GTT validity rules on Kite

A GTT (Good Till Triggered) order on Zerodha Kite is valid for one year from the date of placement on equity and only until contract expiry on F&O, after which it auto-cancels; it is not a true exchange order but a conditional instruction stored on Zerodha’s own servers that fires a single regular limit order to the exchange when your trigger price is touched. The validity rules differ by segment, the trigger fires only once, and the account is capped at 500 active GTTs. Understanding these rules matters because a GTT a trader assumes is “always on” can lapse silently, and a stop-loss set through a GTT carries a broker-server dependency that a resting SL order at the exchange does not.

This article documents the exact validity window for each segment, the auto-expiry and re-validation behaviour, the 500-order cap, and the structural reason a GTT is best-effort rather than guaranteed. The GTT reference article covers the product end to end and how to place a GTT on Kite covers the placement flow; this page is the validity-rules companion.

Conflict-of-interest disclosure. This guide is published by the WebNotes Editorial Team for informational purposes and is written independently. WebNotes operates a Zerodha account-opening referral programme, disclosed on the pages that carry the referral link; this guide does not carry it and earns no referral commission from the procedure described here.

Equity GTT: one year, then auto-cancel

A GTT placed on an equity (cash-segment) instrument is valid for one year, 365 days, from the date you create it. If the trigger price is not touched within that window, the exchange auto-cancels the GTT and it drops off the GTT list. Zerodha sends app and email notifications as the one-year mark approaches, but the renewal obligation rests with the trader: an investor who places a buy-on-dip GTT and forgets it will find it silently expired a year later, with no order working.

The one-year clock starts at placement, not at any later modification reset that a trader might assume. Modifying the trigger price or quantity of an existing GTT does not extend the original window in the way placing a fresh GTT would. The practical rule is simple: a systematic accumulation GTT set today on a stock trading well below your target needs a calendar reminder a year out, because the platform will not keep it alive indefinitely.

F&O GTT: tied to the contract, not the calendar

The one-year rule does not apply to derivatives. A GTT placed on a futures or options contract is valid only for the lifetime of that contract. Once the contract expires, the GTT expires with it; pending GTTs on a contract are invalidated one day after the contract’s expiry, not a year after placement. A GTT on a near-month Nifty option, for example, can have an effective life of only a few days or weeks, because the contract itself is short-dated.

Two F&O-specific cancellation triggers sit on top of this. For equity F&O, a GTT may be cancelled if a corporate action directly affects the contract’s lot size or price. For index F&O, a GTT is cancelled whenever the lot size for the contract changes, a change the exchange periodically applies. A trader running GTT stop-losses across a book of option positions must re-check them after any lot-size revision, because the platform does not migrate a GTT across a lot-size change. F&O GTT behaviour, the single-leg constraint, and the physical-delivery risk on stock derivatives are set out in detail in the GTT for F&O on Zerodha article.

The trigger fires once: re-validation after a non-fill

A GTT trigger is valid exactly once. When the last traded price touches the trigger, Zerodha’s server releases one regular limit order to the exchange and the GTT moves to a triggered state; it does not re-arm. If that limit order does not fill, because the market gapped past your limit price and left it resting above the market with no buyer or below it with no seller, the GTT is marked triggered with an unfilled limit order, and you must place a fresh GTT for the next session if you still want the condition working.

This is the practical core of GTT “re-validation”: there is no automatic daily re-validation that resubmits an unfilled GTT. The daily monitoring Zerodha performs is of the live trigger condition against the last traded price during market hours; once the condition has fired and the resulting limit order failed, the GTT is spent. A trader using a GTT as a protective stop must check, after any session in which the trigger could have fired, whether the GTT is still active or whether it triggered and the limit order missed.

The 500-active-GTT cap

An account can hold up to 500 active GTTs at any one time. Each single-trigger GTT counts as one slot, and each OCO (One Cancels Other) GTT also counts as one, even though an OCO carries both a target leg and a stop-loss leg. An OCO that protects a position on both sides therefore uses a single slot, which makes OCO the efficient choice for a trader near the cap who wants two-sided protection on each holding.

The 500 figure is the current published cap and is materially higher than the 50-order limit that applied in the feature’s earlier years. Even at 500, a trader running individual stop-losses across a large multi-segment book can approach the ceiling, at which point new GTTs are refused until existing ones expire, trigger, or are deleted. Housekeeping matters: deleting GTTs on positions you have already closed, covered in how to delete a GTT on Kite , frees slots and avoids the stranded-order problem where a GTT on a sold holding fires against a position you no longer hold.

