Kite (Zerodha trading platform)

Kite is the trading platform of Zerodha Broking Limited, a SEBI -registered stockbroker (registration INZ000031633) and a member of the National Stock Exchange , BSE , the Multi Commodity Exchange and the Metropolitan Stock Exchange of India. It runs in a browser at kite.zerodha.com and as an app for Android and iOS, and Zerodha’s clients use it to buy and sell equity, futures and options , currency and commodity contracts.

Kite carries no platform fee. Zerodha charges brokerage per executed order instead: nothing on equity delivery, Rs 20 or 0.03% of turnover, whichever is lower, on intraday equity and futures, and a flat Rs 20 on options (zerodha.com/charges, read 18 October 2026). Zerodha states on its about page that over 1.8 crore clients use its platforms and that it accounts for over 15% of Indian retail trading volumes.

Zerodha began building Kite in October 2014, opened a web beta to over 300 testers in July 2015, and announced the beta of Kite 3, the current version, on 6 December 2017. The app has run on Google’s Flutter framework since 2019, Android first and iOS about six months later. Charts come from two licensed engines, ChartIQ by default and TradingView as an option, and a developer interface, Kite Connect , exposes the same order and data functions to programs for Rs 500 a month.

Kite is an internet-based trading platform in SEBI’s terms, and the rules written for that class of platform shape most of what a client sees on it: two-factor login, upfront margin, the five-minute technical glitch disclosure, and since 2026 SEBI’s closing auction session , which moved Kite’s intraday square-off in F&O stocks to 15:12, and the retail algorithmic trading framework, which has governed every Kite Connect order since 1 April 2026.

Operator, registration and exchange memberships

Kite is operated by Zerodha Broking Limited, which holds SEBI stockbroker registration INZ000031633, valid from 11 March 2016 on a perpetual basis according to SEBI’s register of intermediaries. The register records clearing through Indian Clearing Corporation Limited and NSE Clearing . Zerodha began operations on 15 August 2010, by the account on its own about page, which names Nithin Kamath as founder and chief executive and Nikhil Kamath as co-founder and chief financial officer. The corporate history is set out in Zerodha Broking Limited and Zerodha’s SEBI registration .

The same company is the depository participant behind the demat account a Kite client holds. Zerodha’s support portal gives the DP ID as 12081600 or 12081601, at CDSL , and the depository registration printed on Zerodha’s website is IN-DP-431-2019. The identifiers a client or a regulator uses to look Zerodha up are these:

Table: Zerodha Broking Limited, the operator of Kite. Sources as stated, read 18 October 2026.

NCDEX is not on the list. Earlier descriptions of Kite, including a previous version of this article, named the National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange as a Kite venue; Zerodha’s own footer lists four exchanges and NCDEX is not one of them, so agricultural contracts traded only on NCDEX cannot be reached through Kite. Commodity trading on Kite runs through MCX; the segment is covered in Zerodha commodities .

SEBI regulates the platform through the broker. Kite’s browser version falls under the internet-based trading framework that SEBI first set out in circular SMDRP/POLICY/CIR-06/2000 dated 31 January 2000, and the app under the framework for securities trading using wireless technology, circular CIR/MRD/DP/25/2010 dated 27 August 2010, which is open only to brokers already offering internet trading.

Charges for trading on Kite

Kite has no subscription, platform or terminal fee; a client pays Zerodha brokerage per executed order, plus statutory levies and depository charges. The table below is Zerodha’s own schedule. Securities transaction tax, exchange transaction charges, the SEBI turnover fee, stamp duty and GST are charged on top and are set by statute or by the exchanges, not by Zerodha; Zerodha brokerage structure and Zerodha hidden charges cover them.

Table: Zerodha’s charges for trading through Kite. Source: zerodha.com/charges, read 18 October 2026. The page carries no revision date.

The 0.03% cap matters only on small intraday and futures orders. Rs 20 is 0.03% of Rs 66,667, so an intraday order of Rs 50,000 costs Rs 15 in brokerage (0.03% of Rs 50,000) and a round trip costs Rs 30; any order above Rs 66,667 costs the flat Rs 20. Options brokerage ignores the premium entirely: an options buy order with a total premium of Rs 3,000 and one with a total premium of Rs 3 lakh each cost Rs 20.

