Zerodha logo

What are cover orders and how to use them?

You can use cover orders (CO) for intraday trading with built-in risk protection. A cover order combines your main order with a mandatory stop loss, automatically limiting your losses if the trade moves against you.

When you place a cover order, you place either a market or limit order alongside a compulsory stop loss order within a specified range.

How cover orders work

  • For buy cover orders: Set your limit price higher than the stop-loss trigger price.
  • For sell cover orders: Set your limit price lower than the stop-loss trigger price.

You can set your stop-loss trigger price within a 10% range when placing cover orders. Cover orders have specific limitations:

  • You can only use them for intraday trading
  • They are not available on BSE or F&O segments
  • You cannot cancel the stop loss once placed
  • You can only exit cover orders from the order book
  • Zerodha may square off your open positions if you don't close them before the scheduled auto-square off timings.

If either part of your cover order gets rejected or cancelled, contact Zerodha's support team at 080 4718 1888 / 080 4719 1999 from 9:00 AM to 3:30 PM on trading days to square off your position.

Still need help?

Create a ticket

Open tickets

We see that you have the following ticket(s) open:

If you have the same query, check and update the existing ticket here. In case of a new query, click on Continue.

Continue