Brokerage Calculator

How brokerage and STT are calculated

The price you see on your contract note is never just the brokerage. A round trip on an Indian exchange carries six or seven separate line items, three of which are government levies your broker only collects on the exchange's behalf. Here is what each one is and how it is charged.

Brokerage

Charged per executed order, so a round trip pays it twice. Discount brokers price intraday equity and futures at whichever is lower of ₹20 or 0.03% of that order's turnover, which means small orders pay the percentage and anything above about ₹66,700 pays the ₹20 cap. Options are different: they are a flat ₹20 per order regardless of premium, so the percentage slab never applies. Equity delivery is free at Zerodha, Dhan and Fyers, while Groww and Angel One charge ₹20 or 0.1% whichever is lower, and Upstox charges ₹20 or 2.5% whichever is lower.

STT / CTT (securities and commodities transaction tax)

A central government tax and usually the largest single charge on an F&O trade. Equity delivery pays 0.1% on both the buy and the sell leg. Equity intraday pays 0.025% on the sell leg only. Futures pay 0.05% and options pay 0.15% of premium, both on the sell leg only, following the Budget 2026 rates effective 1 April 2026. Note that options STT is charged on premium turnover, not on the notional value of the contract. Currency derivatives carry no STT at all, and commodities pay CTT instead at 0.01% on commodity futures sells.

Exchange transaction charges

Levied by NSE, BSE or MCX on the combined turnover of both legs. Equity is 0.00307%, futures 0.00183%, and options 0.03553% of premium — options are an order of magnitude more expensive here, which is why the charge dominates on low-premium contracts.

SEBI turnover fee

₹10 per crore of turnover, or 0.0001%, applied across both legs. It is a rounding error on retail-sized trades but is itemized on every contract note.

Stamp duty

Charged on the buy leg only, at the uniform central rates introduced in 2020: 0.015% on delivery, 0.003% on intraday, 0.002% on futures and 0.003% on options. Because it is buy-side only, shorting and then covering attracts stamp duty on the cover, not the entry.

GST

18% on brokerage plus exchange transaction charges plus the SEBI fee, and on DP charges where they apply. GST is not levied on STT or stamp duty, since those are themselves taxes.

DP charges

A flat depository charge levied by CDSL or NSDL when shares leave your demat account. This calculator applies ₹13 per scrip plus 18% GST — about ₹15.34 all-in, matching Zerodha's published rate. It applies only to equity delivery sells and is charged once per scrip regardless of quantity. Brokers vary: Groww, Angel One and Upstox charge closer to ₹20 plus GST, so check your contract note. Intraday and F&O trades never incur it.

Worked example

Take a Zerodha equity intraday round trip: buy 100 shares at ₹500 and sell at ₹510. The buy leg turns over ₹50,000 and the sell leg ₹51,000, for ₹1,01,000 across both.

• Brokerage: 0.03% of ₹50,000 is ₹15.00, and 0.03% of ₹51,000 is ₹15.30. Both are under the ₹20 cap, so brokerage is ₹30.30.
• STT: 0.025% of the ₹51,000 sell leg is ₹12.75.
• Exchange charges: 0.00307% of ₹1,01,000 is ₹3.10.
• SEBI fee: ₹10 per crore on ₹1,01,000 is ₹0.10.
• Stamp duty: 0.003% of the ₹50,000 buy leg is ₹1.50.
• GST: 18% of (₹30.30 + ₹3.10 + ₹0.10) is ₹6.03.

Total charges are ₹53.78. The gross profit was ₹1,000, so the net is ₹946.22 and the costs ate about 5.4% of the move. At this size every charge is proportional to turnover, because 0.03% of each leg is still below the ₹20 cap — so trading 10 shares instead of 100 costs ₹5.38 against a ₹100 gross profit, the same 5.4%. The cap only starts working in your favour once a single order crosses about ₹66,700 of turnover: at 1,000 shares the same trade pays ₹227.48 on a ₹10,000 gross profit, or 2.3%.

Options look very different. One NIFTY lot of 75 bought at ₹120 premium and sold at ₹150 pays ₹40 brokerage (flat ₹20 twice), ₹16.88 STT, ₹7.19 exchange charges, ₹0.02 SEBI, ₹0.27 stamp duty and ₹8.50 GST — ₹72.86 in total against a ₹2,250 gross profit. The flat ₹20 is why scalping single lots is expensive and why the same charge structure is almost invisible once you trade several lots at a time.

Rates are the published retail schedules as of the 2026 financial year and are provided for estimation. Your contract note is the authority — brokers vary on delivery brokerage, DP charges and plan-specific discounts.