Brokerage charges per trade: what a trade really costs after STT, GST and every other charge

01Brokerage charges per trade: the only flat number

Brokerage is charged per order. The calculator on this site defaults to ₹20 per order. That is a typical discount-broker flat fee, and you can edit it. It is the one figure on this list that a broker sets rather than a statute. Being flat is what makes it quotable. It is the same number in an advertisement whether the trade is ₹5,000 or ₹5 lakh.

That is also what makes it a poor guide to cost. The flat fee does not scale, and almost everything else does. Total cost as a percentage of turnover therefore starts high on a small ticket. It falls as the ticket grows. It then flattens onto a floor set by the statutory items. Two people quoting the same brokerage plan can be paying very different effective rates.

The headline figure describes the part of the bill that stops mattering as the trade gets larger. The part that keeps mattering is never in the headline.

02STT, stamp duty and exchange transaction charges, one by one

Here is the cash-equity delivery stack as this site stores it, as at 4 September 2026. Each row carries its own effective date and source document. That is why a rate change here is a data edit, not a rewrite of this paragraph.

Notice the third column. Some charges are a percentage of a value. Some are a rupee amount per crore of it. The exchange quotes them that way. Converting a per-crore figure into a percentage in your head is where most spreadsheet versions of this table go wrong.

03GST on brokerage does not apply to everything

This is the most commonly mis-stated item in the stack. GST, at the rate in force, applies to a defined base: brokerage, Exchange transaction charge, Investor Protection Fund (IPFT), SEBI turnover fee. It does not apply to Securities Transaction Tax (STT) or Stamp duty.

So GST is not 18% of what a trade cost. It is 18% of a subset. On a delivery trade that subset is usually far smaller than the tax items sitting outside it. Anyone who tells you to add 18% to your total charges is overstating the bill.

04Intraday charges and delivery charges are not the same

The same stock, bought and sold on the same day, can cost a different amount. It depends on the product selected in the order window. The person placing the order picks that product. It is not something the market does to them.

Two things move at once here: the rate, and the base it is applied to. A charge on turnover touches both legs of the round trip. A charge on the sell value touches one. Comparing the percentages alone gives the wrong ranking.

05Options are charged on the premium, never on the notional

An index option contract has two very different rupee values attached to it. The notional is the strike multiplied by the quantity. The premium turnover is the premium multiplied by the same quantity. They differ by the ratio of strike to premium. For a normally priced option that ratio runs to well over a hundredfold.

Every charge below is levied on the premium. Apply any of them to the notional and the cost is overstated by that same huge ratio. This is what happens when a generic cash-equity calculator is pointed at an options trade.

06What a rate table still cannot tell you

A table of rates does not answer the question people actually have. How far does this have to move before the round trip is level? That is one number, in the unit already on the screen: a share price, or index points. It is what the calculators produce from the same rate rows shown above.

• The trade cost calculator turns the cash-equity stack into a total. It also gives a level-money sell price for your own quantity and prices.
• The options breakeven calculator does the same for an index option. It reports the textbook breakeven, and the breakeven once the whole stack is paid. The gap between the two is the part most tables never show.

Charges do not change what a market does. They change where the level-money line sits. That line is a fact about your own trade, and it can be worked out before the trade is placed.

07What this post does not cover

• Brokerage varies by broker and plan. The flat default here is an assumption to replace with your own.
• The depository participant levies its own charges on a delivery sale. These vary between them, and are not in this table.
• Statutory and exchange rates change by circular. Each row carries its effective date. If you are reading this long after the dates shown, re-check before relying on it.
• This calculation uses published charge rates. Your own income-tax position is separate from the charges on a contract note.

The documents this post is built on

Each card is a real document, named by its own reference number and date, with the part of this post that rests on it and the day a human last opened it.

Make it concrete