All-in trading charges.
Total charges
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STT
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Net P&L after charges
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Your breakdown
Updates live as you type| Charge | Basis | Amount (₹) |
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Zero brokerage does not mean zero cost
The discount-broking revolution made one number famous: ₹0 brokerage on delivery trades. What it did not advertise is the stack of statutory charges that sit on every Indian equity trade regardless of who your broker is. Securities Transaction Tax, exchange transaction charges, the SEBI turnover fee, stamp duty, and 18% GST are all levied by the government or the exchange, not the broker, so they do not disappear just because the brokerage line reads zero. This calculator adds them all up so you see the true cost of getting in and out of a position.
The six line items, and the two that trip people up
Here is what is actually being charged on a delivery trade, and the rates the calculator applies for FY 2025-26:
- STT: 0.1% on both the buy and the sell for delivery. This is the big one. For intraday it is far lower, 0.025% on the sell side only.
- Exchange transaction charges: around 0.00297% of total turnover (NSE equity).
- SEBI turnover fee: ₹10 per crore, or 0.0001% of turnover.
- Stamp duty: 0.015% on delivery, charged on the buy side only. Intraday is 0.003% on the buy.
- Brokerage: whatever your broker charges per executed order, times two for a round trip.
- GST: 18%, but only on brokerage plus exchange and SEBI charges. It does not apply to STT or stamp duty.
The two that catch people: STT is on both legs for delivery (not one), and GST is not levied on STT, which is why the all-in cost is far lower than a naive "everything times 1.18" guess.
Worked example: a ₹1,00,000 buy and ₹1,05,000 sell, delivery, zero brokerage
Take a clean delivery trade on a discount broker: buy for ₹1,00,000, sell for ₹1,05,000, brokerage ₹0. Turnover is ₹2,05,000.
On a ₹5,000 gross profit, charges of ₹227 leave a net of ₹4,772.57. STT alone is ₹205 of that.
Why intraday looks cheaper per trade but rarely is
Switch the trade type to intraday and the STT collapses, because it is charged at 0.025% on the sell side only rather than 0.1% on both legs. On paper that is a huge saving. In reality intraday traders churn many times the volume of a delivery investor, so the absolute charges they pay over a month dwarf the per-trade figure. The lesson from the math is not "intraday is cheap"; it is that frequency, not the per-trade rate, decides how much you hand over to the exchequer.
Charges versus capital-gains tax: keep them separate
A point worth stressing: the charges above are transaction costs, paid at the moment of trading. They are entirely separate from the capital-gains tax you owe on your profit. After Budget 2024, short-term gains on listed equity are taxed at 20% and long-term gains above the ₹1.25 lakh annual exemption at 12.5%. STT being paid is in fact the condition that unlocks those concessional equity rates. So a trade carries two distinct costs, and a common error is to confuse the brokerage statement’s charges with the tax you will separately compute at filing time.
Can I claim these charges as a deduction?
Brokerage, exchange charges, stamp duty, and GST can be added to your cost of acquisition or netted from sale proceeds when computing capital gains, which reduces your taxable gain. STT, however, is specifically not allowed as a deduction when computing capital gains on listed shares. It is the one charge you swallow.
Does stamp duty differ by state?
No longer in the way it used to. Since 1 July 2020, stamp duty on securities is uniform across India and collected centrally by the exchange at 0.015% for delivery and 0.003% for intraday on the buy side, then distributed to states. You no longer pay different rates depending on where your demat account is registered.