Stamp Duty and Registration Charges in India: 2026

The flat is priced at ₹75 lakh. The cheque everyone budgets for is ₹75 lakh. The cheques that actually clear are closer to ₹81-82 lakh — and the largest of the extras are stamp duty and registration charges, the two levies no buyer can negotiate away. Banks rarely finance them, they arrive before you get keys, and they are set by a state government you do not vote with your feet. This post covers what they are, what each major state charges as of November 2026, where women pay less, how GST and TDS stack on top, and a full worked example.

What these charges actually are

Stamp duty is a tax on the document that transfers the property — the sale deed. Under the Indian Stamp Act, 1899 (and state re-enactments of it), an unstamped or under-stamped deed is not merely incomplete; it is inadmissible as evidence in court, which is why the state can charge what it likes and you will still pay. Registration charges are separate: the fee the Sub-Registrar's office collects under the Registration Act, 1908 for recording the deed in public records. Stamp duty is the tax; registration is the paperwork that makes the transfer public and enforceable.

Both are levied by states, which is why the same flat costs a different amount in paperwork depending on which side of a highway it sits. Together with GST (under construction only) and TDS (₹50 lakh-plus only), they are the reason Indian property purchases carry an all-in overhead of roughly 5-9% over the sticker price before brokerage and legal fees — a drag our real estate guide and rent-vs-buy guide both build into their maths.

How the amount is calculated

The levy applies to the higher of the agreement value or the circle rate — the government's own floor price for your locality, called the ready reckoner value in Maharashtra or guideline value in Tamil Nadu. Understate the deed price and the calculation simply uses the circle rate; many states now also pull the higher figure back into your capital-gains base when you eventually sell (Section 50C of the Income-tax Act). Some states add a surcharge or cess on top — Mumbai's 1% metro cess, Karnataka's surcharge and cess — so the headline rate and the payable rate differ in a few cities. The state tables below quote the payable rate for a typical urban resale purchase; rural areas and newly developing localities usually run lower.

State-wise rates as on 3 November 2026

Official state IGR portals are patchy to read from outside; where a state's own page was not fetchable today, the figures are corroborated across the independent sources named in the paragraphs after the table. Treat the table as a planning figure and confirm the final rate with your local Sub-Registrar — states revise mid-year, and a few did so within the last eighteen months.

Notes on the moving parts, each verified on 3 November 2026: Karnataka doubled its registration fee from 1% to 2% with effect from 31 August 2025 (announced by the Stamps and Registration Department; reported by The Indian Express), lifting the all-in urban total to roughly 7.6% for properties above ₹45 lakh. Tamil Nadu's registration fee for sale deeds is 2% on market value — reduced from 4% by a government order effective 1 April 2023 (the 9% combined total is confirmed in the state's own fee-structure circular cross-verified against TNReginet; many 2026 articles still quote the stale 11%). Telangana's rate split — 4% stamp duty, 1.5% transfer duty, 0.5% registration, 6% total — is quoted by most 2026 buyer guides (Magicbricks, Bajaj Finserv), but some trackers (BankBazaar, Square Yards) carry a higher 5.5% stamp figure; no official Telangana page was fetchable today, so verify locally. Sources for the table: 99acres (February 2026 table), Magicbricks stamp-duty calculator pages, and state-specific guides by Bajaj Finserv, Square Yards, propertykawach and Landeed — cross-checked against each other; official confirmation exists for Karnataka (department statement via Indian Express), Tamil Nadu (state circular) and Rajasthan (state urban development department documents).

The women-buyer concessions

Registering in a woman's name is the oldest legitimate discount in Indian real estate, and the savings are not trivial — on ₹75 lakh, a 1% concession is ₹75,000:

• Delhi gives women the widest cut: 4% against 6% for men, 5% for joint ownership.
• Maharashtra gives a 1% remission (5% against 6% in Mumbai) — a concession that began as a limited-window offer in 2021 and now runs without the fifteen-year cap the state briefly imposed.
• Uttar Pradesh widened its women's rebate to a flat 1% on properties up to ₹1 crore from July 2025 (it earlier applied only below ₹10 lakh) — worth up to ₹1 lakh.
• Rajasthan charges women 5% against 6%; Haryana 5% against 7% urban (3% against 5% rural); Gujarat both a 1% duty cut and a waiver of the 1% registration fee for sole women owners.
• Tamil Nadu grants a 1% registration-fee concession for women on properties up to ₹10 lakh, effective from April 2025.

