The table below illustrates delivery obligations for stock F&O contracts post-expiry.

Taking or giving delivery of the entire contract value worth of stocks require either full cash or stocks in your account post expiry. This increases the risk and hence the margin required to hold these contracts go up as we get closer to expiry. Find below our policy on physically settled stock F&O contracts that has details on how the margins change and the action we take in the absence of full margins or stock.

Futures and Short Option (Calls & Puts) positions.

The margin requirement for all stock futures and short options contracts increases on the expiry day to 50% of the contract value or 1.5 times NRML margin (whichever is lower).
The additional margin increase will reflect in the exposure margin field on the Kite funds page. This increased margin requirement on the expiry day is updated on Zerodha's margin calculator (WEB) and on the order window.

Long/Buy option⁶ (Calls & Puts) positions.

While you pay only a small premium of the contract value to buy stock options, post expiry this can lead you to take or give delivery of stocks worth the entire contract value. The risk of an option buyer defaulting goes up significantly, and hence exchanges start asking for physical delivery margins from 4 days before the expiry, which keeps increasing as the contract gets closer to expiry. This margin is a percentage of the exchange risk margins(VaR+ELM +Adhoc)⁵ as explained in the table below. These margins are only applicable for In the money (ITM) contracts. The delivery margin is also applied if an Out of the money (OTM) position becomes ITM. The delivery margin will reflect on the funds page on Kite.

Our margin policy

Holding positions without the exchange stipulated physical delivery margin (including long options) can lead to margin penalties.³

Stock receivable positions (Take delivery)

Holding a “take delivery” position post expiry without sufficient funds in the trading account will lead to the account going to debit. An interest of 0.05% is charged on the debit balance. This can also mean that the stock will be sold by our RMS team to make good of the debit balance in the account.

Stock deliverable positions (Give delivery)⁷

In case of short futures, short calls, and long puts where you are required to give delivery of the stock post expiry, stock available in your demat account is debited towards meeting the exchange obligations. Non-availability of stock in the demat account will lead to short delivery and auction penalty.
All give delivery positions require you to have stocks in your demat account in the expiry week.⁴ If any OTM position turns ITM leading to a give delivery position post expiry without sufficient stocks in demat, this will lead to short delivery and auction penalties.

Spread and covered contracts.

If you hold multiple F&O positions in the same stock and if the overall position in the account results in an equal quantity of both, give and take delivery, they are netted off¹. So for example an equal number of lots of long futures (take delivery) and short ITM calls (give delivery) on expiry will lead to no delivery obligations as both positions are netted off.

While the net delivery obligation because of the various opposing F&O positions in the same stock could be zero, the delivery margins are still charged on each F&O position separately. So if you had an equal quantity of short futures and long calls, the delivery margin would be asked separately for both the futures and calls contracts. The delivery margin exists because you can exit one of the positions that can, in turn, lead to a delivery obligation.

Buy/Sell price of the physically settled stocks

For all stocks that get credited or debited due to physical delivery of F&O, the expiry day is considered as the trade date. The buying or selling price will be as shown below:

Futures : The settlement price of the futures contract on the expiry date.

Options : The strike price of the contract.

F&O P&L for physically settled contracts

Futures : For all positions that are held till expiry, the settlement price of the futures contract is used as the exit price.

Options : All ITM stock options that are held till the expiry are exercised. The exit price used is 0 for the P&L as the stock delivery happens at the strike price.

Notes

¹A higher brokerage of 0.25% of the total value of physical delivery is charged due to the additional effort. For all netted-off positions(spread contracts, iron condor, etc.), the brokerage will be charged at 0.1% of the physically settled value.

²All physically settled contracts, like stock delivery trades, will carry an STT levy of 0.1% of the contract value for both the buyer and the seller of the contract.

³Interest will be charged at 0.05% per day if your account results in a negative balance when the exchange stipulated delivery margins are applicable from 5 days before the expiry (including long ITM options positions)

⁴Stocks delivered through physical delivery can be sold only after T+1 days from the expiry day when the stock is delivered to the demat. In case the counterparty defaults to give delivery, the credits of shares from physical delivery post-auction may take up to T+2 days.

⁵ VaR +ELM +Adhoc (Exchange risk) margins - You can find the stock-wise margin percentages in this sheet.

⁶ New buy positions, i.e. fresh long positions, will be blocked on Wednesday and Thursday for all stock option contracts of the current month's expiry.

⁷ Depending on the liquidity, Zerodha might attempt to buy stocks during the post-market session to partially or fully net off the physical delivery obligation if the client's account doesn't have enough funds or securities.

This policy may be changed at the discretion of the RMS team.