The National Stock Exchange of India is preparing to enter the public market after nearly a decade of delays. The NSE IPO will open for subscription on September 17 and close on September 21. Anchor investors can bid on September 16, while NSE expects the shares to list on or about September 24.
The exchange set the NSE IPO price band at Rs 1,700 to Rs 1,785 per share. The offer will include 126.4 million existing shares and will consist entirely of an offer for sale.
NSE will not raise fresh capital because existing shareholders will sell part of their holdings. At the upper end of the price band, the IPO values NSE at about USD 46 billion.
NSE began working towards a public listing in 2016, but regulatory investigations stopped the process from moving ahead. The main dispute involved its co-location system, which allowed trading firms to place servers close to the exchange's trading systems.
Regulators investigated allegations that some brokers received faster or unfair access to NSE's trading infrastructure.
In 2019, the Securities and Exchange Board of India passed orders against NSE over the co-location matter. NSE challenged parts of SEBI's findings, and the dispute moved through the Securities Appellate Tribunal and later the Supreme Court. Questions over dark fibre connections also became part of the regulatory proceedings and kept the proposed NSE listing under scrutiny.
NSE renewed efforts to resolve the long-running cases in 2025. It filed settlement applications with SEBI covering the co-location and dark fibre matters. During the IPO process, the exchange disclosed that it had proposed a settlement payment of Rs 1,491 crore to close the pending cases.
In July 2026, SEBI gave in-principle approval for the settlement, subject to the payment. The Supreme Court then dismissed the regulator's case in early September after the settlement process moved forward. The court action ended a regulatory dispute that had lasted about a decade and removed one of the main legal barriers to the NSE IPO.
The NSE IPO will offer 126.4 million shares after several existing shareholders reduced the number of shares they planned to sell. The final offer size is more than 15% lower than the earlier proposal. At the upper price of Rs 1,785 per share, selling shareholders could receive about Rs 22,500 crore. NSE itself will receive no money from the offer.
NSE remains India's largest stock exchange by trading activity. The exchange has more than 2,200 listed companies and controls about 95% of India's cash equity market, according to its disclosures. It also holds about 75% of the equity derivatives market and ranks as the world's largest derivatives exchange by the number of contracts traded.
For the financial year ended March 2026, NSE reported a profit of Rs 103 billion, down 15% from the previous year. Revenue reached about Rs 187 billion, more than double its 2019 level. Transaction charges generate more than 80% of NSE's total income, with derivatives trading providing a large portion of that revenue.
The NSE IPO now moves towards its public debut after years of regulatory investigations, appeals and settlement talks. The offer opens on September 17, bringing India's largest stock exchange closer to a listing that it first pursued in 2016.
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