How to Open a Zerodha Minor Account: Guide for Parents

A minor account is a demat account opened in the name of a person below 18. A guardian — usually a parent — operates it on the child's behalf until they turn 18. Zerodha charges nothing to open the account and no AMC on it; you only pay brokerage and statutory charges where applicable.

One prerequisite people miss: to open the account online, the guardian needs their own Zerodha account, since the application runs through the guardian's login at signup.zerodha.com/minor. Without a guardian Zerodha account, the account must be opened offline.

• Minor's PAN card (digital copy) and Aadhaar number (for OTP verification)
• Guardian's PAN and address proof (passport, masked Aadhaar, driving licence or voter ID)
• Date-of-birth proof: birth certificate, school leaving certificate, passport, or higher-secondary marksheet — with an English extract if the certificate is in another language
• Passport-size photograph of the minor
• Minor's bank account proof: cancelled cheque, bank statement or passbook
• Guardian's signature (digital copy)
• Legal guardian letter, if the guardian is not the parent

The minor also needs their own bank account in their own name — a joint account works only if the minor is one of the joint holders.

1. Visit signup.zerodha.com/minor and log in with the guardian's Zerodha credentials

1. Enter the minor's PAN and date of birth

1. Verify via DigiLocker using the minor's Aadhaar

1. Complete In-Person Verification (IPV) — both guardian and minor

1. Upload documents and eSign with the guardian's Aadhaar

Online applications are typically processed within 48 working hours; offline applications take up to 72 working hours once all documents are received. You can open accounts for multiple children in the same sitting.

SEBI's rules for minor accounts are specific (Source: SEBI regulations, as summarised by Zerodha's support portal):

The gift route is the practical workaround for equity: you cannot buy stocks in the minor's account, but you can transfer shares you already own to them off-market. Money added to the minor's account can only pay charges — it cannot be used to buy securities.

Income a minor earns — dividends and capital gains — is clubbed with the income of the higher-earning parent under Section 64(1A) of the Income Tax Act, and that parent pays the tax. There is small relief: under Section 10(32), up to Rs 1,500 of the minor's income per year is exempt. Source: Income Tax Act, Sections 64(1A) and 10(32).

In practice: if you gift shares or the child's mutual funds pay dividends, expect to report it in your own ITR, not the child's.

The account cannot stay a minor account forever. On turning 18, the now-adult must complete a fresh KYC process, update signatures and contact details, and convert the account to a regular individual account. Until that is done, trading permissions remain restricted. Zerodha does not charge for the conversion, but the new KYC documents are mandatory.

This is also a good moment for the real lesson: hand the grown-up their six-year-old portfolio statement and walk them through what compounding did.

The five numbered steps above compress into one sitting, but each one exists for a reason — knowing what each stage checks helps you clear it first time:

1. Guardian login. The application runs through the guardian's own Zerodha account, so the guardian's KYC must be current. If the guardian's own mobile number or email has changed since they opened their account, fix that first.

2. Minor's PAN and date of birth. These must match exactly what is printed on the PAN card — this is the detail most applications stumble on when a nickname or initials sneak in.

3. DigiLocker verification. The minor's Aadhaar does the OTP verification here, so the minor's Aadhaar must be able to receive that OTP — usually on a parent's registered number.

4. IPV for both. In-Person Verification is a short video or selfie capture, and both the guardian and the minor complete it. A fussy infant counts as the minor's IPV; do it when the child is cooperative and the lighting is decent.

5. Upload and eSign. Documents go up digitally and the guardian eSigns with Aadhaar. Keep scans of the DOB proof and bank proof ready before you start — the session is short, and hunting for a birth certificate mid-application is how applications stall.

If the guardian has no Zerodha account, this online flow is unavailable and the account must be opened offline with physical forms — the reason to open your own account first, even if you never trade on it.

Since the minor cannot buy shares, the gift route carries all the equity exposure. Mechanically it is an off-market transfer: you sell nothing, you instruct your own demat account to move shares to the minor's demat account as a gift. In practice that means a Delivery Instruction Slip through your broker, or CDSL Easiest if you have set up the standing instruction online. The shares reflect in the child's account a day or two after the instruction executes.

Small transfer charges may apply on your side depending on your depository plan — check your DP's charges page before moving a large position, since the cost scales with the number of securities, not their value.

Three points make the gift route work cleanly. Gifts between close relatives carry no tax for the receiver, so the transfer itself creates no tax event for the child. The holding period for capital gains runs from when you originally bought, not from the gift date, which matters when the child sells years later. And dividends or later sales in the minor's account flow back to the clubbing rules described above — the income is the child's, the tax is yours.

Rejections and stalls on minor accounts come from document friction, not eligibility. The recurring ones:

• Name or date mismatch across documents. The DOB proof, PAN and bank account must agree on the minor's name and date of birth. A school certificate with a different name order than the PAN is the classic reject.
• DOB proof in a regional language without an English extract. The document list asks for an English extract if the certificate is in another language — attach it with the original, not instead of it.
• Parent's bank account instead of the minor's. The minor needs their own bank account in their own name (a joint account works only with the minor as one of the holders). Savings accounts for minors are quick to open at most banks — do this first.
• Aadhaar not reachable for OTP. DigiLocker verification fails silently when the minor's Aadhaar has no working registered mobile number.
• Guardian paperwork skipped. If the guardian is not the parent, the legal guardian letter is mandatory — no exceptions, no matter how obvious the relationship.

The minor account does not quietly become an adult account on the 18th birthday — it stalls until the now-adult completes conversion. That is a paperwork exercise, and it is the child's to run:

• Fresh KYC in the adult's own name, with updated documents
• The child's own signature replaces the guardian's operating signature
• Contact details — mobile and email — move to the child
• Bank account details revalidated in the same name
• Trading permissions stay restricted until every step completes

Conversion itself is free at Zerodha; the cost is the friction. Do it within weeks of the birthday, not years — a restricted account at 19 with a six-year-old portfolio in it is a poor first impression of investing.

The better framing for the handover: sit down with the statement before the conversion, walk through what each gift and each SIP month did, and let the numbers argue for continuing. An account that started as your project ends as theirs — that transition is the actual return on the whole exercise.

A Zerodha minor account costs nothing to open and nothing per year to maintain, which makes the cost of starting your child's investing education essentially zero. Set up a small SIP through Coin, gift a few shares on birthdays, and let the statement do the teaching. The best time to start was yesterday — the second best time is today.

This is for educational purposes only. Consult a qualified financial advisor for personalized advice.