Product types and segments that support GTT

GTT is available on the MTF, CNC , and NRML product types. It is not offered on every product type, and it is not available on the currency segment. The eligible-instrument set is equity cash on the NSE and BSE , and equity and index F&O subject to the contract-life rule above. A GTT placed on an instrument Zerodha does not allow for trading will be rejected at the moment it triggers, even though it was accepted at placement, because placement-time validation and trigger-time eligibility are separate checks.

GTT itself carries no charge. Brokerage applies only when the released limit order executes: zero for equity delivery (CNC), and the standard flat fee per executed order for intraday and F&O, alongside the usual STT, stamp duty, exchange transaction charges, and GST that attach to any executed trade. The Zerodha charges page sets out the full fee schedule.

Why a GTT is best-effort, not a guaranteed exchange order

A GTT is a broker-level facility, not an exchange-recognised order type. It sits on Zerodha’s servers and the exchange sees nothing until the trigger fires and a limit order is submitted. Three consequences follow from that architecture.

First, there is server-side dependency. A technical failure at Zerodha, server downtime, a software fault, or a network outage, could prevent a GTT from firing even when the market reaches the trigger. A trader relying on a single GTT as the sole stop-loss on a large position carries this systemic risk; a resting SL or SL-M order lodged at the exchange does not depend on the broker’s server staying up at the moment of the move.

Second, the trigger uses the last traded price, not the bid or ask, and is checked only during market hours. A GTT cannot fire on pre-open indicative prices or on after-hours data. A single small trade that touches the trigger price is enough to fire it, so a thin print around a results event can release the limit order at a moment of low liquidity.

Third, the GTT releases a limit order, never a market order. A gap move past both the trigger and the limit price leaves the limit order unfilled, the same non-fill case described above. Unlike an SL-M order, which would fill at market, a GTT will not chase the price beyond your limit. The detailed mechanics of a triggered-but-unfilled GTT are covered in why a GTT triggered but did not execute , and the full set of eligibility and rejection causes in GTT order limitations and rejection reasons .

How GTT validity compares with a daily SL order

A standard SL or SL-M order placed for a single session rests at the exchange and lapses at session close; it must be re-entered the next morning. A GTT solves exactly that re-entry burden by persisting across sessions, but it trades the exchange’s certainty for the broker’s server and substitutes a one-year (equity) or contract-life (F&O) window for a single-day one.

The choice is therefore not “GTT is better” but a trade-off. For a long-horizon investor setting a buy target months below the market, the GTT’s persistence is the whole point and the daily SL is unusable. For an intraday trader who wants a guaranteed market exit, an SL-M resting at the exchange is the safer instrument, because it does not depend on a broker server firing a fresh order and it fills at market rather than at a limit. A trader who wants a standing options stop-loss should read GTT as a stop-loss for options buying for the specific limitations there.

See also

• GTT order on Zerodha
• How to place a GTT order on Kite
• Kite Connect GTT API
• GTT for F&O on Zerodha
• Why a GTT triggered but did not execute
• GTT order limitations and rejection reasons
• GTT as a stop-loss for options buying
• GTT stoploss invalid for index options
• How to modify a GTT on Kite
• How to delete a GTT on Kite
• Why a buy GTT was rejected
• How to fix a rejected sell GTT
• GTT buy OCO on Zerodha
• GTC orders on Kite
• GTT disabled, cancelled, or expired
• SL order on Kite
• SL-M order on Kite
• Limit order on Kite
• Market order on Kite
• Trigger vs limit price
• CNC product code
• NRML product code
• MIS product code
• Kite alerts
• Order validity types
• Zerodha charges
• Kite
• Zerodha

External references

• Zerodha support: What is the validity of a GTT order?
• Zerodha support: What is the Good Till Triggered (GTT) feature?
• Zerodha support: Why are GTTs disabled, cancelled, expired, or rejected?
• Zerodha support: Are GTT orders available for F&O contracts?
• Zerodha GTT terms and conditions
• Zerodha Z-Connect: Introducing GTT, Good Till Triggered orders

References

1. Zerodha support, What is the validity of a GTT order? (as of 21 June 2026).
2. Zerodha support, Are Good Till Triggered (GTT) orders available for futures and options (F&O) contracts? (as of 21 June 2026).
3. Zerodha support, Why are GTTs disabled, cancelled, expired, or rejected? (as of 21 June 2026).
4. Zerodha GTT terms and conditions, zerodha.com/tos/gtt (as of 21 June 2026).
5. SEBI circular on conditional order facilities and broker-client disclosure obligations, MIRSD series.