What are stamp duty and registration charges?

Stamp duty is a state tax on the transfer of property, and registration is the separate fee for recording that transfer in the government register. Both are paid by the buyer, at the time of registration, out of your own money — lenders generally will not fund them. Rates are set by each state.

Why nobody can quote you one rate

Stamp duty is a state subject, so there is no national figure. Each state sets its own rate, revises it in state budgets, and applies different rates in different circumstances — urban against rural, apartment against plot, and in several states a lower rate where the buyer or co-buyer is a woman. Two identical flats in neighbouring states can attract materially different duty.

Registration is a separate charge on top, usually a much smaller percentage, and sometimes capped at an absolute amount. Because both are calculated on the higher of your purchase price and the government's own circle rate for that area, a property bought below circle rate is still taxed on the circle rate.

They are due in cash, on the day

This is the part that catches first-time buyers. A home loan is sanctioned against the property value, and lenders generally exclude stamp duty and registration from what they will fund. So the charges land alongside your down payment, at registration, from savings — which is why a buyer who budgeted only for the deposit can find themselves short at the last step.

Plan for them as part of the upfront amount rather than as an afterthought, and confirm the current rate with your state's registration department rather than a figure quoted in an article, since these move with state budgets.

Why we do not quote you a rate

You will find plenty of pages listing a stamp duty percentage for each state. They go out of date at the next state budget, and they cannot know whether your purchase qualifies for a concession, sits inside a municipal limit, or is being assessed on a circle rate above your price. A figure that is confidently wrong about a charge this size is worse than no figure.

So the honest approach is to take the rate from the source that sets it, then do the arithmetic on your own numbers. The department that will register your property publishes what it will charge, and that is the only version that binds.