DP charges and BSDA: what your demat account costs each year

A demat account costs you money in two ways. You pay a DP charge each time you sell shares out of it, and many brokers also charge a yearly fee to keep it open, called the AMC. A basic services demat account, or BSDA, is a type of demat account for smaller holdings that pays little or no AMC.

What the DP charge is

DP stands for depository participant. Your shares are held at a depository, CDSL or NSDL, and your broker is the participant that opens the account for you. When you sell shares from your demat, the depository and the broker each charge a fee for moving them out. Together, with GST, that is the DP charge.

At Zerodha it is ₹15.34: ₹3.50 to CDSL, ₹9.50 to Zerodha and ₹2.34 of GST.

When you pay it

• Once for each stock you sell on a day. Selling 10 shares of a stock costs the same as selling 1,000. Selling three different stocks on one day costs three DP charges.
• Only when shares leave your demat. Buying pays no DP charge. Intraday trades pay none, because the shares never reach your demat.
• On every day you sell. Selling half a holding on Monday and half on Friday pays the DP charge twice.

Because it is a flat fee, it costs most on small sales. At Zerodha it is 0.31% of a ₹5,000 sale and 0.03% of a ₹50,000 one.

DP charges and AMC at each broker

DP charges include GST. Rates are as each broker published them on 20 October 2026.

What a year costs

Say you hold ₹3 lakh of shares in a regular demat account and sell a stock 24 times a year. After the free first year:

If the same account were a BSDA, the AMC would be zero at every broker, and you would pay only the DP charges.

What a BSDA is

A BSDA is a demat account that SEBI requires every depository participant to offer to smaller investors. It works like a regular demat account and only the AMC is lower.

You qualify if you are an individual and hold only one demat account, as its sole or first holder, across both depositories. Your holdings, shares and bonds together, must be worth ₹10 lakh or less.

Your broker checks the value of your holdings regularly. It moves an account that qualifies to BSDA unless you have opted out, and moves it back to regular charges if your holdings grow past ₹10 lakh. If you have demat accounts with two brokers, neither one can be a BSDA.

BSDA or regular demat account

A BSDA only matters at brokers that charge an AMC. At Dhan, Fyers or Groww a regular account already pays none.

Keeping the cost down

• Sell a stock in one go on one day rather than in pieces over several days, when the trade allows it.
• On small positions, count the DP charge as part of the trade. The charges calculator includes it.
• If you have more than one demat account and use only one, closing the others can make the one you keep eligible for BSDA.

Broker charges compared covers brokerage at the same six brokers, and the broker comparisons put any two side by side.

Zerodha's DP charge breakdown and BSDA slabs are from its charges page, checked on 25 October 2026. Other brokers' figures are from their charges pages as published on 20 October 2026.