An executed order is not a trade. If a limit order for 1,000 shares fills in three parts within the same order, Zerodha counts it as one executed order; the account-level detail is in Zerodha equity intraday brokerage and Zerodha F&O charges . The demat annual maintenance charge belongs to the depository account, not to Kite, and is explained in Zerodha AMC charge and Zerodha BSDA .

History of Kite

Kite is Zerodha’s third generation of client trading software, built in-house from October 2014 after two licensed terminals. Its development history is documented in Zerodha’s own Z-Connect posts and its engineering blog at zerodha.tech.

Zerodha Trader and Pi before Kite

Zerodha’s first clients traded on Zerodha Trader , a licensed terminal. Its successor, the Windows desktop terminal Pi , was announced in a Z-Connect post of 10 March 2015, which says Pi was built “in partnership with Tradelab”, that development began in January 2014, and that the final release was due on 30 March 2015. The same post describes order and risk management as running on “Omnesys/Thomson Reuters’ OMS/RMS”, which places the NEST vendor under Thomson Reuters rather than under any exchange subsidiary. Zerodha’s support portal now states that Pi is discontinued and “was not developed in-house”; Zerodha Pi discontinuation covers the migration.

Both terminals were licensed from outside vendors and Pi needed a Windows installation. Kite, by contrast, was a browser application Zerodha wrote itself, first in AngularJS according to the zerodha.tech account.

Web beta in 2015

Zerodha’s monthly update of 30 July 2015 announced a beta of Kite on the web with over 300 beta testers. A native Android app followed, written in 2015 and released publicly in early 2016.

Kite 3 and the move to Flutter

Nithin Kamath announced the beta of Kite 3.0 on 6 December 2017, in a Z-Connect post. A Zerodha staff reply under that post identified the charting engine as ChartIQ. TradingView was added later as a second engine; the Kite user manual now lists both.

The mobile app changed technology twice. Zerodha’s engineering post “From native to React Native to Flutter”, dated 17 January 2022, records an iOS app built in React Native in mid-2017 and a Flutter rewrite begun in mid-2018. Kite 3 in Flutter replaced the native Android app in early 2019, and the iOS version followed after “another 6 months”, at which point, in the post’s words, Zerodha “finally had one proper cross-platform codebase”. Descriptions of Kite as separate Kotlin and Swift apps are wrong. The front-end and back-end design is covered in Kite 3 architecture and Zerodha’s technology stack .

Kite milestones

Kite went from a 300-tester web beta in July 2015 to a two-engine charting platform with GTT, iceberg and MTF orders by 2025, on the dates below, taken from Zerodha’s own posts and support pages.

Table: Kite milestones, compiled by webnotes.in from Zerodha’s Z-Connect posts, support portal, engineering blog and tradingqna.com announcements. Dates as published by Zerodha.

Kite web, the Kite app and Kite Connect

Kite exists in three forms that share one back end and one login: Kite web at kite.zerodha.com, the Kite mobile app , and Kite Connect , the application programming interface for programs. An order or a GTT placed through one appears in the order book of the others.

Kite web is the full feature set: 25 watchlists of up to 250 instruments each since Zerodha’s update of 18 July 2025, multi-chart layouts, the option chain, and the basket order builder. The app carried several features first: Zerodha’s update of 18 July 2025 lists market protection for market orders, order slicing and a quick-exit button as new on mobile in June 2025. Zerodha said in that July 2025 update that the larger watchlist limit would reach the app later.

Kite Connect is priced in two tiers on Zerodha’s support portal:

Table: Kite Connect plans. Source: support.zerodha.com, Kite Connect API FAQs, and zerodha.com/charges, read 18 October 2026.

Zerodha’s “What’s new at Zerodha: June 2025” post, published 18 July 2025, says the order and account APIs have been “free since March 2025” and that the price of the data plan, covering real-time and historical data, was lowered from Rs 2,000 to Rs 500 a month, and ties the change to SEBI’s retail algorithmic trading circular. Quotes stream to programs over a WebSocket connection documented in the Kite Connect v3 reference at kite.trade; the rate limits, login flow and static IP rule are in Kite Connect rate limits , the Kite Connect login flow and the Kite Connect static IP requirement .

