What are DP charges?
DP charges — short for depository participant charges — are a flat ₹10–₹20 fee that hits your account every time you sell shares from a demat account in India. They surprise most beginners because they are invisible on the order screen and only show up on the contract note after the trade. Here is what they actually are.
What "DP" stands for
DP stands for Depository Participant. In the Indian market, your broker is the depository participant — the institutional layer that connects your demat account to one of the two depositories, CDSL or NSDL. When you sell shares, the depository moves them out of your demat account to the buyer, and the depository + broker together collect a small fee for this debit operation. That fee is the DP charge.
When DP charges apply
DP charges only apply on the sell-side of equity delivery trades. Specifically:
- Charged on every sell of equity delivery — once per scrip per day, regardless of quantity.
- Not charged on buy trades.
- Not charged on intraday trades (MIS) because shares never enter the demat account.
- Not charged on F&O — those are cash-settled.
- Not charged on mutual fund sells (mutual fund redemption is different).
How much DP charges cost
Typical range across Indian brokers is ₹10–₹20 per scrip per day. The fee is split between the depository (CDSL / NSDL — usually ₹5–₹7) and the broker (₹5–₹13). The total is what shows on your contract note.
A few practical implications. If you sell 5 different stocks on the same day, you pay 5 separate DP charges. If you sell the same stock twice on the same day (in delivery), you pay one DP charge because it is counted per scrip per day. And because the fee is flat (not percentage), DP charges hurt small trades more — a ₹15 DP charge on a ₹500 sell is 3 %, but the same ₹15 on a ₹50,000 sell is 0.03 %.
Why every broker charges them
SEBI mandates the underlying depository fee. Brokers cannot waive the depository portion; they could in theory absorb their own portion, but most do not because DP charges are small and pricing transparency makes them visible on every contract note.
How to minimise DP charges
You cannot avoid DP charges entirely, but you can reduce them:
- Consolidate sells. If you are going to sell across multiple scrips, you cannot avoid the per-scrip fee — but consolidating multiple sells of the same scrip into one trade keeps it to one DP charge per day.
- Avoid very small delivery sells. If a ₹15 DP charge would be a meaningful % of the trade, batch up to a larger sale.
- Use intraday (MIS) for short-term trades. Shares never enter the demat account, so no DP charge applies.
Frequently asked
What people ask about what are dp charges?.
Most brokers show only brokerage and statutory charges on the pre-trade estimate; DP charges show on the contract note after execution. SEBI has nudged brokers to disclose DP charges upfront but the implementation is inconsistent. The brokerage calculator on each broker page on this site includes DP charges in the all-in landed cost.
Close but not identical. The depository portion (CDSL / NSDL) is the same across brokers. The broker portion varies slightly — Zerodha at ₹13.5 + ₹5.5 (CDSL) = ₹15.34 inclusive of GST; Groww similar. The differences are small enough that DP charges should rarely drive broker selection.
If a sell trade does not execute, DP charges are not levied because no debit happens. If a trade executes and you later reverse it intraday, the DP charge from the executed leg may still apply depending on the settlement timing — clarify with your broker.
No. Mutual fund redemption is processed by the AMC and registrar, not through CDSL / NSDL on the equity side. Mutual funds carry separate exit loads and STT depending on the type and holding period.