How much commission does a NEPSE broker charge?

Broker commission is slab-based, from 0.36% on the first Rs. 50,000 down to 0.243% above Rs. 1 crore. Each slab applies only to its own portion of the trade, the way income tax brackets work, so a large trade is not charged one flat rate. There is also a Rs. 10 minimum commission per transaction.

What is the SEBON fee on share trading in Nepal?

The Securities Board of Nepal charges 0.015% of the transaction amount on both the buy side and the sell side. It is separate from broker commission and is not negotiable.

What is the DP charge and why is it Rs. 25?

The DP (depository participant) charge is a flat Rs. 25 per company per settlement day, paid to whoever holds your DEMAT account, for moving shares in or out electronically. It does not scale with quantity, so it is trivial on a large trade and painful on a small one.

Do I pay charges when I buy, or only when I sell?

Both. Commission, SEBON fee, and DP charge apply on the buy and again on the sell. That round trip is why your break-even sell price sits above your buy price before any tax is counted.

Why did my small trade get charged more than 0.36%?

Because of the Rs. 10 minimum commission. On a trade below roughly Rs. 2,778, the slab calculation produces less than Rs. 10, so you pay the Rs. 10 floor instead. On a Rs. 1,000 buy that is 1% in commission alone, before the Rs. 25 DP charge.

NEPSE Broker Commission and SEBON Charges Explained

You buy 25 kitta of a stock at Rs. 673. The screen says Rs. 16,825. Two days later the broker bill arrives and the amount debited is Rs. 16,913.09.

That Rs. 88.09 gap is not an error and it is not your broker skimming. It is three separate charges that every NEPSE trade pays, and one of them is a flat fee that behaves very differently depending on how much you traded. Most people find out about them by noticing the gap. It is better to know them before you place the order.

The three charges on every trade

Broker commission

This is the only one that goes to your broker, and the only one that changes with trade size. It is slab-based:

Transaction amount	Commission rate
First Rs. 50,000	0.36%
Rs. 50,001 to Rs. 5,00,000	0.33%
Rs. 5,00,001 to Rs. 20,00,000	0.306%
Rs. 20,00,001 to Rs. 1,00,00,000	0.27%
Above Rs. 1 crore	0.243%

The word "slab" is doing real work here, and it is where most people get the math wrong. The rates work like income tax brackets: each portion of your trade is charged at its own rate, not the whole trade at the rate its total lands in.

So a Rs. 60,000 buy is not 60,000 x 0.33%. It is:

First Rs. 50,000 at 0.36% = Rs. 180
Remaining Rs. 10,000 at 0.33% = Rs. 33
Commission = Rs. 213

If you had applied 0.33% flat you would have got Rs. 198 and wondered why the bill was higher.

There is also a floor: Rs. 10 minimum commission per transaction. Below roughly Rs. 2,778 of trade value, 0.36% works out to less than Rs. 10, so you pay Rs. 10 regardless. On a Rs. 1,000 trade that is 1% in commission, not 0.36%.

SEBON fee

A flat 0.015% of the transaction amount, paid to the Securities Board of Nepal. It is not negotiable, it does not have slabs, and it applies to both buys and sells. On the Rs. 16,825 trade above it comes to Rs. 2.52. It is the smallest of the three and almost never the thing worth worrying about.

DP charge

Rs. 25, flat, per company per settlement day, paid to whoever holds your DEMAT account. It pays for the electronic movement of shares in or out of your account.

Flat is the important word. This charge does not care whether you bought 5 kitta or 5,000. Which means:

On a Rs. 200,000 buy, Rs. 25 is 0.0125% of your money. Ignore it.
On a Rs. 2,000 buy, Rs. 25 is 1.25% of your money. The commission on that same trade is Rs. 10, so the DP charge is two and a half times the amount your broker earns.

If you buy three different companies on the same day, that is three Rs. 25 charges, not one.

The full picture: a worked example

Buy 25 kitta at Rs. 673, then sell the same 25 at Rs. 750 inside a year.

Buy side

Item	Amount
Share amount (25 x 673)	Rs. 16,825.00
Broker commission (0.36%)	Rs. 60.57
SEBON fee (0.015%)	Rs. 2.52
DP charge	Rs. 25.00
Total paid	Rs. 16,913.09

Your effective cost per share is 16,913.09 / 25 = Rs. 676.52, not Rs. 673. This is the number that matters for every profit calculation you do afterwards.

Sell side

Item	Amount
Share amount (25 x 750)	Rs. 18,750.00
Broker commission (0.36%)	Rs. 67.50
SEBON fee (0.015%)	Rs. 2.81
DP charge	Rs. 25.00
Net received before tax	Rs. 18,654.69

Profit

Rs. 18,654.69 minus Rs. 16,913.09 = Rs. 1,741.60 before tax. Capital gains tax at 10% (held under 365 days) takes Rs. 174.16, leaving Rs. 1,567.44.

The price moved Rs. 77 per share, which looks like Rs. 1,925 on 25 shares. You kept Rs. 1,567.44. Charges and tax took 18.6% of the move.

You can run your own numbers on the share calculator rather than doing this by hand.

The framework: charges scale, one charge doesn't

Two rules cover almost every decision you will make about trading costs.

Rule 1: fees land twice. Commission, SEBON fee, and DP charge apply on the way in and again on the way out. This is why a stock that returns exactly to your buy price is a small loss, not a break-even. Your break-even sell price is always above your buy price.

Rule 2: the flat charge decides whether small trades make sense. Commission and SEBON fee are percentages, so they stay proportional at any size. The Rs. 25 DP charge is fixed, so its bite shrinks as trade size grows. Buying and selling the same Rs. 2,000 position costs 3.53% of your money in charges. At Rs. 20,000 it is 1.00%. At Rs. 200,000 it is 0.73%, and past that it barely moves.

The practical consequence: if you are averaging into a position with five separate Rs. 5,000 buys, you are paying five DP charges and five minimum-ish commissions. The same Rs. 25,000 bought in one order pays one of each. That is not an argument against averaging in, which has its own reasons. It is an argument for knowing what the convenience costs, and for not making the lots smaller than they need to be.

Where this breaks

Rates change. These figures are the SEBON-mandated rates effective from Jestha 1, 2081 BS. Commission slabs have been revised before and will be again. If you are reading this a year from now, check the current circular rather than trusting the table above.

Brokers can differ at the edges. Some add small handling or transfer charges outside the SEBON schedule. Your contract note is the authority, not this article and not any calculator.

DP charge assumptions vary. Rs. 25 per company per settlement day is the common structure, but how it is applied when you make multiple trades in the same scrip on the same day depends on your DP. If you trade actively in one stock, look at an actual bill before assuming.

This is equity only. Mutual funds, debentures, and the IPO/FPO path have their own charge structures. Do not carry these numbers across.

Capital gains tax is not a charge. It comes out of profit, not out of principal, so it only exists when you make money. The 10% and 7.5% rates for resident individuals are a final tax from FY 2083/84 onward. Entities and non-residents are taxed differently.

What to check next

Open your last broker bill and find the four lines: share amount, commission, SEBON fee, DP charge. Divide the total by your quantity and see what you actually paid per share. If you have been tracking your cost basis at the screen price rather than that number, every profit figure in your head is slightly optimistic.

Then read how to calculate profit after selling shares in Nepal for the full round trip including tax.