E-stamping across Indian states: what actually works where

Stamp duty is a state subject, and that is the whole problem

Stamp duty in India sits on the Indian Stamp Act, 1899, with states amending rates, instruments and procedure. There is no single national rate, no single portal and no single process. A contract process that treats "apply stamp duty" as one step will be wrong in most of the country.

The practical question is rarely "what is the rate" — finance usually knows that. It is "can this be done from a desk in the next ten minutes, or does somebody have to travel to a counter". That answer varies by state, and it is the part most published guides get wrong.

Three different things are called e-stamping

They are not interchangeable, and a process built for one will fail on another.

• A SHCIL e-Stamp certificate — issued through the Central Record Keeping Agency and verifiable on SHCIL's own portal.
• A state-run electronic receipt, such as Maharashtra's e-SBTR or a GRAS e-challan, or Karnataka's Digital e-Stamp on KAVERI-2. Legally effective, operationally unrelated to SHCIL.
• Franking and physical non-judicial stamp paper — still the route for several states and several instrument types, and still the reason stamp paper sits in an office drawer.

What is the difference between e-stamping, franking and physical stamp paper?

All three are evidence that stamp duty was paid. They differ in who issues them, where the record lives and how anyone can check them later — which is what matters when the agreement is pulled out in a dispute years on.

• E-stamp certificate. Issued through SHCIL's system, at a StockHolding branch, an Authorised Collection Centre or, in some states, online. Each certificate has a unique number and is checked on SHCIL's website or its e-Stamping mobile app. Good for: any instrument and amount the state has put on the system; SHCIL describes it as a single e-Stamp for any amount.
• Franking. An impression made on the document itself by a franking machine operated by a person or bank the state has authorised. Maharashtra's Stamp Act, for example, counts an "impression by franking machine" as an impressed stamp and lets the Chief Controlling Revenue Authority authorise who may use one. The record sits with the franking agent and the stamp office, so checking it means going back to them. Good for: documents already drafted that need duty applied directly, where the state allows it.
• Physical non-judicial stamp paper. Pre-printed paper of fixed denominations bought from a licensed vendor or treasury. The weakest of the three to verify, and the one most exposed to the duplicate and forged-paper problems that pushed states to e-stamping in the first place. Still in use where vendors remain licensed.

Where you can actually complete it online

SHCIL's own site states that e-stamping is operational in 26 states and union territories as on 20 March 2025: Andaman and Nicobar, Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Chandigarh, Chhattisgarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu, Goa, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Ladakh, Meghalaya, Manipur, Delhi, Odisha, Puducherry, Punjab, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. That figure is widely quoted, and widely misread as meaning you can transact online in 26 places.

Separately, SHCIL names the jurisdictions where online payment and printing is available to citizens: Delhi, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, Ladakh, Chandigarh, Jammu and Kashmir, Pondicherry, Andaman and Nicobar, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Punjab, Manipur, Uttarakhand, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh — qualified as being "as per approval of the State / Union Territory".

Fifteen, not twenty-six. In the remaining states where e-stamping is implemented, it exists — but it runs through a StockHolding branch or an authorised collection centre, which means a person, a queue and a same-day deadline. That is the difference between a step in a workflow and an errand. Maharashtra is in neither list.

How do you buy an e-stamp certificate online?

Only in the fifteen jurisdictions above. Where it is available, the route runs through SHCIL's own portal, shcilestamp.com:

• Confirm the state is on SHCIL's online list, and that the instrument (the "article") is one the state allows online. SHCIL publishes a list of articles for each state.
• Use the citizen login for e-Stamping on shcilestamp.com, register, and activate the account from the link sent to your email.
• Enter the instrument details: state, article, the parties, the consideration and the stamp duty amount.
• Pay online, then print the e-Stamp certificate.
• Verify it straight away on SHCIL's Verify e-Stamp page, which asks for the state, certificate number, article and issue date (or a barcode scan). The same check is available in SHCIL's e-Stamping mobile app.

Is e-stamp paper available in Maharashtra?

Not through SHCIL. Maharashtra does not appear in SHCIL's operational list or its online list, and that is not a gap in coverage — the state uses its own mechanism. Stamp duty and registration fees are paid through the Government Receipt Accounting System (GRAS), the Maharashtra Finance Department's e-payment portal, with the Inspector General of Registration selected as the receiving department.

The Inspector General of Registration's published e-payment procedure sets out the routes:

• GRAS e-payment, fully online. On gras.mahakosh.gov.in, choose "Pay without Registration" (or register as a regular user), select the department "Inspector General of Registration", pay through your bank, and print the e-challan (MTR Form 6) with its GRN. The e-challan is attached to the document.
• GRAS over the counter. The same e-challan is generated online and paid at the selected bank within seven days.
• e-SBTR (Electronic Secured Bank and Treasury Receipt). Paid online or at an authorised bank branch; the bank officer prints and signs the e-SBTR, which is attached as the first page of the document.
• Bank simple receipt, online or over the counter, through an authorised bank's portal.
• Franking. The Maharashtra Stamp Act treats an impression by franking machine, and a receipt of e-payment, as impressed stamps, and lets the Chief Controlling Revenue Authority authorise franking machines.