API orders are subject to SEBI circular SEBI/HO/MIRSD/MIRSD-PoD/P/CIR/2025/0000013 dated 4 February 2025, “Safer participation of retail investors in Algorithmic trading”. A SEBI circular of 29 July 2025 moved the start from 1 August to 1 October 2025, circular SEBI/HO/MIRSD/MIRSD-PoD/P/CIR/2025/132 dated 30 September 2025 then set registration milestones running to January 2026, and the framework has applied in full from 1 April 2026. A retail client’s script running through Kite Connect is now an algorithm in SEBI’s sense, and the broker answers for it. The platforms built on the API, from options analytics to strategy builders, are listed in the Kite Connect ecosystem .

Two smaller products reuse the order window. Kite Publisher lets a third-party website embed a buy button that opens a Kite order form, and Kite Demo shows the interface to people without an account.

Order types, validity and products on Kite

Kite offers limit, market, stop-loss limit and stop-loss market orders as the basic types, with iceberg, cover, after-market and Good Till Triggered orders layered on top; the Kite user manual at kite.trade/docs/kite/orders lists them alongside the products CNC, MIS and NRML. Order validity is Day, Immediate or Cancel, or a minutes validity of 1 to 120 minutes after which an unfilled order is cancelled.

Table: Kite order types. Sources: Kite user manual (kite.trade/docs/kite/orders) and Zerodha support portal, read 18 October 2026. Where the two disagree, the support portal is more recent.

The products decide how long a position may stay open and how it is margined. CNC (cash and carry) is equity delivery, paid in full. MIS (margin intraday square-off) is intraday and is squared off automatically before the close. NRML is the overnight product for futures and options. MTF, the margin trading facility, is delivery equity part-funded by Zerodha; its terms are below. A position can be converted between products during the day, for example from MIS to CNC, as set out in converting MIS to CNC on Kite .

Good Till Triggered orders

A GTT on Kite is a price trigger stored on Zerodha’s servers, not at the exchange, that places a limit order on the exchange when the last traded price reaches it. Zerodha launched GTT on 22 July 2019 in two forms: a single trigger, and an OCO (one cancels other) pair that holds a target and a stop-loss against the same holding and cancels the second leg when the first fires. A GTT stays live for one year; if it has not triggered by then, Zerodha cancels it.

Triggering is not execution. The order a GTT places is a limit order, so a stock that gaps through the limit price on the open can trigger the GTT and leave the order unfilled. Why a GTT did not trigger and placing a GTT on Kite cover the mechanics; Kite Connect exposes the same function through the GTT API .

Bracket orders and cover orders

Bracket orders have been disabled on Kite since March 2020. Zerodha’s support page gives the reason: volatile markets were leaving bracket-order clients with open positions they had not intended. The decision was Zerodha’s own; no exchange or SEBI circular banned the order type, and a description of the withdrawal as a regulatory prohibition is wrong. Zerodha adds that after SEBI’s peak margin rules, MIS, cover and bracket orders all received the same leverage, so a bracket order no longer bought extra margin. The history is in Zerodha bracket order discontinuation .

Cover orders survive, but only for intraday orders in the NSE EQ segment according to the Kite user manual. A cover order pairs an entry with a compulsory stop-loss, and the margin benefit it once carried disappeared with the peak margin rules: SEBI circular SEBI/HO/MRD2/DCAP/CIR/P/2020/127 of 20 July 2020 requires the broker to collect margin on the peak intraday position, whatever the order type.

Iceberg orders

Iceberg orders split a large order into up to 50 smaller legs that reach the exchange one at a time, so the full quantity is never visible in the order book at once. Zerodha introduced them on 4 April 2022; its support page sets the current 50-leg limit and allows only limit and stop-loss limit legs. The Kite user manual still prints the earlier ceiling of 10 legs. Placing an iceberg order on Kite sets out the steps, and the exchange freeze quantities that make slicing necessary are covered in Kite order quantity and value limits .

Margin trading facility

Zerodha launched its margin trading facility on 19 December 2024, in which Zerodha funds part of a delivery purchase and holds the shares as pledged collateral. Interest is 0.04% a day on the funded amount, Rs 40 per lakh per day, which is 14.6% a year on a simple basis. Zerodha’s update of 18 July 2025 put the limits at Rs 6 crore per stock and Rs 30 crore per account, across more than 1,300 approved stocks, with leverage of up to five times, and added GTT and after-market orders for MTF positions.

