Zerodha plans to roll out US stock trading for users from next quarter

Zerodha is developing the product under GIFT City framework, which offers regulatory clarity for international financial services and investments under the IFSCA

Stock broking platform Zerodha may soon enable its users to trade in shares listed on United States (US) markets, founder and CEO Nithin Kamath has confirmed.

 

Speaking at an ‘Ask Me Anything’ session with Zerodha’s leadership, Kamath said, “A lot of people tagged me on social media and asked about the US investing thing. We are working on it, and we should have something in the next quarter.”

 

Adding to it, Zerodha’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Kailash Nadh said, “Investing in foreign stock has been a long-pending thing. We now have the requisite regulatory clarity through GIFT City. We now have the requisite regulatory clarity through GIFT City. We are trying to build a simple and seamless experience for users in the backend as well as in the frontend.”

 

He also added that initially, the overseas investment will be limited to the US stocks.

 

According to a report by Moneycontrol, Kamath has earlier mentioned offering investment in US stocks, but stayed away from it, citing remittance regulations as one of the challenges. The GIFT City, however, provides faster resolution to such transactions, paving the way for foreign investments.

Gateway to international markets

The Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City) is India’s first special economic zone, which is designed to host institutions dealing in global finance, insurance, fintech, and capital markets. These financial activities are regulated by a single unified regulator called the International Financial Service Centre (IFSCA).

 

There are two ways to invest in US stocks via GIFT City – India INX’s Global Access, a subsidiary of BSE, and NSE-IX. Multiple brokerages like INDmoney, Motilal Oswal, Axis Direct, HDFC Securities, etc allow traders to invest in US stocks.

 

Zerodha’s performance

The announcement comes at a time when Zerodha recorded a 40 per cent drop year-on-year (Y-o-Y) drop in its brokerage revenue in the first quarter of the financial year 2025-25 (Q1FY26). The first recorded total revenue of ₹8,500 crore, with net profit at about ₹4,000 crore in FY25, down from ₹9,994.5 crore ₹5,493.4 crore in FY25, respectively.

 

“That said, the regulatory actions, be it the drop in transaction charges revenue, the increase in securities transaction tax (STT) on futures and options, the proposal to make futures and options trading tougher, application supported by blocked amount (ASBA) for trading, the increase in Basic Services Demat Account (BSDA) limit etc, will have a significant impact on our revenues and profitability. The time has finally come for business to pivot,” Kamath said in a blog post recently.