Zerodha breaks silence: US stock investing coming soon after years of delays

Zerodha, India’s largest stockbroker by revenue, will finally enter the US stock investing space next quarter, founder and CEO Nithin Kamath confirmed during a recent public Q&A.

The move marks a long-awaited shift for the Bengaluru-based firm, which has so far stayed away from offering US equities—even as competitors like Angel One, INDmoney, and HDFC Securities have jumped in.

“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,” Kamath said during a YouTube AMA with the company’s top brass.

Zerodha CTO Kailash Nadh added that the firm now has the required regulatory clarity through GIFT City, calling it a “long-pending” project. He said the company has been working on backend and frontend infrastructure to deliver a seamless product.

The US investing push comes at a time of slowing growth for Zerodha. Its revenue and profit fell for the first time in over a decade in FY25, hit by regulatory changes around F&O trading. Net profit dropped 15 percent to ₹4,200 crore from ₹5,500 crore, while revenue slid to ₹8,500 crore from ₹10,000 crore. Zerodha has projected an even steeper 40 percent decline in FY26.

This is not Zerodha’s first attempt. Kamath had first floated plans to offer US stocks in 2020 but cited pandemic disruptions and remittance issues as hurdles. The GIFT City route appears to have addressed some of those barriers by treating the zone as an international jurisdiction under FEMA, regulated by the International Financial Service Centre Authority (IFSCA).

Zerodha will likely use one of GIFT City’s two main platforms—India INX Global Access or NSE-IX’s Unsponsored Depository Receipts (UDRs)—to facilitate the offering.

The timing may be critical. Rival Groww halted US stock onboarding in early 2024 due to remittance complications and high TCS, while several mutual funds also stopped US exposure after hitting RBI’s overseas investment limits.