How-to Zerodha AMC demat account account maintenance charge Console

How to pay Zerodha demat AMC in advance

From WebNotes, a public knowledge base. Last updated 19 June 2026. Reading time ~8 min.

Key facts

Time required	Under 5 minutes on Console or the Kite app
Cost	Rs 300 + 18 per cent GST (Rs 354) per year for a non-BSDA resident account; prepayable for 1 to 5 years
Documents needed	None; an active Zerodha login and sufficient funds in the trading ledger

Procedure

Open the Demat section in Console or the Kite appOn the web, click your user ID, then Console, then Accounts, then Demat. On the Kite app, tap your user ID, tap Profile, tap Manage account, tap the arrow, then tap Demat.
Open the upfront AMC optionClick or tap Pay upfront AMC. The page shows the per-quarter rate that applies to your account, Rs 300 plus 18 per cent GST a year for a standard non-BSDA resident demat account.
Select the prepayment periodChoose a period from one to five years. Console collects four quarters at the applicable rate for each year selected, so two years bills eight quarters in a single debit.
Accept the undertaking and confirmTick the undertaking checkbox to confirm the payment cannot be cancelled once posted, then click or tap Continue. Complete the action before 8 PM on a trading day for a same-day debit.
Keep the receipt and watch the funds statementZerodha posts an Upfront AMC collected entry to the funds statement and emails a receipt. Each future quarter it emails an invoice as it adjusts AMC from the prepaid balance instead of debiting the ledger.

A Zerodha demat account carries an account maintenance charge of Rs 300 plus 18 per cent GST a year, Rs 354, for a standard non-BSDA resident individual. Zerodha bills it quarterly, every 91 days from the account-opening date, and debits it straight from the trading ledger. This guide covers the alternative: paying that charge upfront for one to five years through Console or the Kite app, why some clients prepay, and how the default quarterly debit works when you do not.

The advance option exists because the quarterly debit silently pushes a low-balance account into a negative ledger. When the AMC quarter falls due and the ledger holds nothing, the Rs 88.50 quarter (Rs 75 plus GST) posts anyway, the balance goes negative, and Delayed Payment Charges accrue on the debit until you fund the account. Prepaying converts a recurring surprise into one dated debit you control.

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.

Step-by-step procedure

The procedure infobox above lists the five steps Zerodha renders for the upfront AMC flow on Console and the Kite app. The H3 subsections below expand each step, name the exact menu labels Zerodha uses as of 19 June 2026, and flag the points where the debit behaves differently from the routine quarterly charge.

1. Open the Demat section in Console or the Kite app

On the web, click your user ID at the top right of Kite or Console , select Console, then Accounts, then Demat. The same control sits inside the Kite app under your user ID: tap Profile, tap Manage account, tap the arrow, then tap Demat. Both paths land on the demat dashboard that holds the AMC controls.

2. Open the upfront AMC option

Click or tap Pay upfront AMC. The screen states the per-quarter rate Zerodha will collect, which depends on your account type. A standard non-BSDA resident demat account is billed four quarters at Rs 300 plus GST a year. A BSDA account is billed at its lower slab, and certain account types carry Rs 500 or Rs 1,000 a year. Read the rate on screen before you commit; it is the figure that will multiply across the years you select.

3. Select the prepayment period

Choose a period between one and five years. Zerodha collects four quarters per year in one debit, so a two-year prepayment bills eight quarters together. The official worked example: a client paid Rs 708 for two years, made up of Rs 300 plus Rs 300 plus Rs 108 GST. If you have opened a secondary demat account, the upfront AMC is divided equally between both demat accounts rather than charged twice.

4. Accept the undertaking and confirm

Tick the undertaking checkbox, which confirms you accept that the payment cannot be cancelled once it posts, then click or tap Continue. Timing decides the debit date. Complete the action by 8 PM on a trading day and the amount is deducted the same day and shown in the funds statement. Complete it after 8 PM on a trading day and the debit moves to the next trading day. Actions on a non-trading day post together on the next trading day.

5. Keep the receipt and watch the funds statement

Zerodha posts an Upfront AMC collected entry to the funds statement and emails a receipt once the payment posts. From the next quarter onward it stops debiting the ledger for AMC and instead emails an invoice each quarter as it adjusts the charge from your prepaid balance. The prepaid pool runs down quarter by quarter until it is exhausted, at which point quarterly ledger debits resume unless you prepay again.

