Dhan Referral Code

Dhan's "20% of your friend's brokerage, for life" was not withdrawn quietly. It ended on a specific date because a stock exchange decided that paying you a share of someone else's trading costs gives you a reason to make them trade.

Dhan is a discount broker offering zero brokerage on delivery trades, and its referral programme was among the most generous in the Indian market: 20% of the brokerage revenue generated by everyone you referred, credited continuously, described as being for life.

It ended on 7 September 2024. Referral earnings accrued from trades placed up to that date were credited to users' primary bank accounts by 15 September 2024. This was not a quiet change of terms, and it was not specific to Dhan — Zerodha, Kotak Securities and others published their own discontinuation notices in the same weeks.

The cause was a National Stock Exchange circular of 14 August 2024, and its stated purpose is the most interesting thing on this page. The circular disallowed sharing brokerage income for referrals in order to prevent trade inducement. Read that plainly: a market regulator concluded that when someone receives a percentage of your trading costs, they acquire a financial interest in you trading more often than you otherwise would. The circular's remedy was that anyone referring a client must be appointed an Authorised Person of that broker, with specific prior exchange approval for each person — which converts an informal recommendation into a regulated relationship carrying obligations.

That is the same conflict this site names on gambling referral schemes, where a share of a friend's stakes gives you an interest in their frequency. The difference is that here a regulator said it, in writing, as the reason for a rule. It is worth keeping when you assess any percentage-based referral in finance: ask whether the person recommending the product is paid more when you transact more.

Now the part that most coverage stops short of. The prohibition did not stay put. SEBI issued a further circular on 22 October 2024 barring registered entities from associating with unregistered ones. Then, on 24 January 2025, the NSE issued circular NSE/INSP/66284 keeping the August 2024 circular in abeyance, after representations that certain categories of referrer should be permitted without Authorised Person registration. The question went to the Brokers' Industry Standards Forum, whose proposal is under consideration, and SEBI has a consultation paper on broker referral programmes in development.

So the honest statement of the position is that it is unresolved. Brokerage sharing was prohibited, the prohibition was suspended, and the permanent rule has not been written. Any programme you see running at a broker today is running in that gap, and could be withdrawn again on short notice — as Dhan's was, with two weeks between announcement and payout.

If you are considering a broker referral now, the durable questions are: is the reward a one-off payment or a share of what the other person spends, and would you still recommend this broker if you were paid nothing? Dhan's zero delivery brokerage and ₹20-or-0.03%-per-order intraday pricing stand on their own merits, which is the better basis for a recommendation than a percentage.