Stamp duty and registration charges in Bangalore total 7.6% in 2026. The full line-by-line breakdown, worked examples, and the slab myth explained.
Stamp duty and registration charges in Bangalore total 7.6 percent of property value in 2026 for property inside urban limits. That figure breaks into four separate line items: 5 percent stamp duty, 0.5 percent cess (levied as 10 percent of the stamp duty), 0.1 percent urban surcharge (2 percent of the stamp duty), and a 2 percent registration fee. The registration fee doubled from 1 percent to 2 percent on 31 August 2025 under notification RD/46/MNMU/2025, published in Karnataka Gazette Extraordinary No. 513 and issued under Section 78 of the Registration Act, 1908. All four charges are calculated on the higher of your sale consideration or the government guidance value. On a ₹5 crore apartment you pay ₹38 lakh. On a ₹25 crore purchase you pay ₹1.9 crore.
Total statutory cost inside urban limits is 7.6 percent. Outside urban limits it is 7.65 percent, because the surcharge rises from 2 percent to 3 percent of the stamp duty.
The registration fee moved from ₹10 per ₹1,000 to ₹20 per ₹1,000 effective 31 August 2025, the first revision since 2003 (KSandK, September 2025).
The widely republished slab table of 2 percent up to ₹20 lakh and 3 percent up to ₹45 lakh sits in Article 20(2A) of the Karnataka Stamp Act and applies only to the first sale of a flat or apartment. It does not apply to resale flats, plots, or independent houses (MagicBricks, 2021).
Karnataka offers no stamp duty concession for women buyers, unlike Delhi, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. The rate is identical regardless of gender (Square Yards, 2026).
At 7.6 percent Karnataka still sits below Tamil Nadu at roughly 9 percent and Kerala at roughly 10 percent, per Inspector General of Registration M.P. Mullai Muhilan (The Logical Indian, September 2025).
Home loans do not fund the registration fee. On a ₹10 crore purchase that is ₹20 lakh of cash you must have on the day.
The single number most buyers want is 7.6 percent. It is correct for the overwhelming majority of Bangalore transactions, meaning any property above ₹45 lakh inside Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike or Greater Bengaluru Authority limits.
What matters more than the number is the base it is applied to. Every one of these charges is calculated on whichever is higher, your declared sale consideration or the government guidance value for that location. You cannot register below guidance value, which is why the guidance value floor decides your tax bill before you have negotiated a single rupee of price.
In central Bangalore this rarely binds. On Lavelle Road, Vittal Mallya Road and Sadashivanagar, actual transaction values run well above guidance value, so the higher-of test resolves to the price you actually paid. In outer corridors the reverse happens more often than buyers expect.
Buyers think of this as one payment. It is not. It is five, and they are levied under three different statutes.
| Charge | Rate | Calculated on | Levied under |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stamp duty | 5 percent | Higher of sale value or guidance value | Karnataka Stamp Act, 1957, Article 20 |
| Cess | 10 percent of the stamp duty (0.5 percent effective) | The stamp duty amount | Karnataka Stamp Act, 1957 |
| Surcharge, urban | 2 percent of the stamp duty (0.1 percent effective) | The stamp duty amount | Karnataka Stamp Act, 1957 |
| Surcharge, rural | 3 percent of the stamp duty (0.15 percent effective) | The stamp duty amount | Karnataka Stamp Act, 1957 |
| Registration fee | 2 percent | Higher of sale value or guidance value | Registration Act, 1908, Section 78 |
Cess and surcharge are levied on the duty, not on the property. That distinction is why they look small. Ten percent of a 5 percent duty is 0.5 percent of the property, not 10 percent. Buyers reading a rate card and adding 5 plus 10 plus 2 arrive at a figure that terrifies them for no reason.
Scanning and document handling charges at the sub-registrar's office are separate and nominal, typically a few hundred rupees depending on page count. They do not move the arithmetic.
This is the most consequential error circulating in Bangalore property content, and it appears in Google's own AI-generated summary of this question.
Almost every guide, lender page and listing portal publishes a slab table reading 2 percent up to ₹20 lakh, 3 percent between ₹20 lakh and ₹45 lakh, and 5 percent above ₹45 lakh. Presented that way, it looks like a universal value-based ladder.
