Which app calculates capital gains tax on shares in India in 2026?

Quick Answer: Broker tax reports, tax-filing services and portfolio trackers can all compute capital gains on shares. Each one applies the Income Tax Department's rules: 20% on short-term gains, and 12.5% on long-term gains above ₹1.25 lakh for sales on or after 23 July 2024. Multibagg AI tracks holdings but does not compute capital gains tax.

Which app you pick matters less than the rules it applies and the data you give it. A tool reading your broker's trade history can apply the right rates and still produce a wrong figure from wrong purchase lots, bonus allotments or pre-2018 costs.

Using the Income Tax Department's own pages, this guide sets out what a capital gains calculator has to get right for listed shares in India in 2026. It explains tax mechanics. It is not tax advice.

What do broker reports and tax calculators each compute?

Three kinds of tool usually compute capital gains on shares: a broker's back-office tax report, a tax-filing service's calculator, or a standalone portfolio tracker that imports your transactions. Indian searches for this question often name Zerodha, Groww and ClearTax.

Whichever one you use, check its output against the statute. Holding periods, rates, FIFO matching and deductible costs are all set out in the Income Tax Department's tax rules on the sale of shares (last updated 30 April 2026, read 18 September 2026). An app can be no more accurate than its version of those rules.

Multibagg AI is a research platform, not a tax calculator. Multibagg's Portfolio lets you connect a broker account and monitor returns, volatility, sector allocation and risk.

Those holdings can also be explored with Ask Iris, Multibagg's AI assistant. Neither tool claims to compute capital gains tax.

What are the capital gains tax rates on shares in India in 2026?

For listed equity shares sold through an exchange with STT paid, short-term gains are taxed at 20% and long-term gains at 12.5% above ₹1.25 lakh a year. Both rates have applied since 23 July 2024 (Income Tax Department, as of 18 September 2026).

India changed tax statutes on 1 April 2026. According to the CBDT's transition FAQs, the Income-tax Act, 2025 replaced the 1961 Act, and income earned from that date falls in "Tax Year 2026-27". The rates carried over. Our explainer on how Budget 2026 kept LTCG and STCG rates unchanged covers the rate history in more detail.

Section 196 of the Income-tax Act, 2025 sets 20% on short-term gains from STT-chargeable equity shares and equity-oriented fund units, while Section 198 sets 12.5% on long-term gains above ₹1,25,000.

Source: Income Tax Department, incometaxindia.gov.in, as of 18 September 2026. Rates are before any surcharge and cess.

Each sale date carries its own rate, and a calculator for 2026 has to apply the one that matches. Trades on 22 July 2024 and 23 July 2024, one day apart, fall under different rates.

How is STCG different from LTCG on listed shares?

STCG and LTCG on listed shares are separated by the holding period. A listed equity share held for 12 months or less gives short-term capital gains (STCG), while one held for more than 12 months gives long-term capital gains (LTCG). Unlisted equity shares need more than 24 months to count as long-term.

Tax treatment differs too. STCG on listed shares is taxed at a flat 20% regardless of your slab. LTCG gets an annual exemption, since Section 198 taxes only the gains above ₹1,25,000 at 12.5%. Under Sections 196 and 198, Chapter VIII deductions cannot be set against either type of gain.

Take a worked example. A resident sells listed shares in 2026 and has long-term gains of ₹2,00,000 for the year. With the first ₹1,25,000 exempt, the remaining ₹75,000 is taxed at 12.5%, which comes to ₹9,375 before surcharge and cess. If the same ₹2,00,000 were short-term, tax at 20% on the full amount would be ₹40,000.

There is one carve-out, and it covers both types. Where a resident individual's other income falls short of the basic exemption limit, the department's sale-of-shares guidance allows that shortfall to be set off against these gains before the special rate applies.

What does a capital gains calculator need from you?

A calculator needs four facts for every lot: the purchase date, the purchase price, the sale date and the sale price, taken from contract notes. Where listed shares are sold through a broker, the department treats the date of the broker's note as the transfer date, provided delivery follows.

Costs also change the result. A tool must keep transfer expenses separate from Securities Transaction Tax, because one that subtracts STT understates your gain.

Multibagg's explainer on STT, GST and stamp duty on a trade separates the charges that count from those that do not, and our breakdown of exchange transaction charges and taxes shows where each line item ends up.

Next come corporate actions. Bonus shares count their holding period from the allotment date, so a bonus lot can be short-term while the original lot is long-term. To check a corporate action's dates, look up the company's filings on the Multibagg Stocks hub, which covers NSE and BSE-listed companies.

Buybacks get their own treatment, which our note on Budget 2026 buyback tax changes covers. Gifted and inherited lots need the previous owner's dates, covered below.

How does a calculator handle FIFO lots and grandfathering?

For shares held in demat form, the department requires First-In-First-Out (FIFO) matching. Shares that entered your demat account first are treated as sold first, which fixes both the holding period and the cost of acquisition for each sale.

FIFO can split a single sale. Say you bought 100 shares in March 2025 and 100 more in June 2026, then sold 150 in August 2026: the first 100 sold match the March 2025 lot, held for more than 12 months, and give LTCG. The other 50 match the June 2026 lot and give STCG. A tool that averages cost across all 200 shares gets the split wrong.

Older holdings fall under grandfathering. For listed equity bought before 1 February 2018, the cost of acquisition is the higher of the actual cost and the lower of two values: the share's highest quoted price on 31 January 2018, and the sale value. In the department's own example, a share bought at ₹1,400 had a 31 January 2018 high of ₹1,800, so the cost is taken as ₹1,800 and only the gain above that level is taxed.

Every pre-2018 holding needs that 31 January 2018 price in the calculator. Before relying on the result, check whether your tool fills it in or asks you to enter it.

Is there capital gains tax on shares gifted to children?

Gifting shares to a child is not a transfer, so the parent owes no capital gains tax on the gift itself (Income Tax Department, updated 27 May 2026). Tax arises only when the shares are later sold. A minor child's income is clubbed with the higher-earning parent's income (Section 64(1A), Income-tax Act, 1961; Section 99, Income-tax Act, 2025).

Nor does the child have income on receipt. Section 56(2)(x) (Income-tax Act, 1961) can tax gifts worth more than ₹50,000, but property from a specified relative, which includes a father or mother, is outside it (Income Tax Department, page updated 30 April 2026).

At sale, the previous owner's figures carry across: the department deems that owner's cost to be the recipient's cost of acquisition, and the previous owner's holding period is added on. So a share a parent bought in 2019 and gifted in 2026 is long-term on the day it arrives. Shares received by will or inheritance get the same treatment.

In a calculator, a gifted lot needs the original purchase date and price, not the date of the gift. A tool that records the gift date as the purchase date could treat the lot as short-term and apply 20% where 12.5% above the exemption applies. Multibagg does not compute this figure. Ask Iris can, however, help you research a company's corporate actions and filings over the combined holding period.

Disclaimer: This article is for educational and informational purposes only. Multibagg AI is not a SEBI-registered investment adviser or research analyst, and it does not provide investment, financial, legal or tax advice. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy, sell, hold or invest in any security. Market data is shown as of the dates stated and may have changed since. Please consult a SEBI-registered adviser before making any investment decision.