What a share trade really costs on a small account
"Zero brokerage" is not zero cost. Here is every charge on a delivery trade, in rupees, at the order sizes most individual investors actually use.
This is educational content, not a recommendation. The rates below are the published rates as of September 2026; exchanges, the government and brokers change them. Your contract note is always the exact record of what you paid.
When you buy shares for delivery and sell them later, you pay two kinds of charges. Some are set by law or by the exchange and are the same at every broker. Others are set by your broker. On a large order the percentage charges dominate. On a small order the fixed rupee charges do, and that is where most people underestimate the cost.
The charges on one delivery trade
| Charge | Rate (NSE, delivery) | When |
|---|---|---|
| Securities Transaction Tax (STT) | 0.1% of the trade value | Buy and sell |
| Stamp duty | 0.015% of the trade value | Buy only |
| NSE transaction charge | 0.00297% of the trade value | Buy and sell |
| SEBI turnover fee | Rs 10 per crore | Buy and sell |
| GST | 18% of brokerage + transaction charge + SEBI fee | Buy and sell |
| Brokerage | Zerodha: Rs 0. Fyers: Rs 20 or 0.3% per order, whichever is lower | Buy and sell |
| DP charge | Zerodha: Rs 15.34. Fyers: Rs 12.50 + GST (Rs 14.75). Per stock, per day you sell | Sell only |
STT is the largest statutory charge: 0.2% of the trade value across the buy and the sell. The DP charge is levied by the depository and your broker each day shares leave your demat account, whatever the number of shares. It is a fixed amount, so it matters far more on a Rs 5,000 sale than on a Rs 5 lakh one.
What a round trip costs
A round trip is buying a position and later selling the same value. The table adds up every charge above. It uses the published rate cards of the two brokers we have checked; charges only, no tax and no bid-ask spread.
| Position size | Fyers rates | Zerodha rates |
|---|---|---|
| Rs 5,000 | Rs 61 (1.23%) | Rs 26 (0.53%) |
| Rs 20,000 | Rs 106 (0.53%) | Rs 60 (0.30%) |
| Rs 33,000 | Rs 135 (0.41%) | Rs 89 (0.27%) |
| Rs 50,000 | Rs 173 (0.35%) | Rs 126 (0.25%) |
| Rs 1,00,000 | Rs 284 (0.28%) | Rs 238 (0.24%) |
Two things stand out. First, the cost as a percentage falls steeply with size until STT takes over: above roughly Rs 50,000, most of what you pay is the 0.2% STT, and the broker's share is small. Second, the difference between brokers is almost entirely fixed rupees: Rs 40 of brokerage plus GST on it, against a DP charge that is similar at both.
Why small orders pay more
Take a Rs 5,000 position at Fyers rates. Brokerage is 0.3% per order, Rs 15 each way, so Rs 30. GST on it adds about Rs 5.50. The DP charge on the sale is Rs 14.75. That is about Rs 50 of fixed charges before STT, or 1% of the position. The same Rs 50 on a Rs 1 lakh position is 0.05%.
This is why many small, frequent trades cost much more than a few larger ones. Splitting Rs 1 lakh into twenty Rs 5,000 buys and sells pays the fixed charges twenty times.
What the table leaves out
- The bid-ask spread and market impact. You usually buy slightly above and sell slightly below the last traded price. In our own back-testing notes we allowed 0.05% a side for liquid stocks, and added 0.10% to the round trip for stocks trading Rs 5 to 25 crore a day and 0.30% for Rs 1 to 5 crore a day.
- Tax. Short-term and long-term capital gains depend on how long you held each lot. See our capital gains tax guide.
- Account charges. Annual demat maintenance charges, where your broker has them, are separate from trading costs.
A cross-check
These figures are simple arithmetic on the published rates, so you can verify them with a calculator. As a cross-check, our research notes from September 2026 costed a Rs 33,000 position at Fyers rates at about 0.51% for a round trip, including 0.10% of assumed spread. The table above gives 0.41% in charges, and adding the same 0.10% gives the same 0.51%. At Rs 20,000 and Rs 50,000 the notes give about 0.63% and 0.44%, again matching the table plus 0.10%.
Exchange-traded funds cost less to trade
An equity ETF is taxed differently at the point of sale: STT is 0.001% on the sale instead of 0.1%, and there is none on the buy. That one change removes most of the statutory cost. For positions of a few tens of thousands of rupees, our research notes put a round trip in an equity ETF at roughly 0.20% to 0.25% at Fyers rates, and about 0.07% at Zerodha, which charges no brokerage on delivery. At Fyers the fixed brokerage and DP charge are then most of the cost.
See your own numbers
The Cost drag card in the Vitta-Kosh Analytics tab shows what a round trip costs at your median holding size, broken down charge by charge, and adds up the charges you recorded on each sell by financial year. It also counts sells saved without charges, so you know when the total is incomplete.
The Cost drag card totals your recorded charges by financial year.