A worked example shows the cost. A client who buys Rs 2 lakh of an approved stock with Rs 1 lakh of own money and Rs 1 lakh funded by Zerodha, and holds it for 30 days, pays Rs 1,200 in interest (Rs 40 a day for 30 days), plus brokerage of Rs 20 on each side because 0.3% of Rs 2 lakh exceeds Rs 20, plus Rs 15 and GST for the MTF pledge of the ISIN. The interest computation and repayment are detailed in Zerodha MTF interest and repaying MTF interest .

Intraday square-off times on Kite

Kite squares off open MIS positions automatically at fixed times before the close, and Zerodha charges Rs 50 plus GST per order for each square-off its risk desk performs. The times changed on 26 December 2025 and again on 3 August 2026.

Table: Kite MIS auto square-off times. Sources: Zerodha announcement on tradingqna.com, 26 December 2025; support.zerodha.com, “Closing auction session”; Zerodha bulletin of 23 January 2026.

The 15:12 cut-off follows from the closing auction session that SEBI introduced by circular HO/47/11/11(3)2025-MRD-POD2/I/2765/2026 dated 16 January 2026 and that went live on 3 August 2026. For stocks with futures and options contracts, continuous trading now stops at 15:15 and the closing price is set by a call auction between 15:15 and 15:35, so Zerodha squares off intraday positions in those stocks three minutes before continuous trading ends. Equity derivatives themselves trade until 15:40. Stocks without derivatives keep the 15:30 close and the 15:25 square-off.

These timings change again on 7 December 2026. SEBI circular HO/47/11/11(3)2025-MRD-POD2/I/23843/2026 dated 15 October 2026 moves the closing auction session to a 10-minute window from 15:30 to 15:40, with order entry closing at a random moment between 15:38 and 15:40, and extends trading in stock and index derivatives to 15:45, except that expiring index contracts stop at 15:30 on expiry day. With continuous trading in F&O stocks running to 15:30 again, the 15:12 square-off will move; Zerodha had not published its new cut-off by 18 October 2026.

A position left to the auto square-off is closed at market, so the price is whatever the book offers at 15:12 or 15:25, and the Rs 50 charge applies per order on top of brokerage. Zerodha market timings and Zerodha MCX trading hours give the full session schedule.

Charts, market depth and watchlists

Kite offers two charting engines, ChartIQ and TradingView, and the Kite user manual states that ChartIQ is enabled by default. Both carry over 100 indicators. A TradingView layout holds up to eight charts and a ChartIQ layout up to four, and intraday data runs from 2015, according to the manual’s charting chapter at kite.trade/docs/kite/charting. Historical depth is therefore about a decade of intraday candles; the minute-level data from 2000 that earlier descriptions of Kite, including a previous version of this article, asserted is not what the manual states.

Both engines draw on the same Zerodha candle data, so the choice changes tools and layout rather than prices. The differences between the two inside Kite are mapped in Kite TradingView vs ChartIQ , Kite charts and Kite TradingView features missing .

Market depth on Kite shows the best five bids and offers with their quantities, and a “View 20 depth” option opens 20 levels, as documented in the Kite user manual’s marketwatch chapter and in the 20-level market depth feature . Kite web allows 25 watchlists of up to 250 instruments each, the limit Zerodha set in July 2025 in place of the earlier five watchlists of 50.

Funds, margin and pledging on Kite

Kite’s funds screen shows cash, collateral from pledged holdings, and the margin used by open positions, and four SEBI rules decide how those numbers are computed and where the money sits.

Peak margin. SEBI circular SEBI/HO/MRD2/DCAP/CIR/P/2020/127 dated 20 July 2020 requires brokers to collect margin on the highest intraday position, not only the end-of-day position. It took effect on 1 December 2020 at 25% of the required margin for three months, then 50% for three months, then 75%, and 100% thereafter; on those three-month steps full collection began in September 2021. Kite’s order window shows the margin needed before an order is placed and rejects an order the account cannot margin, as Zerodha margin calculator and insufficient margin errors explain.

