How to calculate capital gains tax on NEPSE shares.

The two CGT bands

For an individual Nepali investor (this guide does not cover institutional rates):

• Long-term gain (held more than 365 days): taxed at 3.75%.
• Short-term gain (held 365 days or fewer): taxed at 5%.
• Realised loss: no CGT on that sale. The September 2026 reform plan mentioned working out gains net of losses; how that will apply had not been set out when this page was updated.

The boundary is strict: exactly 365 days held is still short-term. To qualify for the long-term 3.75% rate, you need to hold for at least 366 days.

These bands took effect on 22 September 2026. A sale from 17 July to 21 September 2026 was taxed at 10% and 7.5%, and an earlier one at 7.5% and 5%, so an older contract note will not match the numbers here. What changed, and when.

The cost basis: not just buy price × quantity

A common mistake is to treat cost basis as "quantity × buy price". In NEPSE that undercounts what you actually paid, because you also paid:

• Broker commission: tiered by trade size, with a floor of NPR 10:

• SEBON fee: 0.015% of the transaction amount, on both buy and sell.
• DP charge: flat NPR 25 per scrip per transaction, on both buy and sell.

Bought in lots? WACC sets the cost, FIFO sets the rate

If you bought 100 shares of NABIL in 2022 and 50 more in 2024, and you sell 80 today, two different rules apply. The cost is your WACC in MeroShare: the total you paid for all 150 shares, fees included, divided by 150. The holding period follows FIFO: the 80 sold count as 80 from the 2022 lot, so they are long-term (held more than 365 days) and taxed at 3.75% rather than 5%.

CDSC applies both when you complete EDIS, which is why your WACC has to be up to date in MeroShare before you sell. See how to calculate and update WACC.

A worked example

Suppose you bought 100 shares of XYZ at NPR 500 on 1 January 2024 and sell them at NPR 700 on 25 September 2026 (held 998 days, long-term, so the long-term band of 3.75% applies).

Buy side:

• Buy amount = 100 × 500 = NPR 50,000
• Commission = 0.36% of 50,000 = NPR 180
• SEBON fee = 0.015% of 50,000 = NPR 7.50
• DP charge = NPR 25
• Total buy cost (cost basis) = NPR 50,212.50

Sell side:

• Sell amount = 100 × 700 = NPR 70,000
• Commission = 0.33% of 70,000 = NPR 231
• SEBON fee = 0.015% of 70,000 = NPR 10.50
• DP charge = NPR 25
• Gross sell proceeds (before CGT) = 70,000 − 231 − 10.50 − 25 = NPR 69,733.50

Capital gain:

• Capital gain = 69,733.50 − 50,212.50 = NPR 19,521
• Holding period > 365 days → long-term → CGT rate = 3.75%
• CGT = 3.75% of 19,521 = NPR 732.04

Net receivable to your CM account = 69,733.50 − 732.04 = NPR 69,001.46

The mistake spreadsheets make

Most retail spreadsheets compute CGT as "3.75% of (sell price − buy price) × quantity". For the example above that gives 3.75% × (700 − 500) × 100 = NPR 750, overstating the tax by NPR 17.96: the spreadsheet missed the fees on both sides and applied CGT to a gross that already included broker commission. On a NPR 50k trade the error is small. Scale the same trade to 10,000 shares and the spreadsheet overstates CGT by NPR 1,284.37, enough to matter.

How Punji handles all of this

When you add a holding to Punji's portfolio, the buy total payable is computed with all three fees and stamped as the immutable cost basis. When you decide to sell, tap the holding and Punji shows the post-tax net receivable, applying the correct band for the sale date (now 5% or 3.75%) based on the actual holding period in days and broker fees on both sides. Punji tracks each lot you record and matches a sale against the oldest first, so with several lots bought at different prices its figure can differ from the broker’s, which uses your MeroShare WACC; the broker’s deduction is the one that counts. You can also use the standalone NEPSE share calculator for a one-off computation without saving a holding. Not legal advice; verify edge cases with a tax advisor.

Sources

• Highlights of the Federal Budget of Nepal, FY 2083/84 ICAN, May 2026
• Capital gains tax on share transactions increases from today under new rules Bajarko Chirfar, 17 Jul 2026
• MeroShare adds new feature: calculate holding period for WACC Sabal Post
• Short-term traders to be taxed higher; investors should now go through this additional procedure for settlement Sharesansar, 19 Jul 2021