Stamp duty and registration charges in Tamil Nadu

Registration fee on a sale, exchange, gift, or settlement among non-family members was cut from 4% to 2%. Confirm the rupee amount on tnreginet.gov.in on the day of registration. Last checked 11 November 2026. This is not legal advice and it is not a tax opinion. A broker can tell a buyer where the official figure lives. A broker should not invent the bill.

The department’s payment screen did not load on 4 November 2026, and tnreginet.gov.in did not answer on 11 November 2026, so this page does not copy a full sale-deed percentage from a secondary calculator. The rows below are the figures read off government documents.

Composite value, in that order, is the undivided share of land plus the building. The duty uses the composite value set out in the document or the composite value fixed by the authority, whichever is higher. A resale of an older flat is not given a separate percentage on this page.

Where the value comes from

If the price written in the document is below the market value in the guideline register, the registering officer can refer the document under section 47-A of the Indian Stamp Act, 1899. That is the rule described in the department’s policy note. The guideline figure itself changes by street and by survey. Read it on tnreginet.gov.in. The broker note, which prints no guideline rate, is guideline value. As of 11 November 2026 the October draft revision was still not a final notification. tnreginet.gov.in did not load for this check.

The women’s concession

G.O. (Ms) No.77 is a registration-fee cut, not a cut in stamp duty. It applies only when the purchaser is a woman, or, on a joint purchase, when every purchaser is a woman. The value is the market value or guideline rate on the day of presentation, and it must be up to Rs.10,00,000. The order says a property should not be split on purpose to fit under that cap. If a later building inspection finds the value is above Rs.10 lakh, the order says the reduced fee has to be paid. There is no refund of a fee already paid before the notification.

A worked example, using only the published flat rate

Registering without a visit, and office days

The 2026-27 policy note describes presenceless registration from 17 August 2026. The Salem district site carries the same start date: salem.nic.in. From that date the note says a first sale of a plot, together with a deposit of title deeds, and a first sale of a flat, together with a deposit of title deeds, are presented only through that online method. You do not visit the office for that presentation, and you do not book a token for it. The registered copy comes back to the login. From 2 November 2026, news reports on a government order say settlement, release, partition and revocation-of-settlement deeds between family members must be registered paperless. The Hindu, The New Indian Express on 9 October 2026, and DT Next reported an order of the Commercial Taxes and Registration Department dated 7 October 2026, described as Phase 2 of Anywhere Registration under STAR 3.0. The deed is prepared online and e-signed with Aadhaar, but the parties still go to the sub-registrar office for identification, so this method is not presence-less. The order text was not read for this page. The reports said the rollout was subject to software readiness. Oneindia Tamil on 5 November 2026 reports the method as in force from 2 November. Check the current steps on tnreginet.gov.in. The longer note is settlement, partition and gift deeds. Identity checks use Aadhaar in the paperless method the same note describes. Read the screen on tnreginet.gov.in for who can use it today.

Since the STAR 3.0 software change, news reports say survey numbers for some newly formed house plots are missing from tnreginet in several districts, so those plots cannot be registered. Oneindia Tamil on 5 November 2026 and Dinakaran reported this, with no date for a fix. The Hindu on 31 October 2026 reported the minister acknowledging delays and technical glitches, and a promise to fix them within a month, and said about 40,000 online registrations had been completed. The 5 November reports still gave no date. First check the number on the online patta at eservices.tn.gov.in. If it is there but not on tnreginet, write to the sub-registrar with the patta extract and the layout approval. Do not type a nearby survey number. A wrong survey number in a deed is a title defect.

Saturday hours are a separate question. The New Indian Express on 2 October 2026 reported that Saturday working at 100 sub-registrar offices ended from 1 November 2026. The Hindu on 31 October 2026 reported the minister saying those offices would follow a five-day week from November. This page has not read the government order behind those reports. Do not travel on a Saturday until your own office confirms it is open.

A newspaper report on 30 October 2026 said the government had sanctioned five model registration hubs, in Chennai North, Chennai Central, Chennai South, Chengalpattu, and Coimbatore, for jurisdiction-free registration. The same reports describe them as a pilot that is not yet open. This page prints no hub fee. The report is The Hindu, 30 October 2026.

This page does not list auspicious dates. The government pages read for this guide do not publish a muhurtham calendar. Book a weekday and confirm the office.

The 2% registration-fee line is the department’s own policy note for 2024-25: stamps policy note 2024-25. The first-sale stamp-duty cut is in the 1 December 2023 gazette. A later order, G.O. (Ms) No.166 dated 19 December 2025, is described in the 2026-27 policy note as a set-off of stamp duty and registration fee where a construction agreement was already registered for the same apartment. This page does not redo that arithmetic.

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