Pledging. Holdings serve as collateral only through a pledge in the depository system under SEBI circular SEBI/HO/MIRSD/DOP/CIR/P/2020/28 dated 25 February 2020. It was due to take effect on 1 June 2020; circular SEBI/HO/MIRSD/DOP/CIR/P/2020/88 dated 25 May 2020 deferred it to 1 August 2020 and required brokers’ client margin and collateral demat accounts to be closed by 31 August 2020. A Kite client pledges through Zerodha Console and authorises it with CDSL; Zerodha charges Rs 30 plus GST per ISIN. Margin pledge , the SEBI margin pledge rules and Zerodha pledge haircuts cover the haircut each security takes.

Upstreaming of client funds. Under SEBI circular SEBI/HO/MIRSD/MIRSD-PoD-1/P/CIR/2023/84 dated 8 June 2023, effective 1 July 2023, brokers pass clients’ unused funds to the clearing corporations at the end of each day instead of holding them in their own bank accounts. Cash shown on Kite’s funds screen overnight therefore sits with the clearing corporation, not in Zerodha’s own bank accounts; Zerodha clearing corporation flows traces the money.

Payments in. Funds reach Kite through UPI, net banking or NEFT and RTGS, described in adding funds to Zerodha . From 1 October 2025, under SEBI circular SEBI/HO/DEPA-II/DEPA-II_SRG/P/CIR/2025/86 dated 11 June 2025, every SEBI-registered intermediary collecting money from investors by UPI must use a handle ending in @valid issued by NPCI, Zerodha included. Withdrawals follow the T+1 settlement cycle completed in January 2023, so sale proceeds of equity delivery settle on the next trading day; Zerodha withdrawable balance gives the computation.

IPO applications through Kite

Kite’s IPO section submits a public-issue bid with a UPI mandate that blocks, rather than debits, the bid amount in the applicant’s bank account until the basis of allotment is finalised. SEBI circular SEBI/HO/CFD/DIL2/CIR/P/2022/45 dated 5 April 2022 requires individual investors whose application is up to Rs 5 lakh to use UPI for public issues opening on or after 1 May 2022, building on NPCI operating circular NPCI/UPI/OC No. 127/2021-22 of 9 December 2021, which raised the UPI limit for such payments.

The block is the ASBA principle (application supported by blocked amount) carried over to UPI: the money stays in the bank account and earns interest until allotment, and the block is released on the shares not allotted. Allotted shares reach the demat account before listing. Kite shows the price band, lot size and category for each issue and lets a bid be modified or withdrawn until the issue closes, as covered in applying for an IPO on Kite web , applying through the Kite app and Zerodha SME IPOs . What Zerodha charges, if anything, by issue type is in Zerodha IPO charges .

Login security and two-factor authentication

Every Kite login requires a password and a second factor, such as a time-based one-time password (TOTP) from an authenticator app, and the second factor has been mandatory since 30 September 2022. Zerodha’s Z-Connect post of 21 October 2022 gives that date, says Zerodha had “offered external TOTP 2FA support since 2018”, and ties the requirement to SEBI’s cyber security circular of 3 December 2018 and to the exchanges.

The SEBI texts are narrower than that summary suggests. Circular CIR/MRD/DP/8/2011 dated 30 June 2011, which reviewed internet and wireless trading, says two-factor authentication “may be implemented” for orders sent over the internet. Circular SEBI/HO/MIRSD/CIR/PB/2018/147 dated 3 December 2018, at clause 16, requires two-factor security on a broker’s own internet-facing critical systems. Zerodha’s post attributes the 30 September 2022 deadline for mandatory client two-factor login to the exchanges, alongside the 2018 circular.

The practical consequences are documented in Zerodha’s support material: a lost authenticator phone locks the account until 2FA is reset, which recovering a lost TOTP and resetting 2FA cover, and setting up TOTP explains the first setup. Zerodha’s other account protections are in Zerodha cyber security and Zerodha hack and security incidents .

Technical glitches and Zerodha’s outage disclosures

SEBI requires Zerodha to report every Kite disruption of five minutes or more to the exchanges, and Zerodha lists each one on a public register at zerodha.com/marketintel/disclosures. The rule is SEBI circular SEBI/HO/MIRSD/TPD-1/P/CIR/2022/160 dated 25 November 2022, effective 1 April 2023, which defines a technical glitch as a disruption “for a contiguous period of five minutes or more” and originally required a report to the exchanges within one hour.