Why Maharashtra breaks national processes

This matters more than a footnote suggests, because Maharashtra is where a large share of Indian commercial contracting is executed. A process, a template pack or a vendor integration built on the assumption that SHCIL covers the country will fail in the single most important state — and it will fail quietly, at execution, on a deal that is already agreed.

The evidence of payment is different too. A SHCIL certificate is checked by its certificate number; a GRAS e-challan is identified by its GRN, and a GRAS challan created without registration can be found again through the portal's Search Challan option. Store the identifier with the executed agreement, not in somebody's inbox.

Delhi

Delhi is on SHCIL's online list, so a certificate can be paid for and printed online. Counter routes remain: StockHolding e-stamping counters, and authorised collection centres for stamp duty up to Rs 500, with separate application forms for amounts below and above Rs 501.

One Delhi-specific rule catches companies: stamp duty on the issue of new shares runs through SHCIL's dedicated online module, which SHCIL describes as mandatory for that purpose. The entry is verified by a Delhi government official and authorised by the Collector of Stamps before the challan is generated, and the certificate is issued only after the Collector updates the entry again once payment is made — an approval workflow, not an instant purchase. Plan allotments around it.

Uttar Pradesh

Uttar Pradesh is on SHCIL's online list as well. It also has the widest counter network of the states covered here: StockHolding counters, licensed stamp vendor counters, Common Service Centre (CSC) operators, and authorised collection centres at branches of Bank of Baroda, Central Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, State Bank of India and Union Bank of India. SHCIL publishes the application form in Hindi as well as English.

Certificates are verified on SHCIL's portal like any other SHCIL e-stamp.

Karnataka

Karnataka is on SHCIL's online list, and SHCIL publishes a Karnataka stamp duty calculator alongside the state's list of articles. But the state has also built its own route. The Karnataka Stamp (Digital e-Stamp) Rules, 2025 were operationalised by a notification of 16 January 2026, published in the Karnataka Gazette on 19 January 2026, which designates the KAVERI-2 module as the "Digital e-Stamp Application". The state revenue minister had announced the system in December 2025.

In practice that means two legitimate e-stamp routes coexist in Karnataka. Before stamping, ask which the registering office or the counterparty's bank expects, and record which one was used.

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu is one of the states where SHCIL e-stamping is operational but not on the online list. A certificate is obtained in person: at a StockHolding e-stamping counter, a licensed stamp vendor counter, a Common Service Centre operator, or a bank or other authorised collection centre. SHCIL publishes the lists of each, and the application form, on its Tamil Nadu page.

Verification is the same as anywhere else on SHCIL's system. The difference is lead time: in Tamil Nadu someone has to physically collect the certificate, so it belongs in the plan before the signing date, not on it.

What this means for contract operations

Stamping is a cash cost and a procurement step that happens to sit inside a legal workflow. Teams that treat it as a software feature get caught by the same handful of problems:

• Inventory. Where stamp paper is bought ahead of use, it has to be tracked, allocated to a specific agreement and reconciled. The common failures are the same certificate allocated twice, and paper bought for a deal that died.
• Three dates, not one. The stamp date, the execution date and the signing date are different, and the gaps between them are exactly what an auditor asks about.
• Who holds it. In a multi-state group, the person who can obtain stamp paper is often not the person negotiating the contract, and that handoff is where days disappear.
• Cancellation. A deal that dies after stamping leaves a real cash asset that somebody has to account for.

The risk worth naming

Section 35 of the Indian Stamp Act, 1899 provides that no instrument chargeable with duty shall be admitted in evidence, or acted upon, registered or authenticated, unless it is duly stamped. The provision has a cure: a proviso allows admission on payment of the duty, or the deficient portion, together with a penalty — which, where ten times the proper duty or deficient portion exceeds five rupees, is a sum equal to ten times that duty or portion. States with their own stamp statutes, Maharashtra among them, apply their own penalty provisions instead.

So an insufficiently stamped contract is not void. It is unusable in evidence until somebody pays, and the penalty is calculated as a multiple rather than a flat fee. That is a discovery nobody wants to make in the middle of a dispute, on an agreement signed three years earlier by a person who has since left.

There is nuance worth knowing: the bar applies to instruments chargeable with duty, and courts have held that it does not apply to a document not chargeable at all. Whether a specific instrument is chargeable, and at what rate, is a question for counsel in the relevant state.

Questions to settle before designing the process

For each state your entities actually contract in, answer these before you build anything:

• Which mechanism applies — SHCIL certificate, a state system, franking, or physical paper?
• Can it be completed online end to end, or does it need a person at a counter?
• Who is authorised to obtain it, and what is the turnaround when they are on leave?
• Who holds inventory, and who reconciles it to executed agreements?
• What happens to stamped paper when a deal dies?
• Which instruments in your template library are chargeable at all?

A note on what this article does not do

It publishes no duty rates. Rates vary by state and by instrument, and they change. A table of rates is the most linked-to and least reliable thing in this subject area, and a wrong figure here would be worse than no figure at all. For the rate applicable to a specific instrument in a specific state, go to that state's stamp authority or to counsel.