Freelance Business Ops for India

GST on exported services, the LUT, remittance evidence, presumptive taxation and advance tax, plus the contract terms that cap your downside.

Translation skill does not pay you, a functioning business does. This course covers the Indian administrative reality most freelancers learn expensively and late: business structure and registrations, GST on the export of services (zero-rated, not outside the system) and the Letter of Undertaking that most translator-exporters use, getting paid from abroad and collecting the remittance evidence you will need later, and income tax including deductible expenses, the presumptive scheme, and advance tax that catches freelancers with lumpy income. It then covers contracts: the cancellation clause, the limitation of liability capped at your fee, and the agency terms worth negotiating. It is orientation to the vocabulary and the questions, and it says clearly throughout that you should engage a chartered accountant.

What you'll learn

• Choose a structure and complete the registrations a freelancer needs
• Understand zero-rated export of services, the LUT and GST filing duties
• Collect FIRC and remittance evidence as you go, and manage exchange costs
• Claim legitimate expenses and understand presumptive and advance tax
• Use contract terms that cap liability and cover cancellation and scope change
• Run a weekly, monthly and quarterly financial routine with a tax buffer

Course content

1. 1. Setting up as a freelancer in India (15 min)
2. 2. GST and exporting services (15 min)
3. 3. Getting paid from abroad, and proving it (15 min)
4. 4. Income tax, presumptive taxation and advance tax (15 min)
5. 5. Contracts, risk and protecting yourself (15 min)
6. 6. Running it sustainably (15 min)

Related courses

• Getting Paid: Rates, Clients & Your Translator Brand — Set a rate card, find agency and direct clients, and run the business so translation becomes a real income.
• Building an AI-Proof Career — Specialize, position, and combine AI fluency with human judgment to thrive in the "dead middle" of the market.
• Getting Onto LSP Vendor Rosters — How vendor managers think, a CV that gets shortlisted, why people fail translation tests, onboarding rates that become your ceiling, and staying the first name they call.