It is not. Those concessional bands come from Article 20(2A) of the Karnataka Stamp Act, inserted by Act 55 of 2020 effective 19 November 2020 and extended by Act 26 of 2021 effective 5 October 2021. The provision was written to support affordable housing, and its wording restricts it to an instrument of conveyance relating to the first sale of a flat or apartment. MagicBricks reported at the time of the 2021 reduction that the lower rate applies only to first sale, described as primary sale, and is not applicable on resale.
The practical consequence is expensive and specific. A buyer purchasing a ₹40 lakh resale flat in Bangalore does not pay 3 percent. They pay 5 percent, because the concession never reached them.
Here is what that costs:
₹40 lakh flat, first sale from developer
Stamp duty at 3 percent: ₹1,20,000
Cess at 10 percent of duty: ₹12,000
Urban surcharge at 2 percent of duty: ₹2,400
Registration fee at 2 percent: ₹80,000
Total: ₹2,14,400
₹40 lakh flat, resale
Stamp duty at 5 percent: ₹2,00,000
Cess at 10 percent of duty: ₹20,000
Urban surcharge at 2 percent of duty: ₹4,000
Registration fee at 2 percent: ₹80,000
Total: ₹3,04,000
The gap is ₹89,600 on the same asset at the same price. Plots and independent houses fall outside Article 20(2A) entirely at every value. If you are weighing resale against a new launch, this belongs in the comparison.
In my own transactions the number of buyers who arrive with a budget built on the wrong slab is high enough that I now raise it before we shortlist anything.
The Government of Karnataka issued notification RD/46/MNMU/2025 on 29 August 2025, published in Karnataka Gazette Extraordinary No. 513, amending the Table of Registration Fees under Section 78 of the Registration Act, 1908. Article 1(4)(a) moved from ₹10 per ₹1,000 to ₹20 per ₹1,000, taking the fee from 1 percent to 2 percent effective 31 August 2025.
Stamp duty itself was untouched. Total statutory cost moved from 6.6 percent to 7.6 percent.
The reason was revenue. Karnataka's Department of Stamps and Registrations collected ₹22,500 crore against a ₹26,000 crore target in FY 2024-25, a shortfall of ₹3,500 crore, and first-quarter FY 2025-26 collections ran 35 percent below target (NewsFirst Prime, August 2025). The state considered raising stamp duty by 1 percentage point instead, which would have pushed Karnataka above the 6 percent stamp duty threshold and out of line with neighbouring states. Raising the registration fee achieved the same revenue while keeping the headline duty at 5 percent.
The change also caught Joint Development Agreements and the General Power of Attorney documents executed alongside them, which is why it landed hardest on the central Bangalore redevelopment pipeline. I covered that in detail in the analysis of the August 2025 revision.
The arithmetic is linear. Take the higher of sale value or guidance value, apply 5 percent, then apply 10 percent and 2 percent to that duty figure, then apply 2 percent to the base again.
₹75 lakh apartment, urban limits
Stamp duty at 5 percent: ₹3,75,000
Cess at 10 percent of duty: ₹37,500
Urban surcharge at 2 percent of duty: ₹7,500
Registration fee at 2 percent: ₹1,50,000
Total: ₹5,70,000
₹5 crore apartment, urban limits
Stamp duty at 5 percent: ₹25,00,000
Cess: ₹2,50,000
Urban surcharge: ₹50,000
Registration fee at 2 percent: ₹10,00,000
Total: ₹38,00,000
Before 31 August 2025 the same purchase cost ₹33,00,000. The revision added ₹5 lakh.
₹25 crore purchase, urban limits
Stamp duty at 5 percent: ₹1,25,00,000
Cess: ₹12,50,000
Urban surcharge: ₹2,50,000
Registration fee at 2 percent: ₹50,00,000
Total: ₹1,90,00,000
The registration fee component alone moved from ₹25 lakh to ₹50 lakh on a transaction of that size.
Buyers relocating from Delhi, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh or Madhya Pradesh routinely assume that adding a female co-owner to the sale deed reduces stamp duty. In those states it does, by 1 to 2 percentage points.
