How to buy bonds in Zerodha

What you can and can't buy on Zerodha (2026)

Let's clear up the biggest source of confusion first. Zerodha used to run a curated corporate-bond store inside Coin — you could browse a shelf of NCDs and bonds at coin.zerodha.com/bonds (and coin.zerodha.com/corporatebonds) and buy them in a few taps. That direct store has been withdrawn: Zerodha officially states it no longer offers corporate bonds, and it does not operate a primary corporate-bond marketplace. (The old links technically still resolve to a page rather than a hard '404 – Page not found', so don't be misled if one loads — the store behind them is gone.) One thing that does still live on Coin is corporate-bond mutual funds — funds that pool many corporate bonds into a single unit — so 'no corporate bonds on Zerodha' means no individual, directly held corporate bonds you pick yourself, not the funds. If a blog or video tells you to 'open the bonds section on Coin and pick a corporate bond', it is out of date.

Zerodha last publicly confirmed this on 1 September 2025 ('as of now Zerodha does not offer corporate bonds'), and back in 2024 it said it was 'working on enabling this on Kite' — so the position can change. Check the live status in the app before assuming it either way.

What replaced the store is not one product but two separate routes, and it matters which one you need. Route one is government paper — G-secs, T-bills and State Development Loans — bought at the RBI's weekly auction. Route two is listed bonds and NCDs bought on the stock exchange (the secondary market) through Kite, by searching the bond's name or symbol, exactly like buying a share. There is also a fund route (debt mutual funds and bond ETFs like Bharat Bond) if you would rather not pick individual bonds at all.

The table below is the honest status of every bond-type instrument on Zerodha as of July 2026. Read it before you go hunting in the app for a 'bonds' tab that no longer does what you expect. If you are new to bonds altogether, our companion guide at /learn/how-to-invest-in-bonds explains the four types and every buying channel first.

Route 1: buying G-Secs, T-Bills and SDLs at the RBI auction

Government securities on Zerodha are not bought from a Zerodha inventory — you place a bid in the Reserve Bank of India's primary auction through a non-competitive bidding (NCB) window. 'Non-competitive' means you don't quote a price or yield; you just say how much you want, and you're allotted the paper at the weighted-average price the big institutional bidders set in the same auction. NSE acts as the aggregator: it bundles all retail bids, including yours from Zerodha, into a single bid at the RBI. This is the same underlying pipe as RBI Retail Direct and NSE goBID — Zerodha's only real advantage is that the security lands in the demat account you already use for shares.

The cost is the headline reason to do this on Zerodha rather than pay a broker: from 1 March 2024, Zerodha waived its earlier 0.06% brokerage on G-secs, T-bills, SDLs and Sovereign Green Bonds. The only brokerage now is a minimum of 1 paisa per contract note (Zerodha's words: under tax rules a service can't be billed at an absolute zero) — there is no percentage brokerage. But that 1 paisa is only the brokerage component: small statutory charges still apply — mainly a little stamp duty on the purchase and GST on the charges, and, if you later sell on the exchange before maturity, exchange and SEBI turnover charges plus Zerodha's DP fee. There is no STT on G-secs. So buying government bonds at auction on Zerodha is zero brokerage bar a 1-paisa minimum, plus small statutory charges — very cheap, but not literally free to the last paisa.

Auctions run on a weekly calendar, but not every instrument is on offer every week — availability follows the RBI's published auction calendar, and sometimes the retail (NCB) portion of a particular security is nil. The minimum bid is ₹10,000 (100 units of ₹100 face value) and the maximum under NCB is ₹2 crore. Allotment is not guaranteed: if an auction is oversubscribed on the retail side, you may get a partial fill or nothing, and any unused money is refunded.

The typical weekly windows look like this (treat them as indicative and confirm the live cut-offs in the app, because they shift with holidays and the RBI calendar):

• Open Coin's G-Sec section (coin.zerodha.com/gsec) or, in Kite, go to Bids → Government securities. You'll see the list of securities currently open for bidding, each with its coupon, maturity and indicative yield.
• Pick the instrument — a dated G-sec (long maturity), a T-bill (91/182/364 days, sold at a discount to face value), an SDL or, when live, a Sovereign Green Bond.
• Enter the amount in multiples of ₹10,000 (minimum ₹10,000, up to ₹2 crore). You are bidding a quantity, not a price.
• Confirm and pay. The money is blocked until the auction settles; there is no percentage brokerage, only the token 1-paisa-per-contract-note minimum plus small statutory charges (mainly a little stamp duty).
• Wait for allotment. If allotted, the security is credited to your demat and shows up in your holdings; interest (the coupon) is paid to your linked bank account on the scheduled dates, and you get the face value back at maturity.
• Need to exit before maturity? You can't redeem early with the RBI — you have to sell the G-sec on the exchange via Kite, at whatever price the secondary market offers that day (which attracts the usual exchange, SEBI, GST and DP charges).

Route 2: buying a listed bond or NCD on Kite (by name or symbol)

Any bond, NCD, PSU bond or tax-free bond that is listed and trading on NSE or BSE can be bought on Kite the same way you buy a share — no special 'bonds' product, just the normal order window. The catch is the word 'trading': many listed bonds barely change hands, so you may see a wide bid-ask spread, or no ready seller at all, at the size you want.

Searching for a bond is the fiddly part, because bonds don't have neat tickers. On the exchange, listed debt instruments carry trading symbols in the 'N-series' (symbols running N1 to N9 and NA to NZ) — note that this is the exchange trading-symbol series, not the ISIN. Zerodha's own instruction is to type the company's name into Kite's universal search bar, and the matching debentures then appear. Each bond also has a 12-character ISIN (e.g. INE…) in the company's issue documents, on NSE India or BSE India — use that to confirm you've matched the exact security, because a single issuer can have a dozen different bonds outstanding, each with a different coupon and maturity. Match the maturity and coupon carefully before you buy.

