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Fees, Spread and TDS on One Trade

Published by the Drishti team · Reviewed 2026-11-07 · Researched and edited with AI assistance.

Module 3 · Chapter 5 of 8 · ~5 min read · Tax and law facts as of November 2026

The last chapter showed you the spread, the gap you pay just by trading right now. A single trade also carries an exchange fee and 1% TDS. Add all three and you see what one round trip, a buy followed by a sell, really costs.

• ₹41fee on both legs of the trade
• ₹105TDS withheld, credited back later
• ₹303kept after fee, spread, TDS and tax

5.1 Three costs, three places they hide

The fee is the only cost you choose to see; the exchange lists its rate on a pricing page. The spread sits inside the price itself, so you never get a separate line for it.

TDS, tax deducted at source, is a slice the exchange sends to the tax department before the rest reaches your balance. These three decide how much of your money survives the round trip.

5.2 The exchange fee

The fee pays for the exchange's matching engine, charged on both legs of a trade. Assume an illustrative rate of 0.2% a side; real rates vary by exchange.

On a ₹10,000 buy that is ₹20. On a ₹10,500 sale it is ₹21. Named apps such as CoinDCX, Mudrex and ZebPay quote fee tiers between 0.1% and 0.5%. Check your own app's pricing page before you trade.

5.3 The spread, paid without a receipt

You meet the spread twice on a round trip. Buying, you pay the ask, a touch above the mid-price. Selling, you receive the bid, a touch below it.

On our trade, the mid-price was near ₹9,995 going in and ₹10,505 coming out. The ask added about ₹5 on the buy, the bid took about ₹5 on the sell. Together that is the ₹10 round-trip cost from the last chapter.

5.4 TDS: not a cost, but cash you wait on

The exchange holds back 1% of your sale value under Section 393. It deposits that against your PAN, your Permanent Account Number, with the tax department. On a ₹10,500 sale that is ₹105.

This is not an extra charge on your tax bill. Think of it like the TDS a bank cuts from your fixed deposit interest past a limit: an advance payment, set against what you owe.

Your flat tax on the gain is 30%, plus 4% cess, a small add-on levy, for an effective 31.2%. On our ₹500 taxable gain that bill is ₹156. The ₹105 already withheld counts against it. Only ₹51 is still due when you file.

Practitioners do not agree on every detail here: when the yearly threshold counts as crossed, and how same-day round trips are treated. The 30% rate and 1% TDS are fixed law; the finer mechanics are not applied the same way everywhere. Treat the figures below as a teaching example, not advice.

5.5 The full cost of one round trip

Put fee, spread and TDS on one real trade.

A ₹500 gain looked like a win, yet fee, spread and tax carried off most of it. The table below isolates the trading cost: assume you sell at the same price you bought, so no gain muddies the picture. Spread is set at 0.1%, matching the ₹10 found on a ₹10,000 trade. TDS gets its own column because it is a credit, not a cost.

Cost holds at 0.5% on every row. Once TDS switches on, the exchange also withholds 1% of the sale, but that comes back as a credit when you file. The fee and spread never do.

A kirana shop keeps a khata, a running ledger of every rupee in and out. Treat your trades the same way: note the fee, price and TDS on each sale, so nothing surprises you at filing time.

This chapter is educational only. It is not tax, legal or investment advice. Check current rules with a chartered accountant.

Next: selling and withdrawing to your bank.

Key takeaways

• Fees are not the only cost; the spread and TDS add to it too.
• You pay the spread twice: once buying, once selling.
• TDS is a credit against your tax, not an extra charge; claim it in your ITR.
• Only the cost of acquisition reduces your taxable gain; fees and spread do not.
• On our ₹10,500 sale, fee, spread and tax left ₹303 of the ₹500 gain.
• Fee and spread cost about 0.5% of a trade; TDS withheld on top is a credit.

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Educational & illustrative only — not investment advice. Drishti Pro publishes AI-generated trade ideas and their public track record for information. Crypto is volatile and you can lose money. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell any asset. Do your own research.