In Karnataka it does not. The rate is identical for every buyer regardless of gender, and the only value-linked relief in the Act is the first-sale flat concession described above.
This matters because ownership structuring has real consequences elsewhere. If you are placing a property partly in a spouse's name, do it for succession, funding source, or capital gains planning on eventual sale reasons. Do not do it expecting a stamp duty discount that Karnataka does not offer.
The surcharge is 2 percent of the stamp duty inside municipal corporation limits and 3 percent outside them. That moves the effective surcharge from 0.1 percent to 0.15 percent, and the total from 7.6 percent to 7.65 percent.
On a ₹5 crore purchase the difference is ₹25,000, which is immaterial. What is not immaterial is knowing which side of the line your property sits on before you generate the challan, because paying the wrong amount stalls registration on the day.
This bites most often on land and villa purchases in Devanahalli, Nandi Hills and the Kanakapura stretch, where jurisdiction has been actively redrawn during the transition from BBMP to the Greater Bengaluru Authority. Buyers looking at luxury villas across Devanahalli and the outer corridors should confirm jurisdiction in writing rather than assume.
Karnataka has moved stamp duty payment onto the Kaveri Online Services portal, run by the Department of Stamps and Registration. Physical stamp paper and trips to an authorised collection centre are no longer required for most transactions.
The sequence is straightforward. Register on the portal, select your document type, enter the region and property details to pull the applicable guidance value, generate the valuation, pay the duty and registration fee by net banking, UPI or card, and generate the challan. You then book an appointment slot at the jurisdictional sub-registrar's office and attend with the parties, two witnesses, and identification.
Two practical notes from transactions I have closed. First, the portal's valuation output is the number the sub-registrar works from, so any discrepancy between it and your expectation needs resolving before the appointment, not at the counter. Second, if your appointment was booked before a rate change and completed after it, the differential must be paid through the portal before registration completes.
Registration is the last step, not the first. Everything that protects you happens before it: title and encumbrance verification, Khata status, and the occupancy certificate.
Lenders fund the property. They do not fund the statutory cost of transferring it.
At 1 percent this was a rounding error in most buyers' plans. At 2 percent it is not. On a ₹10 crore purchase the registration fee alone is ₹20 lakh in cash, on top of the stamp duty, on top of the down payment, all due at the sub-registrar's office on the day. Buyers structuring a ₹5 crore-plus purchase across a home loan, loan against property, or a construction-linked plan need this line item modelled separately from the loan.
This is where I see the most avoidable stress in a transaction. The sale is agreed, the loan is sanctioned, and the buyer discovers three days before registration that ₹38 lakh of cash needs to clear. For NRI buyers moving funds from overseas, that timeline is tighter still.
Stamp duty in Karnataka is instrument-specific, not property-specific.
Gift deed to a non-family member: 5 percent of market value, plus cess and surcharge, the same as a conveyance.
Gift deed to a specified family member: a fixed ₹1,000 plus cess and surcharge, rather than a percentage of value. This is the single largest concession in the Act and the reason intra-family transfers are structured as gifts rather than sales.
Partition deed: duty varies by property type and location, assessed on the separated shares rather than the whole.
Lease: duty scales with the lease term, running roughly 0.5 percent of average annual rent for a term up to one year and rising from there. Commercial occupiers should read this alongside the lease clauses that actually cost money.
Separately, note that stamp duty is a one-time transfer cost. It is unrelated to the annual property tax you pay under the Greater Bengaluru Authority, which is calculated on a different basis entirely.
The difference between a correctly modelled statutory cost and a guessed one runs into lakhs on a ₹5 crore purchase and into crores above ₹25 crore. Slab eligibility, jurisdiction, and the guidance value your property will actually be assessed at are all verifiable before you commit, and all three are routinely got wrong.
Sadhwani Real Estate Holdings has advised on Bangalore property transactions since 1991, including the ₹50 crore Kingfisher Towers transaction reported by Business Standard. If you are buying, selling, or structuring a transaction and want the acquisition cost modelled properly before you sign, speak with us through the contact form. Select your requirement type and budget range, and we respond within 24 hours. The office is at No. 66, Bella Vista, Lavelle Road, Bengaluru 560001.
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