Zerodha Referral Code

Zerodha's referral used to be one of the best in Indian finance, because it paid a share of the brokerage your referrals generated for as long as they traded. That is gone, and the reason is a regulation rather than a business decision.

Zerodha pays 300 reward points for each successful referral. That figure is accurate, and it is also the small remainder of something much larger.

Until August 2024, Zerodha shared 10% of the brokerage generated by the people you referred — an ongoing revenue share that continued for as long as they kept trading. For anyone who referred active traders it was among the most valuable referral arrangements in Indian finance, precisely because it was not a one-off bounty.

An NSE circular dated 14 August 2024 ended it. From 15 August 2024 brokers were prohibited from paying referral commission to anyone not registered as an Authorised Person of the trading member, appointed with prior approval from the exchange. Zerodha stopped paying the 10% brokerage share from 25 August 2024. Its founder Nitin Kamath described the circular publicly as one that would hurt the business.

The exchange's reasoning is worth knowing rather than dismissing. Its concern was that unregistered individuals referring clients into trading accounts could facilitate activity contrary to investors' interests, with unauthorised collective investment schemes named specifically. An informal referral network paid a percentage of trading activity has an obvious incentive to encourage trading, and that is the incentive the rule removes.

The line the circular draws — and this is the part no listing site explains — is between a flat reward and a share of revenue. A fixed incentive for a signup survived. A percentage of the brokerage your referral generates did not. That is why Zerodha still pays 300 points while every "earn X% of brokerage forever" offer in this category disappeared at the same moment.

If you want to earn from referrals in this space properly, the compliant route is registering as an Authorised Person with the broker, which is a formal appointment requiring exchange approval rather than a link you share.

Reward points are redeemed within Zerodha's own ecosystem rather than paid as cash, so treat 300 points as 300 points rather than as rupees.