STT Rates in India 2026: Cash, Intraday, Futures & Options Explained

Securities Transaction Tax (STT) is a government tax on every buy or sell of listed shares, futures, and options in India. Equity delivery pays 0.1% on both legs, intraday 0.025% on the sell side, futures 0.05% on sell, and options 0.15% on the premium. F&O rates rose from 1 April 2026.

If you've ever opened a contract note (the bill your broker sends after a trade, listing every charge) and stared at a line called "STT" eating into a trade you were proud of, you're not alone. Almost every beginner I meet finds out about this tax the hard way, after the deduction has already happened.

So let's pull it apart properly. What is STT, why does the government charge it, how does it differ across cash, F&O, and intraday, and most importantly, what does it actually cost you on a real trade.

What Exactly Is STT?

Securities Transaction Tax is a direct tax levied by the Government of India on the value of trades you do on a recognised stock exchange like the NSE or the BSE. It was introduced in 2004 by the then Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, and it's been part of every trade since.

The idea behind it was simple. Capital-gains tax depends on people honestly declaring their gains. STT is impossible to dodge: your broker deducts it automatically at the moment the trade executes and remits it directly to the government.

Three things make STT very different from any other charge on a trade:

• It applies to turnover, not profit. Turnover means the rupee value of the trade itself, not your profit on it. A losing trade still pays STT. There's no refund.
• It applies only to listed equity instruments. Not commodities, not currency, not debt mutual funds. Equity shares, equity-oriented mutual funds, and equity F&O — that's the universe.
• It applies only to exchange-traded trades. Off-market transfers, gifting, inheritance — none of these attract STT.

And critically, STT is a separate beast from capital-gains tax. The two coexist.

Paying STT does not exempt you from paying tax on your profits at year-end. Many beginners assume one cancels the other. It doesn't.

STT Rates Across Every Segment

Here's the single view you need. Every STT rate in one table, organised by segment, with the side that pays it marked clearly.

Notice the pattern. Delivery is taxed twice. You pay when you buy. You pay again when you sell. In intraday equity, futures, and options, STT is generally charged on the sell side only. The "sell side" simply means the side of the trade where you are selling, whether that's opening a short position or closing a long one.

That sell may be an exit (closing a long position), but it can also be an opening short trade or an option-writing trade. STT doesn't care which direction you opened in. It only triggers on the sell leg.

This is not an accident. The government wants you to invest for the long term, not flip stocks. Delivery is the one segment where holding the share creates real economic ownership; that's why both legs are taxed. In intraday and F&O, you're really paying a "speed-trading" toll.

What STT Actually Costs You — Worked Examples

Rates on paper don't mean much until you see them as real rupees. Below are five worked examples, one for each main segment, using the kind of trade an average retail trader actually does.

If there's one rule of thumb to take from all five examples, it's this: the cost of STT scales with how often you trade, not how much you make. Every additional trade is another tax event.

Budget 2026 — The Hike F&O Traders Felt Immediately

On 1 April 2026, the most significant STT change in over a decade kicked in. The Union Budget 2026 raised the futures rate by 150% and the options rate by 50%. Delivery and intraday rates were left alone — a deliberate signal from the government about which kind of trading it wants to encourage.

What's striking isn't just the size of the hike. It's how quickly the F&O rates have climbed in less than two years:

Why did the government do this? The official reason is investor protection. SEBI's 2024 study found that 93% of individual traders incurred losses in equity F&O between FY22 and FY24, and trading volumes had reached levels disproportionate to India's GDP. The Finance Minister effectively said: if so many people are losing, let's at least make the activity more expensive so fewer enter casually.

It's a classic "behaviour tax." Same logic as cigarette duties or alcohol excise. Make the costly behaviour costlier, and at the margin, fewer people will do it.

Calculate Your STT in 5 Seconds

The fastest way to get a feel for STT is to plug in a trade you'd actually do. Pick a segment, type in the numbers, and the calculator below will show you exactly what the government will take.

How STT Quietly Shifts Your Breakeven

Most traders think about STT as a one-time charge per trade. The better way to think about it is as a floor your strategy has to clear before it earns anything.

"STT doesn't care about your P&L. You pay it whether the trade made money or lost money. That changes how the math of an edge works."

Consider a Nifty futures scalper aiming for 5-point moves. Before April 2026, the STT cost was roughly 5 points on a one-lot trade. After the hike, it's roughly 12 points. The breakeven has more than doubled.

For an options seller running a delta-neutral weekly strategy with ₹3,000 of expected premium per lot, STT used to be a quiet 0.10% drag. It's now 0.15%. On 40 trades a month, that's an additional ₹600 in costs — which sounds small until you remember most retail option-selling strategies target 1–2% monthly returns. The extra STT can be 5–10% of your monthly target gone before you start.

The implication is uncomfortable but useful: strategies that worked in 2023 don't automatically work in 2026. If you copied a setup off YouTube two years ago, the underlying economics have shifted under you. The trader who treats their cost stack as a living thing — and re-runs the math every time rates change — is the one who survives.

Three Things People Get Wrong About STT

It's not the same as capital-gains tax

STT is paid at the moment of the trade. Capital-gains tax is paid when you file your return, on the profit you booked. They are independent.

Paying STT does not reduce your capital-gains liability. Many beginners think the two cancel out. They don't.

It's deductible only if trading is your business

The simple way to think about it: are you an active trader, or are you an investor? An active trader (typical for F&O and intraday) reports trading as business income. An investor (long-term equity holdings) reports gains as capital gains. The two have very different rules for STT.

If trading is your business, the STT you paid is allowed as a business expense under Section 36 of the Income Tax Act. You add it to your costs, and it reduces your taxable trading income.

For capital-gains investors, STT is generally not separately deductible while computing capital gains. It matters mainly because STT-paid listed equity transactions qualify for the special equity capital-gains regime (12.5% LTCG above ₹1.25 lakh on holdings > 1 year, 20% STCG). Off-market sales lose this benefit.

It's a government tax, not a broker fee

Some beginners think their broker is profiting from STT. They aren't. The broker is a pass-through. They collect STT at trade time and remit it to the government within a defined window.

Compare with brokerage charges, GST, and exchange transaction fees, which are real revenue lines for the broker and the exchanges. STT goes 100% to the Centre.