Guide · 9 min read
Brokerage Charges in India: Every Line Item
A trade's true cost arrives itemised, never summarised: brokerage from your broker, six statutory levies from the ecosystem, depository charges from a duopoly, and GST stitched across several of them. Comparing brokers on headline brokerage alone misses most of the bill. This guide walks every line on a contract note in order, explains who controls each, and ends with a method for comparing platforms on your actual behaviour rather than their advertised hero number.
Brokerage: the only negotiable line
Delivery brokerage now clusters into three philosophies: zero (Zerodha, Dhan), capped flats (₹10–₹20 at Groww, Upstox, m.Stock, Fyers), and percentages (Kotak Neo's 0.20%). Each wins somewhere: percentages beat caps on small orders, caps beat percentages past roughly ₹10,000–₹20,000 per order depending on rate, zero beats everything on pure delivery — until the non-brokerage lines enter.
Intraday and derivatives pricing differs entirely from these delivery structures, so treat any broker comparison that collapses segments into one number as marketing rather than analysis.
The statutory stack
STT takes 0.1% of delivery value on both sides — unchanged for equities since the Finance Act 2026 adjusted only derivative rates. NSE transaction charges add ₹297 per crore per side, IPFT a symbolic ₹10 per crore, SEBI ₹10 per crore, and stamp duty 0.015% on buys alone. Around the taxable services, GST applies at 18% — but only on brokerage plus transaction plus SEBI components, never on STT or stamp duty.
These lines total roughly a tenth of typical brokerage on large trades but dominate small ones: on a ₹15,000 delivery order, statutory levies can exceed the brokerage itself at flat-fee brokers. Our comparison tool computes them exactly rather than rounding them away.
DP charges and AMC: the quiet recurring lines
Depository participants charge on every sell-side delivery settlement — ₹15.34 all-in at Zerodha, ₹12.50-plus-GST at Dhan, percentage-based at Kotak Neo. Frequent partial sellers pay this repeatedly where batch sellers pay once, making sell-discipline a genuine cost lever. Annual maintenance charges range from zero to ₹300-plus-GST, with lifetime-zero plans usually behind one-time fees whose break-even deserves its own arithmetic.
AMC matters inversely to activity: dormant long-term holders should weight it heavily since they pay it forever while barely touching brokerage; active traders can reasonably discount it.
A comparison method that survives contact with reality
Export last year's actual trades — count, sizes, sells — and price that identical year on each candidate platform using tools like our brokerage comparison rather than brochure examples. Weight the result by your horizon: AMC × expected years for accumulators, per-trade totals for actives. Verify final schedules on each broker's own pricing page at decision time; fee sheets change quietly and aggregators age badly.
Finally, remember switching costs are real but finite; loyalty priced in basis points is still a price. Re-running the comparison annually costs minutes and keeps the incumbent honest.