Best Demat Account in India (2026): Charges Compared

The best demat account is not a ranking — it is the one whose fee structure matches how you actually invest. A buy-and-hold investor who makes twenty trades a year and a weekly trader who makes two hundred are being billed by completely different line items. This page compares the five largest retail brokers on their own published numbers — AMC, DP charges, delivery brokerage and account opening — verified from their official charge pages on 2 November 2026, then turns that into a decision rule for each kind of investor.

The comparison table

All figures are from the brokers' own pricing pages, not aggregator reviews.

Source: Zerodha charges page, Upstox brokerage charges page, Groww pricing page, Angel One AMC and transaction charges pages, HDFC Sky pricing page — all fetched 2 November 2026.

DP charges: the second number nobody checks

Every sell you make from demat triggers a per-ISIN debit charge — the depository's fee plus the broker's own plus 18% GST. This is where brokers genuinely differ:

• Zerodha: ₹15.34 per scrip on sell (₹3.5 CDSL fee + ₹9.5 Zerodha + ₹2.34 GST), irrespective of quantity. Female first holders get a ₹0.25 discount on the CDSL fee.
• Upstox: ₹20 per scrip per day, only on sell.
• Groww: depository ₹3.5 (₹3.25 for women) plus ₹16.5 Groww fee — and the whole thing is waived when the debit value is under ₹100.

Source: Zerodha, Upstox and Groww official charge pages. Angel One's per-scrip DP rate sits on its tariff page rather than its FAQ — check your own tariff disclosure before opening, since DPs must publish it (Source: SEBI Depositories Master Circular, para 1.10.5).

Why it matters: a weekly trader selling ten ISINs a week at ₹20 a pop pays over ₹10,000 a year in DP charges alone, while a long-term investor selling four times a year pays about ₹60–80. The AMC headline and the DP rate reward opposite behaviours.

Broker by broker — who each one suits

Zerodha — the default for investors who outgrow zero-everything

Zero delivery brokerage, ₹20 flat intraday and options, the largest retail platform and a stable, boring product set. The cost is the ₹300 annual AMC from the second year (first year free for accounts opened on or after 1 June 2026) — unless you are on BSDA, where Zerodha charges nothing up to ₹4 lakh of holdings, ₹100 a year from ₹4 to ₹10 lakh. For someone with a serious long-term portfolio, ₹300 a year is the price of the platform most tools and the ecosystem assume you use. (Source: Zerodha charges page and BSDA support page.)

Upstox — zero AMC with flat ₹20 brokerage

₹0 AMC, ₹0 opening, ₹20 per delivery order, ₹20 DP charge per scrip on sell. If you trade in moderate size, flat ₹20 per order is cheap; on very small orders it is proportionally expensive. The zero-AMC structure removes the annual fee conversation entirely. (Source: Upstox brokerage charges page.)

Groww — the cheapest to hold, with a small-order catch

₹0 AMC, ₹0 opening, ₹20-or-0.1% delivery brokerage with a ₹5 minimum, and the friendliest DP charge for tiny sells (waived under ₹100 of debit value). For a beginner SIP-ing into stocks and ETFs in small lots, the waived micro-transaction DP fee is a real edge. (Source: Groww pricing page.)

Angel One — full app, first year free, then ₹240 a year

AMC is zero for the first year, then ₹60 plus GST per quarter (₹240 a year) for non-BSDA accounts — billed after your first trade each quarter. BSDA holders pay nothing up to ₹4 lakh and ₹100 plus GST a year from ₹4 to ₹10 lakh. New accounts get brokerage-free stock investments up to ₹500 in the first 30 days. (Source: Angel One AMC and transaction charges pages.)

HDFC Sky — the bank-broker bridge

Free opening, zero AMC for the first year, delivery at ₹20 or 2.5% per order (whichever is lower) — so a ceiling of ₹20 on most retail orders. The pitch is the HDFC ecosystem and a single app for stocks, F&O, funds and margin; the detail to check is what AMC applies after year one on your plan. (Source: HDFC Sky pricing page.)