West Bengal, Karnataka and Telangana currently give no gender-based concession. Two mechanical notes: the concession applies when the property is registered solely in the woman's name (joint titles usually split the difference), and the deed must genuinely vest in her — routing a family purchase through a token title has both legal and tax consequences. Source: state government remission orders as reported in the sources above; the UP cabinet decision of July 2025 received wide press coverage (Hindustan Times, 99acres).

What GST applies to — and what it does not

GST touches only under-construction property. A residential unit bought from a builder before the completion/occupancy certificate attracts 5% GST without input tax credit (1% for affordable-housing units); once the certificate is received, the sale is a completed-immovable-property transfer and carries no GST at all — which is why resale flats never attract it. Source: GST Council rate schedule effective 1 April 2019, as reflected in CBIC instructions to developers — cross-checked against four independent tax guides as on 3 November 2026, since the CBIC/PIB pages were not directly fetchable today. On a ₹75 lakh under-construction flat, GST alone adds ₹3.75 lakh — the single largest reason the same building costs more new than resale.

The 1% TDS when the price crosses ₹50 lakh

If the consideration is ₹50 lakh or more, the buyer must deduct 1% TDS on the higher of the contract value or the stamp-duty value and deposit it against the seller's PAN — one per cent of ₹75 lakh is ₹75,000. It is the seller's tax, not an extra cost to you, but it leaves your account at closing and the seller recovers it only through their return (our TDS refund guide covers that path, and the deduction certificate is what lets them claim credit).

The paperwork changed this year. From Tax Year 2026-27, under the Income-tax Act, 2025, the old Form 26QB is replaced by Form 141, Schedule B — the provision itself moved from Section 194-IA of the 1961 Act into Section 393(1) of the 2025 Act, with the same 1% rate and the same ₹50 lakh threshold. Form 141 merges the old 26QB/QC/QD/QE into one form with separate schedules, is filed with PAN rather than TAN, is due within 30 days of month-end, and generates the Form 132 TDS certificate from TRACES. Source: Income Tax Department FAQ on Form 141 (incometaxindia.gov.in), fetched 3 November 2026. Payments made before 1 April 2026 still report through 26QB.

Who pays what on a resale

• Buyer: stamp duty, registration charges, legal due diligence, loan processing, society transfer premium (nominal, regulated by committee rules in most states).
• Seller: capital gains tax on the profit, outstanding society dues and utility arrears, brokerage if an agent serves them, and any income tax due on undisclosed cash components — which is precisely why paying in white protects the buyer too.
• Buyer deducts, seller receives: the 1% TDS above ₹50 lakh.
• Split by agreement: brokerage when both sides use the same agent; anything else is negotiated, but stamp duty almost always lands on the buyer because the law ties it to the transferee.

Worked example: the ₹75 lakh flat

Two common endings, as on November 2026:

The TDS row is the seller's money flowing through your account, not a cost — but it is cash you must have ready. The all-in overhead lands near 8-9% in both cities, comfortably inside the 5-9% band this site uses across its property posts; the under-construction route costs more upfront in GST and less in duty, and shifts the completion risk onto you.

Three legitimate ways the bill shrinks

1. Register in a woman's name where a concession exists — the single largest lawful discount, worth up to 2% in Delhi.
2. Claim it under 80C — stamp duty and registration on a new residential house count toward the ₹1.5 lakh Section 80C limit in the year of purchase, under the old tax regime only. Source: Income Tax Department, Section 80C scope as on 3 November 2026.
3. Watch the circle rate before you negotiate — if the government floor for the locality is above your deal price, the duty computes on the floor; knowing it in advance stops both a shock and an under-declared deed, which carries penalties up to 200% of the shortfall under the Stamp Act.

Budget the duty honestly at the offer stage, not the registration-office stage. A flat you can buy is a flat you can register.

This is educational content, not legal or tax advice. State rates change with budgets and circulars — confirm the current rate and any concession at your local Sub-Registrar's office before transacting. Figures as on 3 November 2026.