ReckonBoxHow the brokerage calculator works
Brokerage is only one line on a trading bill, and usually not the biggest one: the rest is STT, the exchange transaction charge, the SEBI turnover fee, GST, stamp duty and, on delivery sells, a flat depository charge. This calculator adds up all of them at the rates in force today, shows each one separately, and tells you how far the price has to move before you're square.
Take the default. Buy 500 shares at Rs 100 intraday, sell at Rs 105, on a plan capped at Rs 20 an order. Gross profit is Rs 2,500. Charges come to about Rs 62, of which brokerage is only Rs 31, so the other half is statutory and no broker can discount it away.
Every rate below is quoted from a broker or regulator page we fetched, and the table on the calculator names the rate next to the rupees. That sounds obvious. It isn't: of the 26 ranked pages we tore down, exactly one publishes a dated rate table, and it isn't a calculator.
Two rates changed in 2026, and most calculators haven't caught up
STT, the securities transaction tax, is a levy on the value of the trade itself rather than on any profit you make, which is why it lands even on a losing trade. On futures it's now 0.05% of the sale value and on options 0.15% of the premium you sell, both effective 1 April 2026 under the Finance Act, 2026, which received assent on 30 March 2026. The exchanges implemented it the next day through NSE circular NSE/FATAX/73524 and BSE notice 20260331-7, per ICICI Direct.
| Segment | Old rate | Rate now | Who pays |
|---|---|---|---|
| Futures, on sale | 0.02% | 0.05% | Seller |
| Options, on premium sold | 0.10% | 0.15% | Seller |
| Options, on exercise | 0.125% | 0.15% | Buyer |
| Equity delivery | 0.1% both legs | unchanged | Both |
| Equity intraday, on sale | 0.025% | unchanged | Seller |
The cash market was left alone entirely, so if you only buy and hold, nothing about your costs moved.
A second change is quieter and easier to miss. NSE transaction charges went up on 1 March 2026: equity from 0.00297% to 0.00307%, futures from 0.00173% to 0.00183%, and option premium from 0.03503% to 0.03553%, per the dated windows Upstox publishes. Only two of the pages we fetched carry the new figures. One widely-read explainer still prints 0.00297% under an "Updated June 17, 2026" stamp, which is a fresh date sitting on a superseded number.
No, you don't need to pick your state
Stamp duty on exchange-traded securities is a single nationwide rate, uniform since 1 July 2020 under the Indian Stamp Act as amended by the Finance Act, 2019. The exchange or clearing corporation collects it centrally and the states settle up afterwards based on where the buyer lives, so the rate you pay in Kerala is the rate you pay in Punjab.
Several ranked calculators still ask for your state. One of them publishes an undated state-wise table with rates ranging from 0.001% to 0.018%, six years after that stopped being how it works. Our favourite example is a broker whose calculator asks for your state while its own help page lists the flat national rates, which is what happens when nobody re-reads the tool.
It's charged on the buy leg only: 0.015% on delivery, 0.003% on intraday, 0.002% on futures, 0.003% on options. Sell out of a position and you pay none of it.
The charge that punishes small delivery trades
A DP charge is a flat depository fee on a delivery sell, billed once per scrip per day regardless of how many shares you sell. One share or five thousand, it's the same rupee amount. That makes it close to irrelevant on a large trade and brutal on a small one.
Sell a single Rs 100 share you bought at Rs 99 and the rupee of profit vanishes several times over, because a roughly Rs 15 depository charge doesn't care that your position was tiny. The calculator takes the pre-GST figure as an input, since brokers differ: Zerodha is Rs 13 before GST, Groww Rs 18.25, Upstox Rs 20. Zerodha's Rs 13 grossed up by 18% lands exactly on the Rs 15.34 it advertises, which is the arithmetic we test against.
What GST touches, and what it doesn't
GST on a trade is 18%, charged on the service part of the bill: brokerage plus the exchange transaction charge plus the SEBI turnover fee. STT and stamp duty escape it, because they're taxes in their own right, and India doesn't tax a tax here.