SEBI reviewed the framework by circular HO/38/44/12(1)2026-MIRSD-TPD1 dated 9 January 2026, effective the same day. The review limits the framework to brokers offering internet or wireless trading platforms with at least 10,000 registered clients, excluding closed accounts, as on 31 March of the previous financial year, and extends the reporting time from one hour to two hours; the five-minute definition is unchanged. Zerodha is well above the client threshold, so every Kite outage of five minutes or more is a reportable event. Nine such events appear on Zerodha’s register between December 2023 and July 2026:

Table: Kite technical glitches disclosed by Zerodha. Source: zerodha.com/marketintel/disclosures, read 18 October 2026.

The longest disclosed outage in the table, the 37-minute login failure on 4 December 2023, came a month after a failure on 6 November 2023, and Zerodha published “An apology for the two consecutive tech issues in the last two months” on Z-Connect the next day, 5 December 2023. Six of the nine incidents began within 22 minutes of the 09:15 open. This article no longer carries the claim, made in its earlier version, that Kite suffered latency on the LIC listing day of 17 May 2022 and the Tata Technologies listing in November 2023: no Zerodha post or disclosure supports either.

A client who loses money in an outage complains first to Zerodha, then through SEBI’s SCORES portal, and then through the online dispute resolution platform; the routes are in Zerodha grievance redressal , Zerodha on SCORES and Zerodha Smart ODR .

F&O trading rules on Kite since November 2024

SEBI circular SEBI/HO/MRD/TPD-1/P/CIR/2024/132 dated 1 October 2024 changed the index derivatives a Kite client trades from 20 November 2024. New index derivative contracts carry a minimum value of Rs 15 lakh at introduction, with lot sizes set so the contract value on the review day falls between Rs 15 lakh and Rs 20 lakh; each exchange may offer weekly expiries on one benchmark index only; and short options attract an additional 2% extreme loss margin on expiry day. From 1 February 2025 the same circular requires brokers to collect the option premium from buyers upfront, so Kite blocks a buy order the account cannot pay for in full, with no intraday leverage on long options.

Kite layers Zerodha’s own controls on top. It blocks market orders in long-dated options, where the order book is thin, and its order nudges warn before risky orders such as deep out-of-the-money options near expiry; the design is analysed in Kite nudges and behavioural design . A client can also switch off the F&O segment for a set period with the Kite F&O kill switch . Segment activation itself needs proof of income, as described in activating F&O on Zerodha , and the first-trade walkthroughs are trading options on Kite and trading futures on Kite .

Services connected to Kite

Kite is the order screen for a group of Zerodha and partner services that reach the exchange through it. Zerodha Console is the back office: contract notes, ledger, tax profit and loss, pledging and the demat statement, under the same login as Kite. Zerodha Coin handles direct mutual fund investments, which appear in Kite’s holdings view. Zerodha Varsity is the education library that Kite’s nudges link to, and Zerodha Sentinel is the alerts service.

Partner platforms build on Kite Connect and send orders back into Kite’s order window: Sensibull for options strategies, smallcase for model portfolios, Streak for rule-based strategies and back-testing, and Tickertape for research and screening. The terms on which each is offered to Zerodha clients are set out in Sensibull free vs Pro for Zerodha customers , smallcase for Zerodha customers and Streak for Zerodha customers . Each partner is a separate company; an order placed from it is still a Kite order, executed and charged by Zerodha. Product news for all of them appears on Z-Connect , Zerodha’s blog.

Kite and other broker platforms

Every Indian broker’s internet platform operates under the same SEBI rules on margin, client funds and upfront option premium, and every broker with 10,000 or more clients under the same technical glitch framework, so platforms differ in charges, order types and the tools built around them, not in the regulatory floor. The comparison pages set the charge schedules side by side: Zerodha vs Groww , Zerodha vs Upstox , Zerodha vs Angel One , Zerodha vs Dhan , Zerodha vs ICICI Direct and Zerodha vs HDFC Securities .

Zerodha’s scale claims, the client and volume figures in the lead and the title of India’s largest broker by net worth as per NSE, are its own, and net worth is a different measure from the broker-wise active-client count NSE publishes each month, on which Groww , Angel One and Upstox are Zerodha’s nearest rivals. Is Zerodha safe covers the investor protections common to every broker.

