Tax on intraday trading in India: rates, losses and turnover

Intraday profit is taxed as speculative business income. That means it is added to your other income and taxed at your income tax slab rate, not at the capital gains rates that apply to shares you hold. An intraday loss can only be set off against speculative profit, and you can carry it forward for four years if you file your return on time.

Which tax applies to which trade

Intraday means buying and selling the same shares on the same day. Shares you hold overnight or longer are taxed as capital gains, and futures and options as non-speculative business income.

A 4% cess is added to the tax in every case.

The slab rate

Under the new tax regime for FY 2026-27, income is taxed in slabs: nothing up to ₹4 lakh, then 5%, 10%, 15%, 20% and 25% on each further ₹4 lakh, and 30% above ₹24 lakh. If your total income, intraday profit included, is ₹12 lakh or less, a rebate brings the tax on it to zero. The rebate doesn't cover capital gains taxed at 20% or 12.5%.

Your intraday profit is taxed at the rate of the slab it falls in. Say you earn ₹15 lakh in salary, which is ₹14.25 lakh after the standard deduction, and make ₹1 lakh of intraday profit. The profit falls in the 15% slab, so it adds ₹15,000 of tax, plus ₹600 of cess.

What you can deduct

Because intraday trading is a business, you pay tax on profit after its costs. You can deduct brokerage, STT, exchange charges, stamp duty and GST. You can also deduct other costs of the trading, such as a charting or data subscription. Keep the bills.

This is one place where intraday differs from delivery trades. On capital gains you can't deduct STT. On intraday profit you can.

Intraday losses

• This year. An intraday loss can be set off only against speculative profit, which for most people means other intraday profit. It can't reduce the tax on your salary, your capital gains or your F&O profit.
• Later years. What is left can be carried forward for four years, again only against speculative profit.
• File on time. You can carry a loss forward only if you file your return by the due date.

For example, you lose ₹40,000 trading intraday in one year and make ₹60,000 the next. If you filed the first year's return on time, you pay tax on ₹20,000 in the second year. If you didn't, you pay tax on the full ₹60,000.

Your trading turnover

Turnover matters for whether you need a tax audit, and it isn't the value of the shares you traded. For intraday trading, the guidance from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) is to add up the profit or loss of each trade, ignoring whether it was a profit or a loss.

Under the rules as they stood for FY 2025-26, trading turnover under ₹10 crore doesn't by itself require an audit when nearly all your money moves through a bank. An audit can still be needed in other cases, for example when you report a loss or a low profit after using the presumptive tax scheme. The rules are detailed, so check yours with a chartered accountant.

Filing the return

Intraday income is business income, so you can't use the simpler ITR-1 or ITR-2. For FY 2025-26, filed in 2026, the form is ITR-3. A new Income-tax Act took effect on 1 April 2026, so check the form for later years when the department publishes it.

If the tax you owe for the year is more than ₹10,000 after any tax already deducted, you pay advance tax in instalments during the year, not all at once when you file.

Work out your tax

The capital gains and intraday tax calculator works out the tax on intraday profit at your slab rate, alongside short- and long-term gains. It can also read your Zerodha tradebook and split each sale into intraday, short-term and long-term for you. Intraday trading charges covers the charges you can deduct.

Tax on intraday profit = (intraday profit − trading costs − speculative losses carried forward) × your slab rate × 1.04

This guide explains the rules for a resident individual and isn't tax advice. Slab rates are as set for FY 2026-27, checked on 25 October 2026. Check anything that matters for your return with a chartered accountant.