The SEBI turnover fee is the smallest thing on the list: Rs 10 per crore of turnover, which on a Rs 1 lakh round trip is one paisa. We show it anyway. A calculator that hides the small lines is a calculator you can't check.
Why this one isn't tied to a broker
Every ranked calculator we tore down is a funnel for the broker that built it, hardcoded to that broker's plan. That's fine until the plan changes, or until you use a different broker.
So the brokerage plan is yours to set: a flat fee per order, a percentage, the lower of the two (what most discount brokers do), or zero. Set 0.03% capped at Rs 20 and you've described one popular plan; set zero and you've described free delivery. The statutory charges don't move either way, which is rather the point.
What this does not cover
This prices the cost of placing a trade, nothing more. It doesn't tax your profit: for that, long-term and short-term capital gains have their own rates and their own Rs 1.25 lakh exemption, and the capital gains calculator handles them. Currency and commodity segments aren't modelled here, and neither are BSE derivative charges, since no page we fetched stated them and we'd rather leave a gap than invent one. Auction penalties, call-and-trade fees, physical settlement and MTF interest sit outside it too. The 18% mechanics are the same ones in the GST calculator. Rates move with each Budget and with exchange circulars, so treat this as arithmetic, check your contract note, and take anything consequential to a qualified professional.
Frequently asked questions
What is a brokerage calculator? A brokerage calculator is a tool that totals what a round-trip trade costs: your broker's brokerage plus STT, the exchange transaction charge, the SEBI turnover fee, GST, stamp duty and, on delivery sells, the DP charge. On a 500-share intraday trade bought at Rs 100 and sold at Rs 105, the charges come to roughly Rs 62 against a Rs 2,500 gross profit.
What is the STT rate on futures and options now? STT on futures is 0.05% of the sale value and on options it is 0.15% of the premium you sell, both effective 1 April 2026 under the Finance Act, 2026. The old rates were 0.02% and 0.10%, so an F&O calculator still showing those is out of date, and the rate on an exercised option went from 0.125% to 0.15%.
Did equity delivery and intraday STT change in 2026? No, the cash market was left alone: delivery is still 0.1% on both the buy and the sell leg, and intraday is still 0.025% on the sell leg only. Budget 2026 raised STT only on derivatives, so a delivery investor's costs didn't move.
Do I need to pick my state for stamp duty? No, and any calculator that asks is working from a rule that ended on 1 July 2020. Stamp duty on exchange-traded securities is uniform across India under the Indian Stamp Act as amended by the Finance Act, 2019, collected by the exchange or clearing corporation and shared with the states by the buyer's domicile.
How much is stamp duty on shares? Stamp duty is charged on the buy leg only, at 0.015% for equity delivery, 0.003% for intraday, 0.002% for futures and 0.003% for options. Because it never touches the sell leg, it costs nothing when you exit a position.
What is a DP charge and why does it hurt small trades? A DP charge is a flat depository fee on a delivery sell, charged once per scrip per day no matter how many shares you sell. Selling one share costs the same DP charge as selling five thousand, so on a small delivery trade it's often the largest single line item.
What does GST apply to in a trade? GST is 18% and it applies to the service components, meaning brokerage plus the exchange transaction charge plus the SEBI turnover fee. It is not charged on STT or on stamp duty, which are taxes in their own right rather than services.
Why is my breakeven higher than the brokerage alone? Because brokerage is usually the smallest part of the bill. On a Rs 1,02,500 intraday round trip with a Rs 20 cap, brokerage is about Rs 31 while STT, exchange charges, stamp duty, the SEBI fee and GST add roughly another Rs 31, so the price has to move about 12 paise a share before you are square.
Sources
- Zerodha, how STT is calculated, with per-segment rates and the 1 April 2026 change
- Zerodha, full list of brokerage and statutory charges
- Upstox, brokerage charges with dated rate windows for STT and exchange charges
- ClearTax, Securities Transaction Tax rates, payer and valuation basis
- ICICI Direct, the Budget 2026 STT change and the implementing exchange circulars