What AMC funds and how the default quarterly debit works

The account maintenance charge is the depository participant fee Zerodha levies to keep your demat account open with CDSL, separate from brokerage and separate from the per-debit-instruction CDSL charge. For a full breakdown of the slab, the GST treatment, and how it sits against brokerage and other costs, see the Zerodha AMC charge reference.

When you do not prepay, Zerodha debits one quarter of AMC every 91 days from the account-opening anniversary. A standard resident pays Rs 75 plus GST, Rs 88.50, each quarter. The debit hits the trading ledger directly, which is why an idle account with no cash drifts into a negative balance and starts accruing Delayed Payment Charges until funded. The advance route removes that drift by pulling the cash once, while you have a balance, and metering AMC out of the prepaid pool.

Why some clients prepay

Three situations make prepayment the cleaner choice. A long-term demat account holder who buys and holds, and rarely keeps idle cash in the trading ledger, avoids the quarterly negative-balance and DPC cycle by funding several years at once. A client closing a smaller account into Zerodha values knowing the maintenance cost is settled and predictable. And a client who wants a single dated entry for record-keeping, rather than a recurring 91-day debit scattered across the funds statement , gets exactly one line.

Prepayment is not free money saved. The rate per quarter is the same whether you pay it quarterly or upfront; the gain is operational, not a discount. If Zerodha changes your AMC slab during a prepaid period, for example from a BSDA Rs 100 rate to the non-BSDA Rs 300 rate, it deducts only the applicable amount from the prepaid pool each quarter and carries the remaining balance forward, so a slab change neither refunds nor overcharges the prepaid amount.

First-year AMC waiver for new accounts

Resident individual accounts opened on or after 1 June 2026 carry no AMC for the first year, regardless of holding value, and minor accounts carry no AMC. A client inside that first free year has no quarterly debit to pre-empt, so prepayment becomes relevant only from the second year. Check your account-opening date against the waiver before you prepay, since paying upfront during a free year just parks cash in the prepaid pool ahead of need.

Closing the account with a prepaid balance

If you close the demat account while a prepaid balance remains, Zerodha reverses the unused balance through a funds payout rather than forfeiting it. The prepayment is therefore recoverable on exit, which removes the main objection to committing several years at once. The non-cancellable undertaking in step four applies to reversing the payment on demand, not to the unused balance at account closure.

What can go wrong

Ledger goes negative on the debit. The Upfront AMC collected entry posts regardless of your balance. If the ledger lacks funds when the debit lands, the account goes into debit and Delayed Payment Charges accrue on the shortfall until you add money. Fund the account before you confirm.
Wrong expectation of a discount. Prepaying does not lower the per-quarter rate. If you expected a bulk discount, there is none; the benefit is avoiding the quarterly negative-balance cycle, not paying less.
Prepaying inside the free first year. A new resident account opened on or after 1 June 2026 owes no AMC in year one. Prepaying then only parks cash ahead of need.
Payment cannot be cancelled. Once you tick the undertaking and confirm, the debit cannot be reversed on request. The only recovery is the unused-balance reversal at account closure. Confirm the period and amount before you continue.
Secondary demat account split. If you hold a secondary demat account, the upfront AMC is divided equally between both, so the per-account figure on screen may differ from what you expected for a single account.

External references

References

Zerodha Support, “How to pay AMC in advance for a Zerodha demat account,” support.zerodha.com, accessed 19 June 2026. Confirms the one-to-five-year prepayment, the Rs 300 plus 18 per cent GST non-BSDA rate, the Upfront AMC collected funds entry, the 8 PM trading-day cut-off, the secondary-account split, the slab-change carry-forward, and the unused-balance reversal on closure.
Zerodha Support, “Account Maintenance Charge (AMC): explanation and slabs of charges,” support.zerodha.com, accessed 19 June 2026. Confirms quarterly billing every 91 days from the account-opening date and direct debit from the trading ledger.
SEBI (Depositories and Participants) Regulations 2018, governing depository participant charges levied by CDSL participants such as Zerodha Broking Limited.

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WebNotes Editorial Team

The WebNotes Editorial Team covers Indian capital markets, payments infrastructure and retail investor procedures. Every article is fact-checked against primary sources, principally SEBI circulars and master directions, NPCI specifications and the official support documentation published by the intermediary in question. Drafts go through a second-pair-of-eyes review and a separate compliance read before publication, and revisions are tracked against the SEBI and NPCI rule changes referenced in the methodology section.

Last reviewed: 19 June 2026
Conflicts of interest: WebNotes is independent. No relationship with any broker, registrar or bank named in this article.