If I want to take NSE Alpha membership, what are the day to day compliance to be followed

Let’s say if I have makeup my mind to take NSE’s Alpha membership for my personal use only and for F&O segment only, now I have following questions in my mind

  1. What are those day to day compliance and reporting requirements I have to follow?

  2. Do I need to hire staff for any specific operations?

  3. Expected cost for software and other infrastructure buildup (will use NSE’s NOW software)

  4. Deposit money with NSE, and out of total deposit amount, how much can be used for trading?

  5. I want to trade through algo, so API documentation buildup and integration with NSE’s server cost?

  6. Any agency/company helping in taking NSE’s membership? and helping in day to day compliance fulfillment?

  7. Total one time cost? and yearly recurring cost?

  8. Is there any additional cost to get market data feed ?

  9. Which way ll be better, Individual?, partnership?, proprietorship? LLP? from taxation and liability purpose?

Simply, I want to know all the required info to take a membership from 0 to the 100 before applying for membership, because I am personally thinking to take Nse’s Alpha membership

Let me know if there is any other points from your side, that I have not mentioned above

I will be very much grateful to you if you can help me in this, Thank you in advance.

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@nithin and @ShubhS9 can you please guide in above matter?

Why would want to take alpha membership?

Most of the answers can be given by NSE itself, better have a word with them.

There is an old thread (NSE Alpha Membership) in which Nithin answered questions related to NSE Alpha membership. It still remains relevant for many of your questions. Quoting directly from that thread where relevant

There is a Compliance Calendar which lists out annual, half yearly, quarterly, daily compliance requirements for the members of the exchange




As far as I can find, that initial deposit ( aka Interest Free Security Deposit (IFSD) ) is only returned when you surrender the membership and not before that. But as suggested above, better to ask NSE directly


As that thread is old, that cost might be out of date. In recent Kite Dev forum threads, the cost for co-location (mainly used for HFT) is mentioned as around 18L/annum


Couldn’t find any agency/company advertising such services on the internet. But I think full-service law firms specializing in this area would be able to help


Many of the one-time and recurring costs have been mentioned above. For exchange specific one-time & annual costs, refer to this


Basic market feed is provided free of cost to all trading members (Found this mentioned in a SEBI document) but for TBT data (which might be helpful in algo trading) isn’t free (refer to this thread - How do I get tick by tick data directly via NSE - #2 by nithin)

Presently, the Exchanges provide a snapshot of the 5 best bid and ask quotes free of cost to all the trading members. This snapshot is updated almost every second. Trading members and their constituent clients place orders based on the best bid and ask quotes displayed in the snapshot.


This is something a CA or a lawyer specializing in this area would be better able to guide/help you with


Lastly, I do want to share a tweet that I came across. For more context, this was a conversation between a trader (who posts daily P/Ls running into 6-7 figures consistently) and a person (who asked if NSE Alpha membership would be an alternative for them). From what I can guess, that trader would be managing capital in the range of 8-9 figures but even they are frank enough to say that NSE Alpha membership isn’t for them due to various regulatory/compliance/capital/infra burden that Alpha brings with it. Maybe Alpha membership doesn’t make sense until one is managing capital in the range of 9-10 figures. This is also what Nithin remarked in the original thread

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Thanks a lot Prayag, seems you have done lot of R&D on this, and I got all the question’s answer in very satisfied manner. I will be grateful to you for this.

How much time it takes to get NSE Alpha membership ?

I want to know the duration of the procedure.

I don’t have complete knowledge about this, the best way would be to ask NSE directly about it. Their Trading Member manual might also be helpful.

But I have heard Nithin remark that it takes around 2 years to get a broking license in an interview (At 30:20). The admission process diagram on the NSE website demonstrates the various steps that need to be followed before becoming a trading member.

I am talking about prop trading not broking license.