🧾 What trading really costs in India

🎯 In 30 seconds: "Zero brokerage" does not mean a free trade. Every trade in India carries statutory charges that no broker can waive: Securities Transaction Tax (STT), exchange transaction charges, the SEBI turnover fee, stamp duty and GST. Delivery sales usually add a DP charge. On a ₹50,000 delivery trade the total comes to roughly ₹137, about 0.27% of the money you put in. That is a hurdle every trade must clear before you earn a rupee. Learn to read your contract note and you will always know what you paid.

The chai stall with a hidden toll

Imagine you run a chai stall. Every morning you buy milk and tea leaves from a wholesaler. The price per litre is fair, but the road to the market has a toll booth, the market charges a small entry fee, the municipality takes a cess, and on the way back there is another toll. None of these fees is large. Add them up across 300 trips a year and they decide whether the stall makes money.

Trading works the same way. Your broker's fee is only one of the booths. The government, the exchange, SEBI and your state all take a small cut on each trade. A person who buys a few shares and holds them for years passes the booths a handful of times. A person who trades every day passes them hundreds of times.

Costs are certain. Profits are not. If an idea earns a small edge per trade on average, charges can turn it into a loss. SEBI's own studies of intraday and F&O traders found that transaction costs made up a large part of what traders lost. Those studies are covered in Investing vs trading and Getting F&O enabled.

The charges, one by one

Here is every line you will see on an Indian contract note for equity trades, who sets it, and who keeps it. Rates are as of October 2026.

Those percentages look tiny because they are. ₹307 per crore means ₹3.07 on every ₹1 lakh you trade. The large items for most people are STT, brokerage, and on small delivery sales, the DP charge.

Brokerage: the only line your broker controls

Brokerage is your broker's fee for taking and executing your order. Indian brokers price it in a few common ways:

• Flat fee per executed order, for example a fixed rupee amount per order however large it is.
• Percentage of trade value, often with a minimum per order.
• The lower of the two, a flat cap or a percentage, whichever is less.
• Zero on delivery, with fees on intraday and F&O.
• Subscription plans that charge a monthly or yearly fee instead of per-order fees.

A flat fee is cheap for a large order and expensive for a small one. ₹20 on a ₹1 lakh order is 0.02%. ₹20 on a ₹2,000 order is 1%. If you trade small amounts, check whether the broker has a minimum per order and whether it charges per order or per executed trade. One order can fill in several pieces, and the tariff should say how that is counted.

Brokerage is the line to compare when choosing a broker, along with the DP charge and account fees. Choosing a broker covers what "zero brokerage" leaves out.

Securities Transaction Tax (STT)

STT is a tax the central government collects on every trade made on a recognised stock exchange. The exchange collects it through your broker and passes it to the government. You cannot avoid it by switching brokers.

STT rates changed on 1 April 2026. The Finance Act, 2026 raised STT on futures from 0.02% to 0.05% of the sale value, on option premiums from 0.10% to 0.15%, and on exercised options from 0.125% to 0.15%. Delivery and intraday equity rates did not change.

Look at how the rates differ. A delivery trade pays 0.1% on both the buy and the sell, 0.2% in total. An intraday trade pays 0.025%, and only on the sell side. That gap is a deliberate policy choice, but it does not make intraday trading cheaper overall. Intraday traders trade far more often, so they pay STT far more times.

Exchange transaction charges and the SEBI fee

The exchange charges your broker a fee on the value of every trade. Since 1 October 2024, SEBI has required market infrastructure institutions to charge the same rate to every member, instead of volume-based slabs that gave large brokers a discount. This was SEBI's "true to label" circular dated 1 July 2024. When a broker passes an exchange charge on to you, the amount it collects must be the amount the exchange actually received.

As of October 2026, NSE's rates are:

• Cash market: ₹307 per crore of traded value, each side (₹306.99 transaction charge plus ₹0.01 contribution to the NSE Investor Protection Fund Trust, from 1 March 2026).
• Equity futures: ₹183 per crore, each side.
• Equity options: ₹3,553 per crore of premium, each side.

A contract note may show the IPFT part as a separate line. Either way the total per crore is the same.

BSE sets its own transaction charges. For the cash market they differ by scrip group, so the same trade can cost a little more or less depending on the exchange and the stock. Your contract note tells you which exchange the trade went to.

The SEBI turnover fee is ₹10 per crore of trade value (0.0001%), charged on buys and sells. It funds the regulator. On a ₹1 lakh trade it is 10 paise.

Stamp duty and GST

Stamp duty is a state levy. Before July 2020 each state had its own rate. Since 1 July 2020, under amendments to the Indian Stamp Act made by the Finance Act, 2019, there is one national rate, collected by the clearing corporations and shared with the states. It is charged only to the buyer: 0.015% for delivery, 0.003% for intraday, 0.002% for futures and 0.003% of the premium for options.

GST at 18% applies to services: brokerage, exchange transaction charges and the SEBI fee. It also applies to DP charges and most other broker fees. It does not apply to STT or stamp duty, which are taxes themselves.

DP charges and other fees

When you sell shares from your demat account, the depository (NSDL or CDSL) and your depository participant both charge for moving them out. Brokers usually bill this as one DP charge per stock per day, whatever the quantity. Sell 1 share or 1,000 shares of the same company on the same day and the DP charge is the same. Buying does not trigger it, and intraday trades do not either because no shares move.

That flat fee matters most on small sales. A DP charge of ₹20 plus GST is 0.05% of a ₹50,000 sale, but 2.4% of a ₹1,000 sale.

