This calculator gives you the realistic, after-cost picture of any stock trade.
About this calculator
This calculator gives you the realistic, after-cost picture of any stock trade. The headline gain on your broker app rarely tells the full story -- brokerage, STT, exchange fees, GST and capital gains tax all pull money out of your pocket. By feeding in actual buy and sell dates, brokerage rates and quantities, you can see net profit, absolute return, holding period and the tax you would owe.
The Indian capital-gains regime treats listed equity differently based on holding period. Hold for less than 12 months and any gain is Short Term Capital Gains, taxed at a flat 20% from FY 2024-25 onwards. Hold for more than 12 months and the gain is Long Term Capital Gains, taxed at 12.5% but with a 1.25 lakh per-year exemption that applies across all your equity LTCG combined. The calculator picks the right bucket automatically and applies the exemption only to LTCG.
For traders, the small-but-frequent costs add up fast. A 0.03% brokerage on each leg, 0.1% STT on the sell, plus GST and exchange fees can easily push break-even up by 0.5-1% per round trip. Discount brokers help, but high churn always loses to low-churn investing because of taxes alone -- every realised gain restarts the compounding clock and pays tax. Use the [[normal-sip]] calculator for systematic investing returns, the [[lumpsum]] calculator for one-time investments and [[capital-gains-tax]] for property and gold.
Common uses
- Estimating realised profit on a completed trade including brokerage and STT
- Deciding whether to sell now or wait past 12 months for LTCG benefit
- Comparing two trades on absolute return and annualised return
- Planning tax-loss harvesting -- offsetting losses against gains
- Computing notional gain on a paper portfolio for performance review
Frequently asked questions
What brokerage rate should I enter?
Use the rate from your broker
Why is the STT on the sell side and not buy?
Securities Transaction Tax for delivery-based equity is charged at 0.1% on both buy and sell, but for intraday it
How is the holding period calculated?
It
Does the LTCG exemption of 1.25 lakh apply per stock?
No -- it
Can I claim losses against future gains?
Yes -- short-term capital losses can offset both short and long-term gains, while long-term losses can only offset long-term gains. Unutilised losses can be carried forward for 8 years if you file your ITR before the due date.