You buy delivery shares worth Rs 1,00,000 on Monday. You sell them Thursday for Rs 1,02,000. Your screen shows a Rs 2,000 profit.
Before your broker touches a paisa, statutory charges take Rs 217.20.
That number does not include brokerage, exchange transaction fees, GST on those services, or the two-tick slippage you gave away in a hurry. Most traders check the profit-and-loss report months later and wonder where the edge disappeared.
The bill was there from trade one. You just never opened the contract note.
Four charges that run before you see profit
Indian equity trades carry four layers of cost that start the moment your order fills. None of them negotiate.
Securities Transaction Tax (STT) is the main drag most people notice too late. On delivery trades, the rate is 0.1 percent on the buy side and 0.1 percent on the sell side. On a Rs 1,00,000 buy, that is Rs 100. On a Rs 1,02,000 sell, it is Rs 102. Total STT: Rs 202.
Intraday equity and futures pay STT only on the sell. Options sellers pay STT on the premium when they exit. If an option is exercised in the money, the buyer pays STT on the intrinsic value.
Stamp duty sits on the buy side. Delivery equity is 0.015 percent, so a Rs 1,00,000 purchase adds Rs 15. Intraday equity, futures, and options use lower rates, but the line item still appears every time you enter a trade.
SEBI turnover fee looks microscopic at 0.0001 percent, but it is charged on both sides. On Rs 1,00,000 it is Rs 0.10. On Rs 1,02,000 it is Rs 0.102. Across both legs, the total is about Rs 0.20.
GST at 18 percent applies only to the service side of the bill, such as brokerage and exchange transaction charges. It does not apply to STT, stamp duty, or the SEBI fee. That is why your statutory bill and your broker bill are two different things.
Add the official statutory pieces for the delivery example: Rs 202 STT, Rs 15 stamp duty, and about Rs 0.20 in SEBI fee. That totals roughly Rs 217.20 before brokerage, exchange transaction charges, GST on those services, or slippage.
Your Rs 2,000 gross profit is already Rs 1,783 net, and you have not paid the broker yet.
What changed on April 1, 2026
The NSE levy page updated its STT table on April 1, 2026. The changes hit derivatives harder than cash.
Equity futures now carry 0.05 percent STT on the sell side of every trade. A Rs 5,00,000 Nifty futures sell pays Rs 250 in STT alone. If you flip direction three times in a session, you pay that sell-side tax three times.
Equity options face 0.15 percent STT on the premium when you sell to close. If you bought a call for Rs 50 and sold it for Rs 80, you pay STT on Rs 80. That is Rs 0.12 per share, or Rs 120 for a hundred-share lot.
If the option expires in the money and you take delivery by exercising, STT applies again at 0.15 percent on the intrinsic value.
The big April 1 change was in derivatives, not delivery equity. Delivery STT stayed at 0.1 percent on the buy side and 0.1 percent on the sell side. What changed was the futures sell-side rate and the options sell-side premium rate.
Stamp duty did not change in this update. But the delivery-versus-intraday gap still matters because delivery attracts 0.015 percent on the buy side while intraday equity is charged at 0.003 percent.
None of this appears in your brokerage app's profit ticker during market hours. It shows up later in the contract note, grouped into a "statutory charges" line that most people scroll past.
Churn turns a winning idea into a losing month
Imagine you trade Nifty options ten times in April. You win six, lose four. Your win rate is sixty percent and your average winner beats your average loser.
Every one of those ten trades paid STT, stamp duty, SEBI fee, brokerage, and GST. If each round trip costs Rs 150 in combined charges, you spent Rs 1,500 before calculating whether your directional calls were right.
A trader who makes the same six correct calls but only takes three trades keeps Rs 900 of that Rs 1,500. Same market view, less churn, better month-end number.
Churn does not mean activity. It means paying the fixed cost too many times for the edge you actually captured. Scalpers and news traders accept high turnover because their holding period is seconds. Positional traders who check prices every hour and re-enter the same idea three times in a week are paying scalping bills for swing-trade returns.
The contract note does not care why you traded. It bills every entry.
How to read the contract note without falling asleep
Your broker emails a contract note within twenty-four hours of each trade. Most retail traders never open the PDF.
The top section lists the scrip, quantity, buy price, sell price. The middle section breaks out brokerage, transaction charges, STT, stamp duty, SEBI fee, GST. The bottom section shows net debit or credit to your ledger.
Look at the middle section first. If the total charges line is too large relative to your expected move, the setup may not be worth taking.
A Rs 10,000 intraday equity trade carrying Rs 150 in total costs needs a 1.5 percent move just to break even. That is a terrible starting point for a trade built around tiny intraday swings.
Compare the STT line across contract notes from the same month. If you see the 0.15 percent options rate appearing ten times, you sold ten option contracts. Multiply that count by your average premium and you will know exactly how much tax you paid for the right to trade.
Some brokers give you a consolidated tax statement in April. That document is accurate but arrives too late to change your behavior. The contract note arrives the next day. That is when you still remember why you took the trade and whether the cost was worth the setup.
One filter that saves more than stop-losses
Check the bill before you judge your edge.
If you lost Rs 3,000 in a week but paid Rs 1,200 in statutory and brokerage charges, your trade ideas only lost Rs 1,800. You are not as wrong as the account balance suggests.
If you made Rs 5,000 but paid Rs 2,500 in costs, your ideas made Rs 7,500 and the churn gave half of it back. You are better than your P&L shows, but you are overtrading the edge.
The April 1, 2026 levy table is public. The rates do not negotiate and they do not sleep. Every order you send pays the same bill whether you are right, wrong, early, or lucky.
Most traders track win rate, average profit, maximum drawdown. Almost none track cost per trade as a percentage of position size. That one number tells you whether your activity level matches your strategy's holding period.
Your brokerage app will not stop you from entering a trade that costs more to execute than the expected move. The contract note will simply bill you after the fact and move on to the next trade.
The fastest way to improve your next quarter is not a better indicator. It is opening the contract note from your last twenty trades and adding up the statutory charges line. If that number surprises you, your edge was always there—you were just paying too much rent to access it.