Opening an account to use Kite

Kite logins are issued only to Zerodha clients, so access requires a Zerodha trading and demat account. Account opening is free for a resident individual or a minor and costs Rs 500 for an NRI, partnership, LLP or corporate account, and the demat annual maintenance charge is waived for the first year on resident individual accounts (zerodha.com/charges, read 18 October 2026). Prospective clients can open a Zerodha account online and log in to Kite with the client ID issued on activation.

The documents, the in-person verification by video and the timelines are set out in how to open a Zerodha account , with separate guides for an NRI account and a minor account . Zerodha account opening charges gives the fee schedule by account type, and placing a first equity buy order on Kite covers the first trade.

See also

• Zerodha
• Zerodha Broking Limited
• Zerodha SEBI registration
• Kite web
• Kite mobile app
• Kite 3 architecture
• Kite Connect API
• Kite Connect API pricing
• Kite Connect ecosystem
• Kite Publisher
• Kite Demo
• Kite nudges
• Kite charts
• Kite TradingView vs ChartIQ
• Kite order quantity and value limits
• Kite stock SIP
• Kite holdings tab
• Kite positions tab
• Kite F&O kill switch
• Zerodha Console
• Zerodha Coin
• Zerodha Varsity
• Zerodha Sentinel
• Zerodha MTF
• Zerodha brokerage structure
• Zerodha bracket order discontinuation
• Zerodha Pi
• Zerodha Trader (NEST)
• Zerodha margin pledge mechanics
• Zerodha T+0 settlement
• Closing auction session
• Sensibull
• smallcase
• Streak
• Tickertape
• Placing a GTT order on Kite
• Placing a basket order on Kite
• Using the option chain on Kite
• Is Zerodha safe
• Zerodha vs Groww
• Zerodha vs Upstox

External references

• Kite trading platform
• Kite user manual
• Kite Connect API documentation
• Zerodha charges
• Zerodha technical glitch disclosures
• Zerodha support portal
• SEBI register of stock brokers

References

1. SEBI. Register of intermediaries, stock broker entry for Zerodha Broking Limited, registration INZ000031633. sebi.gov.in. Read 18 October 2026.
2. Zerodha. “About Zerodha” and “Charges”. zerodha.com/about and zerodha.com/charges. Read 18 October 2026.
3. Zerodha, Z-Connect. “Introduction - Pi”, 10 March 2015; July 2015 monthly update, 30 July 2015; Kite 3.0 beta announcement, 6 December 2017; “What’s new at Zerodha: June 2025”, 18 July 2025.
4. Zerodha Tech. “From native to React Native to Flutter”. zerodha.tech. 17 January 2022.
5. Zerodha. Kite user manual, orders, charting and marketwatch chapters, kite.trade/docs/kite; support portal, support.zerodha.com; technical glitch disclosures, zerodha.com/marketintel/disclosures. Read 18 October 2026.
6. SEBI circular SEBI/HO/MRD2/DCAP/CIR/P/2020/127, 20 July 2020, on peak margin; circulars SEBI/HO/MIRSD/DOP/CIR/P/2020/28, 25 February 2020, and SEBI/HO/MIRSD/DOP/CIR/P/2020/88, 25 May 2020, on pledge and re-pledge.
7. SEBI circular SEBI/HO/CFD/DIL2/CIR/P/2022/45, 5 April 2022, on the UPI limit for individual investors in public issues.
8. SEBI circular SEBI/HO/MIRSD/TPD-1/P/CIR/2022/160, 25 November 2022, on technical glitches in stock brokers’ electronic trading systems, and review circular HO/38/44/12(1)2026-MIRSD-TPD1, 9 January 2026.
9. SEBI circulars SEBI/HO/MRD/TPD-1/P/CIR/2024/132, 1 October 2024, on the equity index derivatives framework, and SEBI/HO/MIRSD/MIRSD-PoD/P/CIR/2025/0000013, 4 February 2025, “Safer participation of retail investors in Algorithmic trading”.
10. SEBI circulars HO/47/11/11(3)2025-MRD-POD2/I/2765/2026, 16 January 2026, introducing the closing auction session, and HO/47/11/11(3)2025-MRD-POD2/I/23843/2026, 15 October 2026, revising its timings from 7 December 2026.