How to open a demat account in Nepal: online, documents and fees

Demat accounts

81,23,973

MeroShare users

72,15,336

Depository participants

124

C-ASBA banks

43

A demat account (हितग्राही खाता, also called a BO account) holds your shares as entries in a computer instead of paper certificates. "Demat" is short for dematerialised: the paper is turned into a record. Every share you get from an IPO, buy on NEPSE or receive as a bonus lands in it, and every share you sell leaves from it. Mutual fund units bought through a SIP go into it too.

You do not open it with the depository itself. You open it with a depository participant (DP, निक्षेप सदस्य): a bank's capital company, a bank, a broker or another firm licensed by SEBON and admitted by CDSC. CDSC lists 124 of them. The DP keeps your details and services the account. CDSC (CDS and Clearing Ltd), Nepal's central depository, keeps the record of what you own. You are the beneficial owner (हितग्राही) of the shares in it, which is where the Nepali name comes from.

Nepal had 81,23,973 demat accounts on 3 November 2026 by CDSC's own count, and about 4,200 new ones were being opened every day in August 2026. Most were opened to apply for IPOs.

A demat account is one of five linked things. People say "open a demat" and often mean all of them, which is why so many first IPO applications stop at a missing CRN. You get them in this order, and each one gives you a number or a login you will need again.

The first four are enough to apply for IPOs, right shares and mutual fund issues. The fifth, a broker account with TMS, is needed only to buy and sell on NEPSE. Any of the 90 licensed brokers works with any DP, and any C-ASBA bank works with any demat account.

• The bank account is also where your cash dividends are paid, because it is the one recorded on your demat account. Keep the two in the same name, spelled the same way.
• MeroShare is not a separate account with its own shares. It is a window on the demat account: if the demat account is frozen, MeroShare cannot apply for anything either.
• The CRN joins the bank to MeroShare. Without it, MeroShare can show your shares but cannot block money for an IPO.

The BOID (beneficial owner identification number) is your demat account's number: 16 digits, given when the DP opens the account. The first eight digits identify the DP and the last eight identify you at that DP, so everyone at the same DP has the same first eight.

You will type it, or part of it, again and again: to check an IPO result at iporesult.cdsc.com.np, on a broker's account form, on a mutual fund's SIP form (which usually asks for the DP and the last eight digits), and whenever someone transfers shares to you.

• Where to find it: in the DP's email when the account opens, and in MeroShare with your details.
• It is not your CRN or your client code. The CRN comes from your bank for IPO applications; the client code comes from a broker. Neither is a BOID, and mixing them up is a common reason a form is sent back.
• A new DP means a new BOID. Because the first eight digits are the DP's, moving to another DP means a new account with a new number, then moving the shares (see further down).
• The BOID is not secret; the password and PIN are. Anyone with your BOID can look up an IPO result. Nobody needs your MeroShare password or PIN to help you.

Any Nepali citizen can, at any age: adults in their own name, and children under 18 through a parent acting as guardian (संरक्षक). Nepalis working or living abroad can, many of them online. Non-Resident Nepalis (NRNs) can open one at DPs that accept an NRN card or a passport and visa. Other foreign citizens cannot, as NMB Bank's page puts it.

At most two accounts. SEBON directed in 2017 that one person may hold at most two demat accounts, and CDSC warned it would suspend accounts beyond that. A second one has to be at a different DP. One is enough for almost everyone, and a second gives no extra IPO chance: Global IME Bank warns that applying for the same issue from two accounts gets every one of your applications rejected, and C-ASBA filters duplicates centrally at CDSC.

Duplicates are common all the same. A Kantipur report in August 2026 put them at 5–6 lakh, about 6% to 7% of all demat accounts.

The list is nearly the same at every DP. For an online application, have each one ready as a clear photo or scan before you start the form.

Since 2083/03/08 (about 22 June 2026) a DP must take your National ID (NID) card or NID number (राष्ट्रिय परिचयपत्र) when it opens a new demat account and when an existing holder updates KYC. That is from CDSC's own notice, dated 2083/03/15, which followed a letter from SEBON. News reports in June 2026 gave Shrawan 1, 2083 as the start; CDSC's date is earlier, and it is the one to go by.

Three things follow from it:

• No NID, no new account. The notice accepts either the card or the number, so you do not have to wait for the card if you already have the number.
• Existing accounts are not closed. The NID is asked for the next time you update KYC: a new phone number, address or bank account, or a minor turning 18.
• It is not needed to renew. A postscript to the notice says NID is not required to pay the annual fee.

