Stamp duty and registration charges in Mumbai

The two charges

Stamp duty is a state tax on the transfer. Registration is the fee for recording it. They arrive together and people budget for one.

On a flat of one crore, that is 6,00,000 in duty and 30,000 in registration for a male buyer. Our stamp duty calculator works it out on your own numbers, including the reckoner floor.

These rates are Mumbai. Pune, Thane and Nagpur add a local body tax and come out higher, and rural rates are lower.

What the metro cess is

A 1 percent levy on top of the base stamp duty, used to fund the metro rail. It is the reason the headline figure in Mumbai is 6 percent rather than the 5 percent base rate, and it is why a quote of "five percent" from someone working off an old note is wrong by a full percentage point.

What it is calculated on

Not necessarily the price you agreed. Duty is charged on the agreement value or the ready reckoner value, whichever is higher, so a flat bought below the government valuation is still taxed on that valuation.

See the ready reckoner post, which also covers the income tax consequence of a price more than 10 percent below the reckoner rate.

The woman buyer concession

A female buyer pays one percentage point less, so 5 percent against 6 percent, on residential property held in her sole name. On a flat of one crore that is a saving of 1,00,000.

Joint ownership is where it gets murky, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. For a man and a woman buying together, sources genuinely disagree: some apply the male rate of 6 percent in full, others a blended rate of 6.5 percent. We could not resolve it to a standard we would publish.

Budget for the higher figure and confirm at the sub registrar office before you commit. Our calculator shows the range rather than picking one for you.

If the deal falls through

Duty paid on a transaction that does not complete is not automatically lost. The Department of Registration and Stamps runs a stamp duty refund service on its own portal.

We could not confirm the current time limit or the conditions to a standard worth publishing, so ask at the sub registrar office rather than assuming. The thing to know is that a refund route exists, because plenty of people write the money off without asking.

What we do before a client agrees a price

We look up the reckoner value before anyone talks numbers, not after. Stamp duty is charged on whichever is higher, the price in the agreement or the government's ready reckoner value for that flat, so the reckoner figure is part of the price of the flat whether the buyer has heard of it or not.

The timing matters for a second reason. In September 2024 the Supreme Court held that where an agreement for sale hands over possession, the duty is owed on that agreement when it is signed, and a later sale deed does not wipe out the earlier liability. Duty paid late attracts a penalty of 2 percent of the shortfall for every month it stays unpaid. So the duty is worked out at the agreement stage, and the money has to be ready then.

The trap to know about is a reckoner value that sits above the agreed price. It is unusual in these suburbs, where asking prices generally run well above the reckoner, but it happens where a price is low for its zone: an old building, a sale in a hurry, a flat passing between relatives at a family price. When the gap is more than 10 percent, the buyer pays duty on the higher reckoner figure and, under section 56(2)(x) of the Income Tax Act, is taxed on the difference as income. The seller faces the mirror image under section 43CA. Checking the reckoner figure first is how that surprise is avoided.

Before you budget

Work out duty on the reckoner value and treat that as your number; if the agreed price turns out lower, the surprise is a pleasant one. The stamp duty calculator does it in a minute, and if you would like the exact figure for a specific flat in Borivali, Kandivali or Malad, tell us the building and we will confirm it.