SEBI's 2024 rule lowering the permitted face value of privately placed listed bonds to ₹10,000 (from ₹1 lakh, where the issuer appoints a merchant banker) means newer listed issues can be bought in ₹10,000-ish tickets — but older bonds still carry ₹1 lakh face values, so check the face value and market price before assuming it's a small-ticket buy. And remember bond price maths: quoted prices are 'clean', but you pay the seller accrued interest on top, and the number that actually matters is the yield to maturity (YTM), not the coupon printed on the bond.

• Identify the exact bond you want — note its name, coupon, maturity and 12-character ISIN from the issuer's documents, NSE India or BSE India.
• In Kite, type the issuer's name into the universal search bar (Zerodha's own instruction); listed debentures appear under the exchange N-series trading symbols. Use the ISIN, coupon and maturity to confirm you've matched the exact bond.
• Add it to your watchlist and check the order book — look at the bid/ask and the day's volume. Thin or empty volume is your warning that you may not be able to buy (or later sell) at a fair price.
• Place a normal delivery (CNC) order. Prefer a limit order over market for illiquid bonds so a wide spread doesn't fill you at a bad price.
• The trade settles T+1 and the bond sits in your demat like any share; coupons are paid to your bank account and the face value returns at maturity.
• Applying to a public NCD issue (a debt IPO) instead? Zerodha has no online facility for this — you cannot apply to an NCD public issue on Kite or Console, and UPI is not an allowed payment route for NCD public issues in any case. To apply, use a bank's ASBA IPO facility or the issuer's own portal and quote your Zerodha demat account number, so any allotted NCDs are credited to that demat. Once the NCD lists, you can buy or sell it on the Kite secondary market like any other listed bond.

What it actually costs

Costs split cleanly by route. Government paper at auction is close to free — there's no percentage brokerage, just a 1-paisa minimum and a little stamp duty. Listed bonds on the secondary market are priced like an equity delivery trade — zero brokerage on delivery — but you still pay the small statutory charges every exchange trade attracts, plus Zerodha's standard DP charge when you sell.

None of these are large in rupee terms, but on a small bond position the fixed DP charge on selling can be a meaningful slice, so factor it in before you buy something you might flip. Rates change; treat the figures below as a July 2026 snapshot and confirm the live numbers on zerodha.com/charges.

Where Zerodha stops: why you still need an OBPP for a corporate-bond shelf

Here is the limit to be honest about. Zerodha lets you buy government paper at auction and any listed bond that happens to be trading on the exchange. What it does not give you is a curated corporate-bond shelf — a browsable menu of high-yield NCDs, PSU bonds and covered bonds you can filter by rating and yield and buy in small tickets, including paper that isn't liquid (or even listed for trading) on NSE/BSE. That is because Zerodha is not a SEBI-registered Online Bond Platform Provider (OBPP).

OBPP is a specific SEBI licence, created in 2022, for platforms that sell listed debt securities to retail investors online. SEBI publishes the official register of OBPPs on its website, and it periodically warns investors to deal only with registered ones. The names on that list — GoldenPi, Wint Wealth, IndiaBonds, Jiraaf, Grip, Aspero and others — are the platforms built specifically to surface corporate bonds, quote you an all-in yield, and settle small quantities. Zerodha is a stockbroker; it is not on that list.

So the decision is simple. If you want government safety or you already know the exact listed bond you want, Zerodha is a fine, cheap home for it — the security sits in the same demat as your shares. If you want to shop a corporate-bond shelf, buy a specific high-yield NCD that isn't trading on the exchange, or invest small tickets into curated paper, you need an OBPP. Our bonds hub at /bonds lists the SEBI-registered platforms (see /bonds/sebi-registered-platforms), and we publish neutral reviews — for example /bonds/wint-wealth-review — that show each platform's SEBI number, real fee model and complaint history, the things a platform's own homepage won't tell you.

Bottom line: which route is right for you

Zerodha in 2026 is a good, cheap way to buy government bonds and a workable way to buy the specific listed bond you already have in mind — but it is not a corporate-bond marketplace any more, and pretending otherwise leads to the 'where did the bond store go?' confusion this guide opened with. Match your goal to the route and you'll avoid the wrong tool.

One reality check before you commit money to the secondary market: retail bond liquidity in India is still thin. It can be hard to sell a listed bond mid-life at a fair price, so buy secondary-market bonds you intend to hold to maturity, and don't count on flipping them. For anything you might need back sooner, a debt fund or a short T-bill is easier to exit.

• Want maximum safety and will hold to maturity → G-secs, T-bills or SDLs at the RBI auction on Zerodha (zero percentage brokerage). Background: /learn/government-bonds-india and /learn/treasury-bills.
• Know the exact listed bond you want → buy it on the Kite secondary market by searching the company name; check the coupon, maturity, face value, ISIN and day's volume first.
• Want the government route with zero broker in the middle → RBI Retail Direct sells the same G-secs free; Zerodha's only edge is keeping them in one demat with your shares.
• Want to shop a corporate-bond shelf or a specific high-yield NCD → use a SEBI-registered OBPP, not Zerodha. Start at /bonds and read a neutral review like /bonds/wint-wealth-review.
• Not sure a corporate bond's yield is worth its credit risk → read /learn/corporate-bonds-india, and if in doubt compare against the 8.05% RBI Floating Rate Savings Bond (coupon for Jul–Dec 2026) first.
• New to bonds entirely → start with the map at /learn/how-to-invest-in-bonds, then come back for the Zerodha mechanics.