule 149 of GFR, 2017”.

So a buyer who wants what you sell, and finds it listed, is not choosing between GeM and a tender. The portal offers direct purchase, bid and reverse auction as its procurement modes, with an integrated payment system behind them. Which mode a buyer may use is not a preference either. It follows from the value of the purchase, and Rule 149 draws the lines.

The rest of this page is the seller's half of that: what the account needs before it can trade, and what the buyer on the other side is permitted to do at each value.

Who registers, and what the checklist asks for

GeM's seller FAQs answer the first two questions directly. On who may hold the account: “Owner, Proprietor, Karta, Partner, Director, CEO, Chairman, President or Authorised personnel of the organization can register themselves as Primary Seller on GeM.”On price: “There are no charges or fee for getting registered.”

GeM publishes its own pre-requisites document, and it is worth reading before the account is opened rather than during. It asks for:

• The authorised person. “Registration on GeM should be done only by an Authorized Person (Director of the Organization or a Key Person/Proprietor)”, with “Your Aadhaar Number/Virtual ID or Personal PAN Number allotted by the Income Tax Department” and a linked mobile and email.
• The entity. Constitution type, date of incorporation, the corporate identity number for a company, and the business PAN, not the individual's.
• Returns. “Income Tax Return Details (ITR Form and ITR acknowledgment) for the last three years.” The document adds that “Verified ITR details are mandatory for participating in Bid/RA for all entities unless incorporated less than 24 months ago or exempted from filing ITR.”
• Money. “Bank Account Number and IFSC Code of Bank Account which will be used for receiving payments for business done on GeM.”
• Addresses. The registered office address and a billing address.
• Status, where it applies. The DIPP number of a recognised start-up and the Udyam particulars of a micro or small enterprise.

One line in that list decides how much business the account can carry: “Billing Address with GSTIN Number (in absence of GSTIN you will not be able to accept any Orders beyond INR 2.5 lacs on GeM)”. A seller trading below that ceiling can operate without one; a seller who intends to bid cannot.

Two further points from the FAQs. Products and services are separate registrations on the same account (“you can register yourself as a product Seller as well as a service provider”), so a firm that supplies equipment and maintains it does both. And vendor assessment applies to sellers unless they fall within an exemption, which is a condition of the terms rather than of the rule.

The pre-requisites document carries “Last Updated: 30/12/2019” on its face. Read the live version on GeM before acting on any line of it.

The three slabs a buyer must follow

This is general information; confirm with the tender document and your adviser.

Rule 149 divides a buyer's purchases by value into three, and the figures in force were set by the Department of Expenditure's office memorandum of 10 July 2024. Name that memorandum and its date every time the slabs come up, for the reason the next section gives.

• Up to ₹50,000: direct purchase “through any of the available suppliers on the GeM, meeting the requisite quality, specification and delivery period”.
• Above ₹50,000 and up to ₹10 lakh: “through the GeM Seller having lowest price amongst the available sellers of at least three different manufacturers, on GeM”.
• Above ₹10 lakh: “through the supplier having lowest price meeting the requisite quality, specification and delivery period after mandatorily obtaining bids, using online bidding or reverse auction tool provided on GeM”.

Two qualifications sit beside them. Automobiles are bought under the first sub-rule “without any ceiling limit”. And a separate memorandum of 18 July 2024 sets the second slab's floor at ₹1 lakh for scientific ministries and departments, so direct purchase runs that far for them.

The tools are not reserved to the top slab either: the rule says the online bidding and reverse-auction tools “can be used by the Buyer even for procurements less than Rs 10,00,000”. A buyer may run a bid for a small purchase; a buyer may not skip one for a large purchase.

The copies that are out of date

Three different sets of figures for the same rule are still in circulation, and two of them are on GeM's own site.

The original 2017 text of Rule 149 set the second slab's ceiling at ₹30 lakh, and a copy carrying those figures is still hosted. A GeM news item of 9 June 2021 reproduces the version in force then, with a first slab of ₹25,000 and a second running to ₹5 lakh, and records that “These rules have been automated on GeM”. Both were superseded on 10 July 2024.

Automation is why this matters in practice rather than in principle. The platform applies whichever figures it holds, so a seller who plans a catalogue against a stale threshold plans against a route the buyer cannot take. When a slab is quoted to a buyer, a colleague or a consultant, quote the memorandum of 10 July 2024 with it.

Charges, security and caution money

This is general information; confirm with the tender document and your adviser.

The General Terms and Conditions on GeM 4.0, version 1.11 of 21 June 2023, is the agreement a seller trades under, and three of its lines shape the money.

Charges. “Sellers / Buyers will have to pay Transaction Charge and / or Annual Milestone Charge, wherever applicable, as per extant Revenue Policy of GeM.”Government e MarketplaceThe terms fix no rate. The Revenue Policy does, and it is the document to read for a current figure.

Performance security. “GeM recommends quantum of Performance Security @ 2% of the value of contract”. It adds that “the Buyer also has the option to select Performance Security between 2% to 10%”, and does not require it on contracts up to ₹5 lakh. That is GeM's own line and it is not the same as the performance security a tender outside GeM asks for.

Caution money. The terms still carry a clause headed “Caution Money Deposit”; GeM's seller FAQs now answer that “The provision was discontinued in 2025”. What changed for a seller, and what did not, is on what changed on GeM for sellers.

What a seller does with each slab

The slabs are the buyer's rules, not yours. What they change is where your effort goes.

For the first slab, the buyer's test is the one the rule names: “the requisite quality, specification and delivery period”. That is a catalogue question: the listing complete, the specification stated in the buyer's vocabulary, the delivery period one you can hold.

For the second, the buyer must find the lowest price among sellers of at least three different manufacturers. Being listed is not enough; being listed against a manufacturer whose product is comparable is what puts you in the set.

For the third, the purchase becomes a bid or a reverse auction, and the account has to be bid-ready before the notice appears: verified returns, a GSTIN on the billing address, the bank account, and whatever the bid itself asks for. The clauses that decide a bid (turnover, similar supply, the registrations a buyer names) are the subject of before you can bid, and the wider map of where notices are published is the portals.