DP charge on BTST trades at Zerodha
A DP charge at Zerodha applies to a buy-today-sell-tomorrow (BTST) sell, the same Rs 15.34 per scrip charged on any equity delivery sell as of 19 June 2026, because the BTST sell debits the client’s CDSL demat account on the settlement date. The charge is tied to the demat debit instruction, not to how long the shares were held, so a position bought one day and sold the next still triggers it.
This article explains what a depository participant (DP) charge is, why it falls on the delivery sell rather than the buy, and why a BTST sell incurs it even though the shares were barely in the demat account. It covers the exact figure and its source, the short-delivery risk that sits alongside the charge on a BTST trade, and how to keep the charge from surprising you. The general DP-charge treatment is in DP charges on Zerodha sell transactions ; this article is the BTST-specific angle.
Charges change. The Rs 15.34 figure and the rates below are current as of 19 June 2026. Verify against zerodha.com/charges before acting on them.
What a DP charge is
A depository holds securities in electronic form and records every debit and credit to a demat account. India has two depositories, CDSL and NSDL ; most Zerodha demat accounts sit with CDSL. A depository participant is the intermediary, Zerodha, that operates the demat account on the depository’s rails. When a client sells delivery shares, the depository debits the securities from the client’s account and transfers them toward settlement. That debit instruction carries a charge, the DP charge.
As of 19 June 2026, the DP charge at Zerodha is Rs 15.34 per scrip per day, made up of a Rs 3.5 CDSL fee, a Rs 9.5 Zerodha fee, and Rs 2.34 GST (zerodha.com/charges). It is flat: selling one share or ten thousand shares of the same scrip on the same day costs the same Rs 15.34. Female first-holders receive a Rs 0.25 discount on the CDSL fee, and mutual fund and bond debits an additional Rs 0.25 discount (zerodha.com/charges, as of 19 June 2026). It is levied per ISIN (the unique scrip identifier) per trading day, so selling three different scrips on one day costs the charge three times.
Why the charge falls on the sell, not the buy
The DP charge sits on the sell side because that is the side with a demat debit. When a client buys delivery shares, the shares are credited into the demat account on settlement; a credit does not carry the DP charge. When the client sells, the shares are debited out of the demat account to be delivered to the buyer through the clearing corporation; that debit is the chargeable event. A buy credits, a sell debits, and only the debit triggers the charge. This is why a client who buys and holds sees no DP charge until the day they sell.
The charge also does not apply to intraday trades under the MIS product type, because an intraday position is squared off within the session and netted at settlement, so no actual demat debit occurs. It does not apply to futures or options, which settle through a separate clearing mechanism without a CDSL demat debit. The trigger is always the demat debit, and only a delivery sell produces one.
What a BTST trade is
A buy-today-sell-tomorrow (BTST) trade is one where a client buys delivery shares on one trading day and sells them on the next, before the shares have settled into the demat account. India settled on a T+1 cycle in January 2023, so shares bought on day T are credited to demat on day T+1. A BTST sell on day T+1 can be placed in the morning, before that day’s credit has landed, selling against shares that are in transit rather than already sitting in the account. The mechanics and the risk profile of the strategy are in BTST .
The appeal of BTST is capturing a move that happens overnight or the next morning without waiting the full settlement cycle. The cost side is that the trade is, for charge purposes, two delivery legs: a delivery buy on day T and a delivery sell on day T+1.
Why a BTST sell still incurs the DP charge
A client often assumes that because the shares were held for less than a day, and may not even have shown up in the demat account yet when the sell was placed, no demat debit occurs and so no DP charge applies. That assumption is wrong. The BTST sell is a delivery sell. When it settles, the shares that were credited to the demat account on T+1 are debited out to fulfil the sell. The DP charge is tied to that debit, so the BTST sell triggers it exactly as a normal delivery sell does. Holding period has no bearing on the charge.
The sequencing is the key point. The buy leg credits demat on T+1. The sell leg, even if placed before that credit is visible, settles as a debit from demat in the same or next cycle. Because a debit occurs, the Rs 15.34 charge applies. A client who buys on Monday and sells on Tuesday will see one DP charge of Rs 15.34 for that scrip on the day the sell settles, listed on the ledger rather than the contract note because it is a depository charge, not an exchange-levied one.
The short delivery risk that comes with BTST
Beyond the DP charge, a BTST trade carries a settlement risk that a normal delivery sell does not. When a client sells on T+1 against shares bought on T, the client is relying on the original seller (the counterparty to the day-T buy) to deliver those shares into the system. If that original seller defaults and the shares are not delivered, the client’s own BTST sell becomes a short delivery: a sell with no shares behind it.
A short delivery goes into the exchange auction. The exchange buys the undelivered shares in an auction session and recovers the cost, plus a penalty, from the defaulting party, which in a BTST short-delivery chain can be the BTST client. The auction price can be well above the price at which the client sold, and the penalty adds to it, so a short delivery on a BTST trade can cost far more than the Rs 15.34 DP charge that prompted the question. The auction mechanism and the associated penalty are detailed in auction charges . This risk is the reason many brokers, including Zerodha, caution clients about BTST in volatile or illiquid scrips where the chance of upstream non-delivery is higher.