What about ICICI Direct and other bank brokers?

Full-service bank brokers bundle research, branch support and a 3-in-1 account, and price accordingly — typically higher AMC and percentage-based delivery brokerage than the discount five. We could not verify their current demat tariff from their public pricing pages during this comparison, so no figures are quoted here. The reliable move: the depositories publish every DP's tariff structure on their websites precisely so investors can do this comparison (Source: SEBI Depositories Master Circular, para 1.10.5). Look up the DP on the CDSL or NSDL tariff list before signing anything.

The BSDA floor applies to everyone

Whatever the marketing says, SEBI has put a floor under what small investors can be charged. Since 1 September 2024, a Basic Services Demat Account — one account, sole or first holder, holdings up to ₹10 lakh — must carry NIL annual AMC up to ₹4 lakh of holdings and at most ₹100 a year from ₹4 to ₹10 lakh, with all other charges at par with regular accounts. DPs must open a BSDA by default for eligible accounts unless you opt out. (Source: SEBI circular SEBI/HO/MIRSD/MIRSD-PoD1/P/CIR/2024/91.) If you keep one account under ₹4 lakh, your AMC question is answered by regulation, not by any broker.

A decision rule per investor type

• Long-term investor, portfolio under ₹4 lakh, one broker: pick any zero-AMC broker (Groww, Upstox) or claim BSDA. Your annual holding cost is literally zero.
• Long-term investor, larger portfolio, few trades: AMC dominates, DP charges are noise. Zerodha at ₹300 a year is fine if you value the platform; Groww or Upstox are fine if you do not.
• Frequent delivery trader: DP charge × your monthly sells is the line that matters, then brokerage. ₹15–20 per sell ISIN is the working range across the big three.
• Derivatives trader: AMC and DP charges are irrelevant next to brokerage and the statutory stack — compare ₹20-per-order pricing and platform reliability.

To see your own pattern priced end to end, run it through the broker annual cost calculator — it takes your order pattern, AMC and BSDA status and returns the true annual figure including the statutory legs.

Things that should not decide this

• CDSL vs NSDL. Functionally identical for retail investors; the CAS covers both.
• Referral bonuses and opening offers. One-time credits against a recurring fee structure is a bad trade.
• App aesthetics. All five execute at the exchange in milliseconds; the differences you feel are workflow, not technology.

Switching later costs almost nothing

If you pick wrong, the exit is cheap: transfers between demat accounts run through CDSL easiest or NSDL Speed-e online, and moving an entire account to another DP with identical holders attracts no charge from the depository or the DP (Source: SEBI Depositories Master Circular, para 1.10.3). See our guide on how to transfer shares between demat accounts, and our close Upstox account walkthrough if the old account needs to go.

Two practical notes before you switch. First, move the portfolio in one batched instruction rather than ISIN by ISIN — every debit ISIN carries its own DP fee, so ten separate instructions cost ten times the depository fee of one. Second, do not schedule the switch across a record date: a dividend or buyback entitlement stays with the account holding the shares on the record date, and a portfolio mid-flight is exactly how entitlements get stranded at the old broker for weeks.

Sources

Official charge pages of Zerodha (zerodha.com/charges), Upstox (upstox.com/pricing), Groww (groww.in/pricing), Angel One (angelone.in AMC and transaction charges pages) and HDFC Sky (hdfcsky.com/pricing), all verified on 2 November 2026; SEBI BSDA circular 91 of 28 June 2024; SEBI Master Circular for Depositories of 3 December 2024.

Rank the brokers on your own trade log, not on a listicle. Zero AMC plus zero DP plus decent brokerage covers most beginners; platform habit covers the rest. And under ₹4 lakh of holdings, the BSDA rules make the AMC comparison moot — claim the tier and stop paying for a locker that regulation has already made free.