What GST applies to a corporate offsite?

It depends on the room tariff, not a single flat rate. Under the GST 2.0 reform effective 22 September 2025, hotel rooms priced at ₹7,500 or below per night attract 5% GST with no input tax credit; rooms above ₹7,500/night attract 18% GST with full ITC. Banquet and conference hall rental is a flat 18% with ITC regardless of room rate. A vendor selling the whole trip as one bundled package can alternatively charge a flat 5% on the full package value, without ITC - confirm which structure your invoice actually uses.

What are the real spend tiers for a corporate offsite in India?

Four practical tiers, roughly: a drivable near-city trip at a 3-star property is the budget end; a domestic flight destination at 4-star is the tier most offsites actually land in; domestic premium destinations or international at 4-star sit above that; and international at 5-star is the top end. The gap between tiers is driven almost entirely by travel distance, not the hotel star rating.

What does a 50-person corporate offsite actually cost?

It depends heavily on distance. A near-city, one-night trip for 50 people at a 3-star property runs a fraction of a domestic flight destination at 4-star over two nights - the line-item breakdown for both is on this page, computed live rather than estimated.

What's the biggest lever on an offsite budget besides the hotel?

Distance tier first - near-city versus a flight destination moves the number far more than star rating does. Within a fixed destination, extending the trip by a night is usually better value than downgrading the hotel, because the flight cost does not repeat while a lower star rating saves relatively little per night.

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Corporate offsite budget guide: cost by tier, GST, and a real line-item budget

By Amit, who runs Offistrip, a corporate travel and MICE company in India.

Every figure here is produced by the same calculator on this site. Flight fares and hotel rates are checked by hand against live listings and recorded with the date they were checked - nothing on this page is an invented number.

Verified dataLive-checked against real listings, not invented - full methodology →

Most corporate offsite budgets get built from a single per-person number with no idea what is actually inside it. This page breaks the real spend tiers down by what drives them, states the GST rules that actually apply - not a rounded-off guess - and computes a live line-item budget for a 50-person team, the size most first-time offsite budgets get built around.

The four real spend tiers

For a 40-person team, 2 nights, ex-Delhi - each figure computed the same way the calculator does, not a rounded estimate:

Tier	Example	Per person
Budget - near-city, 3★	Neemrana, Lonavala, drivable	₹6,097
Mid-range - domestic, 4★	Goa, Jaipur	₹25,942
Premium - domestic premium, 4★	Kerala backwaters, Kashmir	₹39,636
Ultra - international, 5★	Maldives	₹81,648

Distance tier decides most of the number. Star rating, meal plan and activities are adjustments within the range the travel decision has already set - see the full Price Index for the breakdown across all 45 destinations.

What a 50-person offsite actually costs - two real budgets

Fifty people is the size most first-time offsite budgets get modelled around. Here are two real line-item budgets for that exact group size, computed live rather than estimated in a spreadsheet.

Near-city, 1 night, 3★ (bus)

e.g. Neemrana, Lonavala - drivable, no flight · 50 people

Venue & stay · 50 people · 1 night · 3★ · 5% group rate	₹1,43,640
Travel · 2 × Bus (up to 45 seats)	₹26,000
Contingency · 8% buffer	₹13,571
Total (₹3,664/person)	₹1,83,211

Domestic flight, 3 nights, 4★

e.g. Goa, ex-Delhi · 50 people

Venue & stay · 50 people · 3 nights · 4★ · 5% group rate	₹8,92,620
Travel · Flight, round trip (checked live) · ₹13,000/person	₹6,50,000
Contingency · 8% buffer	₹1,23,410
Total (₹33,321/person)	₹16,66,030

The GST rules that actually apply

This is genuinely not a single flat rate, and it changed recently. Under the GST 2.0 reform, effective 22 September 2025, the old three-slab hotel structure was simplified to two, based on the actual room tariff charged rather than the hotel's published rate card:

Room tariff ₹7,500/night or below: 5% GST, no input tax credit. Covers most budget and mid-range hotels.
Room tariff above ₹7,500/night: 18% GST, with full ITC. Most 4-star-and-up city and resort hotels sit here.
Banquet or conference hall rental: a flat 18% with ITC, regardless of the room rate - relevant if the offsite includes a working session.
The hotel's in-house restaurant follows the room rate: 18% if any room on the property is priced above ₹7,500/night, 5% if every room is at or below it.
A bundled tour package (stay, transport and activities priced as one figure) can instead be charged a flat 5% on the whole package, with no ITC - an operator's choice, not the traveller's.

The practical consequence: if your company can claim input tax credit, a vendor charging 18% with ITC can work out cheaper net of tax than one quoting 5% with none - it is worth asking which structure a quote actually uses before comparing headline numbers. This is general guidance based on current GST rules, not tax advice for your specific invoice - confirm the exact treatment with your vendor and your own finance team.

What actually moves the number

Three findings hold up across every destination the calculator prices, not just one example:

Distance tier beats star rating. A near-city trip costs roughly a third of a domestic flight destination at the same star rating - the flight, not the room, is the bigger line item.
A bigger group barely costs less per head. Hotels negotiate modest block-booking discounts, but a flight seat costs the same at 15 people or 150 - budget per head and multiply, rather than counting on a volume discount that is mostly not there. See the full breakdown by group size.
An extra night beats a lower star rating. The flight fare does not repeat on a third night - only the room and meals do - so extending the trip is usually better value than cutting the hotel tier. Worked example on the Goa cost guide.

Get your exact number

Every figure on this page is a real example, not your number. The free calculator below builds a full line-item budget - the same breakdown shown above - for your own origin city, dates, group size and destination, in under a minute.

Build my offsite budget →

Questions

What GST applies to a corporate offsite?: It depends on the room tariff, not a single flat rate. Under the GST 2.0 reform effective 22 September 2025, hotel rooms priced at ₹7,500 or below per night attract 5% GST with no input tax credit; rooms above ₹7,500/night attract 18% GST with full ITC. Banquet and conference hall rental is a flat 18% with ITC regardless of room rate. A vendor selling the whole trip as one bundled package can alternatively charge a flat 5% on the full package value, without ITC - confirm which structure your invoice actually uses.
What are the real spend tiers for a corporate offsite in India?: Four practical tiers, roughly: a drivable near-city trip at a 3-star property is the budget end; a domestic flight destination at 4-star is the tier most offsites actually land in; domestic premium destinations or international at 4-star sit above that; and international at 5-star is the top end. The gap between tiers is driven almost entirely by travel distance, not the hotel star rating.
What does a 50-person corporate offsite actually cost?: It depends heavily on distance. A near-city, one-night trip for 50 people at a 3-star property runs a fraction of a domestic flight destination at 4-star over two nights - the line-item breakdown for both is on this page, computed live rather than estimated.
What's the biggest lever on an offsite budget besides the hotel?: Distance tier first - near-city versus a flight destination moves the number far more than star rating does. Within a fixed destination, extending the trip by a night is usually better value than downgrading the hotel, because the flight cost does not repeat while a lower star rating saves relatively little per night.

Destination-specific guides: Goa · Kerala · Bangkok · Dubai · full Price Index across 45 destinations

Once the budget is agreed, compare the five ways to actually book one.

Still tracking this in a spreadsheet? why Excel-based travel management costs more than it looks like.

Also useful: the cheapest countries to visit from India, all 45 destinations compared and our corporate booking tool for business travel.