SEBI's new transmission rules, in force from 22 August 2026
SEBI rewrote this by a circular dated 23 July 2026, and the new framework took effect on 22 August 2026. If a page you are reading quotes Rs 5 lakh or Rs 15 lakh, it is describing the old rules.
| Until 21 August 2026 | From 22 August 2026 | |
|---|---|---|
| Physical shares, simplified route | Rs 5 lakh | Rs 10 lakh per company |
| Demat account, simplified route | Rs 15 lakh | Rs 30 lakh per account |
| Very small holdings | no separate route | Rs 10,000 physical, Rs 30,000 demat |
| Heir's paperwork | separate affidavit AND NOC | one affidavit-cum-NOC |
| Surviving joint holder | death certificate, KYC, indemnity | death certificate only |
| Time to process | not fixed | 21 calendar days |
| Probate | required in some cases | no longer a blanket requirement |
A death certificate carrying a verifiable QR code is now accepted, which matters when the certificate was issued by a municipal body you cannot easily visit.
The value decides the paperwork
Below Rs 10 lakh per company in physical shares, or Rs 30 lakh in demat, no court is involved at all and no legal heirship certificate is needed either.
What you produce is the transmission request form, the death certificate, your KYC, a notarised indemnity bond (your written promise to cover the registrar if another heir later disputes the transfer), and one notarised affidavit-cum-NOC signed by the legal heirs. A notarised family settlement deed can stand in place of the affidavit-cum-NOC.
Physical holdings are tested per listed company, not across the portfolio, so several modest holdings can each sit under the limit even when the total does not.
Above the limit you need more, but still not necessarily a court.
Quick Transmission Processing, for small holdings
The new framework adds a faster route for genuinely small holdings, called Quick Transmission Processing, up to Rs 10,000 for physical securities and Rs 30,000 for demat. The paperwork drops to a transmission request-cum-undertaking on plain paper, with a document proving your relationship to the deceased.
Both conditions must hold: the value sits inside those limits, and the claimant is an immediate relative, which SEBI defines here as a parent, spouse, child or parent-in-law. A sibling, nephew or cousin does not qualify for this route even on a tiny holding and falls back to the simplified set. Worth noting because SEBI's insider-trading rules define "immediate relative" differently, and that definition does include siblings.
The amounts are small enough that people abandon these holdings. Left unclaimed, shares and dividends move to the Investor Education and Protection Fund after seven years, and recovering them from there is a separate claim on Form IEPF-5 that takes far longer than transmitting now.
Signing it all from abroad
Everything above assumes you can sign. From another country that is the step that actually costs weeks.
An affidavit, indemnity or no-objection executed outside India is normally accepted once it has been notarised where you are and then apostilled, if your country is in the Hague Apostille Convention, or attested by the Indian embassy or consulate if it is not. Heirs scattered across different countries do not have to sign one physical copy: each can execute their own and they are submitted together.
A document executed abroad still has to be stamped in India, within three months of the date it first reaches India. A courier left unopened in a drawer can cost you that window.
One thing that has got simpler: whatever the holding looked like, it will not come back to you on paper. Securities are issued in demat form only, and since April 2026 they are credited straight to your demat account. The old Letter of Confirmation, with its 120-day deadline to convert, has been abolished.
Above the limit, a court order is only one of three routes
This is the part that costs families most, because they assume a large holding means a court case. It does not.
Above the limit you provide the affidavit-cum-NOC plus ONE of the following three:
| Route | What it is |
|---|---|
| A Will | with a notarised indemnity bond |
| A legal heirship certificate | from a competent government authority, with a notarised indemnity bond |
| A court instrument | succession certificate, letter of administration or court decree |
Only the third involves a court. A succession certificate under Sections 370 to 390 of the Indian Succession Act takes months and needs appearances that are awkward from abroad, so it is worth exhausting the first two before accepting it.
The second route is the one people overlook. A legal heirship certificate comes from the local revenue authority where the deceased lived, not from a court, and the succession and legal heir certificate page sets out how it differs and how an heir abroad obtains one. It is a materially lighter document than a succession certificate.
Probate is also a smaller part of this than it was. SEBI removed the blanket probate requirement, in line with the repeal of Section 213 of the Indian Succession Act in December 2025. A registrar may still ask in a contested case, but it is no longer the default.
A nominee is a trustee, not the owner
Where a nominee is named, the shares transmit to them without any of the above. That is not the same as the nominee inheriting them.
The Supreme Court settled this in Shakti Yezdani v Jayanand Salgaonkar: a nominee holds the securities as a trustee for the legal heirs. Nomination decides who the company hands the shares to, succession law decides who owns them. If you are the nominee on one holding and a co-heir on another, those are two different roles.