Full charge set on a BTST round trip
A BTST trade carries the same charges as any delivery round trip, because each leg is a delivery leg. As of 19 June 2026, on a BTST buy on day T and sell on day T+1:
| Component | Buy leg | Sell leg |
|---|---|---|
| Brokerage | Zero | Zero |
| STT (0.1 per cent each side) | 0.1 per cent of buy value | 0.1 per cent of sell value |
| Exchange transaction charge (NSE 0.00307 per cent) | per side | per side |
| SEBI turnover fee (Rs 10 per crore) | per side | per side |
| GST (18 per cent on brokerage, exchange, SEBI) | on the above | on the above |
| Stamp duty (0.015 per cent, buy only) | on buy value | nil |
| DP charge | nil | Rs 15.34 per scrip |
For a Rs 50,000 buy and a Rs 51,000 sell, STT is Rs 50 on the buy and Rs 51 on the sell, stamp duty about Rs 7.50 on the buy, exchange and SEBI charges and GST a few rupees per side, and the DP charge Rs 15.34 on the sell. The DP charge is the line that prompts the BTST question, but STT is the larger statutory cost. The full per-segment numbers are in STT and CTT on Zerodha trades , exchange transaction charges , and the brokerage structure overview .
How to avoid the surprise
The DP charge on a BTST sell is not avoidable, because the demat debit that triggers it is intrinsic to a delivery sell. What a client can do is anticipate it and minimise the count. Consolidating the sell of a scrip into a single day rather than splitting it across days keeps the charge to one Rs 15.34 per scrip rather than several. Selling all of one scrip in one go, even across multiple orders on the same day, still triggers only one DP charge for that scrip that day, because the charge is per scrip per day, not per order.
For a trader whose goal is the short overnight move rather than delivery itself, the alternatives carry different cost profiles. An intraday (MIS) trade closed the same session carries no DP charge, but it cannot capture an overnight move because the position must close before the session ends. Futures on the same underlying capture overnight moves without a demat debit, so no DP charge applies, though they carry their own STT, exchange, and margin costs detailed in F&O futures brokerage . Each route has a distinct charge set, and the BTST route specifically carries the DP charge plus the short-delivery risk above.
The DDPI and how the debit is authorised
The demat debit that triggers the DP charge on a BTST sell needs authorisation, and the mechanism for that authorisation changed in 2022. Historically Zerodha relied on a power of attorney (POA) from the client to instruct CDSL to debit shares on the client’s behalf without a per-trade signature. SEBI deprecated the POA route for demat debits and mandated the Demat Debit and Pledge Instruction (DDPI), a limited authorisation restricted to debiting shares for exchange settlement. A client who has activated DDPI has the BTST sell debit processed automatically; a client who has not must authorise each debit through CDSL’s TPIN and OTP mechanism on the day of the sell. The DP charge of Rs 15.34 is the same either way, because the charge attaches to the debit itself, not to how the debit was authorised. The DDPI activation cost and mechanics are in DDPI charge .
For a client without DDPI who places a BTST sell, the practical risk is not the charge but the authorisation step: if the TPIN authorisation is not completed in time, the sell can fail to settle, which itself can lead to a short delivery. Activating DDPI removes that operational friction, leaving only the Rs 15.34 charge and the upstream short-delivery risk to manage.
How the BTST DP charge compares across brokers
The DP charge is unavoidable at every broker because the underlying CDSL or NSDL debit fee is a depository cost, but the broker’s own margin on top varies, so the total a BTST seller pays differs by broker. At Zerodha the total is Rs 15.34 per scrip as of 19 June 2026, of which Rs 3.5 is the CDSL fee and Rs 9.5 is Zerodha’s own fee (zerodha.com/charges). A broker that charges a higher DP fee makes BTST and frequent delivery selling proportionally more expensive, while the CDSL component stays constant. For a BTST trader who sells several scrips a day, the per-scrip DP charge is a recurring cost that compounds with the number of distinct scrips, so a lower DP fee matters more to an active BTST seller than to a buy-and-hold investor who rarely sells. The broker comparison of DP charges sits in DP charges on Zerodha sell transactions .
See also
- Zerodha
- DP charges on Zerodha sell transactions
- BTST
- CDSL
- NSDL
- Auction charges
- Hidden charges at Zerodha
- Zerodha brokerage structure overview
- STT and CTT on Zerodha trades
- Securities transaction tax
- Exchange transaction charges
- SEBI turnover fee
- GST on broking charges
- Stamp duty for stockbroker trades
- Equity delivery brokerage
- Equity intraday brokerage
- F&O futures brokerage
- DDPI charge
- Pledge and unpledge charges
- Demat account
- Zerodha Console
- Kite by Zerodha
- National Stock Exchange
- Bombay Stock Exchange
- SEBI
External references
References
- Zerodha charges schedule, zerodha.com/charges (accessed 19 June 2026).
- Zerodha support, “What do DP charges mean”, support.zerodha.com (accessed 19 June 2026).
- SEBI (Depositories and Participants) Regulations 2018.
- Depositories Act 1996.
- SEBI circular on T+1 settlement, phased implementation completed January 2023.
- CDSL Schedule of Charges for Depository Participants (FY2026-27).