Unique individual investors in F&O trading declines in FY26 but average per person loss widens

The number of retail investors trading in Futures and Options (F&O) segment in India declined in FY26 from a year ago but the average per person loss widened.

In FY26, 78.6 lakh individual traders in F&O compared to 98.1 lakh in FY25. The average per person loss for such traders rose to Rs 1.16 lakh in FY26 from Rs 1.13 lakh in FY25.

The data was shared by Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary in response to a question in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.

“SEBI has done an analysis of individual/retail participation in the F&O segment and their profitability outcome during the last five financial years,” he said. The data is based on information collected from the top 15 brokers in the equity derivatives market.

The sample used in the study represents approximately 90% of all individual investors in this segment.
The total turnover was Rs 202 lakh crore in the segment in FY26, a decline from Rs 213 lakh crore in the previous fiscal.

The minister further informed the House that SEBI has put in place regulatory and surveillance measures for effecting market stability and for the protection of the interests of investors in the stock market. SEBI has mandated risk disclosure to individual traders- mandated brokers to make a disclosure that ‘9 out of 10 Individual traders made losses in F&O in FY22’, when the users log in to the trading platform.

“Following the regulatory measures, SEBI has observed a year-on-year decline in the number of unique individual investors from 9.81 million to 7.86 million and net losses of the individuals from Rs 1,11,788 crores to Rs 91,685 crores in the equity derivatives segment in 2025-26, compared to the previous year,” the minister said.

However, the Centre’s collection of securities transaction tax from the F&O segment has increased over the years and amounted to Rs 27,695 crore in FY26 with Rs 19,802 crore from options and Rs 7,893 crore from futures. In FY25, the Centre had collected Rs 22,225 crore as STT from the F&O segment, the minister said.