Other charges you may meet, all set by the broker or DP:

• Annual maintenance charge (AMC) on the demat account. Basic Services Demat Accounts have a lower or nil AMC within limits. See Demat and trading accounts.
• Interest on Margin Trading Facility (MTF) if you buy with borrowed money. On a small account this is often the largest cost of all. See Margin in India.
• Pledge and unpledge fees when you use shares as margin.
• Call and trade fees for orders placed over the phone.
• Auto square-off fees if the broker closes an intraday position you forgot to close.
• Payment gateway fees on some ways of adding money.
• Delayed payment interest if your account goes negative.

Worked contract note 1: a delivery trade

All prices, the brokerage and the DP charge are hypothetical. The statutory rates are the October 2026 rates above. The trade goes through NSE.

You buy 100 shares of Sharma Foods Ltd at ₹500 (₹50,000). Some weeks later you sell all 100 at ₹520 (₹52,000). Your assumed broker charges ₹0 brokerage on delivery and a DP charge of ₹20 plus GST on sales.

The round trip costs about ₹137. Your gross profit was ₹2,000 (100 shares x ₹20), so you keep about ₹1,863 before income tax. The costs are about 0.27% of the ₹50,000 you put in. Sharma Foods has to rise by about ₹1.37 a share, from ₹500 to about ₹501.37, before you break even.

Notice that STT is ₹102 of the ₹137, even at "zero brokerage". The exact paise can differ slightly on a real contract note because of rounding.

Worked contract note 2: an intraday trade

You buy 200 shares of Sharma Foods at ₹500 (₹1,00,000) at 10:05 and sell all 200 at ₹505 (₹1,01,000) at 14:40 the same day. Your assumed broker charges ₹20 per executed order on intraday trades.

Gross profit is ₹1,000 and you keep about ₹917 before tax. The costs are only 0.083% of the position, but think about what that means per share: the price has to move about 41 paise in your favour (₹83 / 200 shares) just to break even. A trader who does this 200 times a year on ₹1 lakh pays about ₹16,600 in charges, whether the trades win or lose.

Brokerage plus the GST on it is ₹47.20 of the ₹83 here. For intraday traders the broker's tariff matters much more than it does for investors.

Worked contract note 3: an options trade

You buy one lot of a hypothetical index call option at a premium of ₹100 and sell it later the same day at ₹110. Assume a lot size of 75 units. Real lot sizes are set by the exchange and change from time to time, so check the current one before any real trade. Your assumed broker charges ₹20 per executed order on F&O.

Premium paid: 75 x ₹100 = ₹7,500. Premium received: 75 x ₹110 = ₹8,250.

Gross profit is ₹750 and you keep about ₹684. Now look at the cost as a share of what you risked: ₹66 on ₹7,500 is 0.89%. The premium has to rise by about 89 paise, from ₹100 to about ₹100.89, before you are even. Options look cheap to trade because the premium is small, but the fixed costs per order are large relative to it.

If you had held this option to expiry and it had finished in the money, the exercise STT on intrinsic value could have changed the picture. That is why the exercise trap above matters.

Break-even math you can do in your head

Add up the percentages for a round trip and you get a rough rule for each kind of trade, before brokerage and DP charges:

• Delivery: STT 0.2% + stamp 0.015% + exchange and SEBI fees about 0.006% + a little GST: about 0.22%. Add your brokerage and DP charge.
• Intraday: STT 0.025% + stamp 0.003% + exchange and SEBI fees about 0.006% + GST: about 0.035%. Add brokerage, which is often the bigger part.
• Options: STT 0.15% of the sell premium + exchange charges of about 0.036% of the premium on each side + stamp duty 0.003% of the buy premium + GST. Add brokerage, which is usually the biggest part on small premiums.

Then add income tax on whatever profit is left. Delivery gains are taxed as capital gains, intraday profits as speculative business income, and F&O profits as non-speculative business income. The rates and rules are in Taxes for traders and investors. Check with a chartered accountant for your own case.

Finally there are costs no contract note shows. You buy at the seller's price and sell at the buyer's, so the gap between them, the spread, costs you on every round trip. On a busy large company it may be 5 or 10 paise. On a thin small company it can be several rupees. Bid, ask, market depth and liquidity shows how to measure it.

Reading your contract note

Your broker must send you a contract note within 24 hours of a trade, usually by email. It is the legal record of the trade. Open it and check:

• The exchange, the trade time, the price and the quantity for each fill.
• Brokerage per trade, matching the tariff you signed up for.
• STT, transaction charges, SEBI fee, stamp duty and GST, each on its own line.
• The net amount payable to or by you, which should match the movement in your ledger.

If something does not match, ask the broker in writing. If the answer does not satisfy you, Who runs and polices the market explains the complaint routes.

Try it

1. Open your broker's published tariff page (or one you are considering) and write down its brokerage for delivery, intraday and options, its DP charge and its AMC.
2. Open a spreadsheet. Rebuild the three worked contract notes with your broker's numbers in place of the assumed ones. Keep the statutory rates from the table above, or from NSE's charges page if they have changed.
3. Estimate how many trades of each kind you expect in a year and multiply. Write the yearly total at the top of your trading journal.
4. If you already have a contract note, check every line against the rates and see whether you can reproduce the totals to the paisa.

Sources

• NSE: SEBI turnover fees, STT and other levies (updated 17 April 2026)
• NSE circular NSE/FATAX/73524 (31 March 2026): Changes in rates of Securities Transaction Tax
• SEBI circular (1 July 2024): Charges levied by market infrastructure institutions, true to label (effective 1 October 2024)
• NSE circular NSE/FA/73061 (27 February 2026): Revision in transaction charges, effective 1 March 2026
• SEBI: Master circular for stock brokers (17 June 2025): contract notes within 24 hours