Many DPs now open accounts online with video KYC: you fill in a form, upload the documents, and then confirm on a short video call that it really is you. In 2024 Onlinekhabar listed ten DPs that did so: Global IME Capital, NIC Asia Capital, Sunrise Capital, Sun Securities, and Himalayan, Kumari, Laxmi, Nabil, Nepal and Prime banks. Some of those banks have since merged.

The steps below follow Global IME Capital's form, as Onlinekhabar set it out; other DPs ask for the same things in a slightly different order.

1. 1Choose a DP with online opening and open its form. For example Global IME Capital's website (Demat Account Menu, then Demat Account Opening, then Open New Individual Demat Account), onlinedemat.nicasiacapital.com or onlinedemat.nabilinvest.com.np. NMB Bank's existing customers can use sulav.nmb.com.np.
2. 2Fill in the form exactly as your citizenship reads: name, date of birth, citizenship number and place of issue, NID number, address, phone, email, the bank account for dividends, your spouse if married and a nominee if you want one.
3. 3Accept the terms and upload the files from the table above: photo, signature, thumbprints, citizenship front and back, the photo of you holding it, and the location map. Press Process and submit.
4. 4Keep the KYC reference number that arrives by email.
5. 5Do the video KYC. The DP checks on a video call that the person who filled in the form is you. Keep your original citizenship and your NID at hand.
6. 6Fill in the MeroShare form and pay. Tick Subscribe to Mero Share before paying, or you will have a demat account with no way to log in.
7. 7Wait for two emails: your BOID when the demat account opens, and your MeroShare username and password when that is set up.
8. 8Ask your bank for C-ASBA registration to get a CRN (see below). Without it you cannot apply for an IPO.

A branch suits anyone without a smartphone, a guardian who wants a child's documents checked in person, and anyone who signs with a thumbprint. Many capital companies take forms at their bank's branches; NIC Asia's and NMB's both do.

1. 1Take the originals and a copy of each: citizenship, NID, photos, and for a minor the birth registration and the guardian's citizenship.
2. 2Fill in three papers: the account opening form, the KYC form and the agreement with the DP. Sign them and give both thumbprints.
3. 3Ask for MeroShare on the same form and pay its Rs 50 with the opening fee.
4. 4If the DP belongs to your bank, ask for C-ASBA at the same counter. Global IME Bank's "Ek Sath 5" is a single request for a demat account, MeroShare, C-ASBA and a TMS account at once, for new and existing customers.
5. 5Wait for the BOID and the MeroShare login by email, then log in and set your PIN.

Most people pay three fees: Rs 50 once to open, Rs 100 a year to keep the demat account, and Rs 50 a year for MeroShare. Those are the figures in CDSC's own fee schedule, in its depository regulations. Some DPs charge nothing to open for a while and one large bank charges Rs 150; the yearly Rs 100 and Rs 50 were the same at every DP we checked.

A few more charges come with using the account, listed first. Then each DP's own figures, from its page or a dated news report, are in the table. Fees and offers change; check your DP's current tariff before you pay.

• C-ASBA: at most Rs 5 per IPO application, a cap SEBON set for banks. Nepal Bank's fee page lists Rs 5; it announced in August 2022 that it would waive the charge, so ask your bank which applies.
• DP charge on trades: Rs 25 per company each time shares move in or out on a purchase or sale. It is part of every trade's cost, worked out in the share calculator.
• Pledge: Rs 50 per company pledged for a loan, on SSL's schedule. Dematerialising old paper certificates into the account is free on the same schedule.
• Corrections: CDSC's WACC Reset and Holding Days Reset forms cost Rs 100 per company.

"Which bank gives a free demat account?" The answer changes every few months. For 2083/84 NIC Asia Capital opens accounts free and waives the first year's Rs 100, and its student scheme also registers MeroShare free. Other DPs have run similar offers before. But no demat account stays free: from the second year everyone pays the yearly fees, so the opening fee is the smallest part of the cost.

The table adds it up for one person. At CDSC's schedule the first year costs Rs 200 and five years Rs 800. C-ASBA comes on top: applying for 12 issues a year at Rs 5 each would add up to Rs 60 a year, where your bank charges it.

Usually a few working days from the form to your first IPO application, if nothing is missing. What the DPs and banks themselves say:

MeroShare is CDSC's website and app (meroshare.cdsc.com.np) for your demat account. You apply for IPOs, right shares and mutual fund issues there, see your holdings, record what you paid for shares, and transfer shares after a sale (EDIS). It is not a trading account: buying and selling happen in a broker's TMS.

You do not register with CDSC yourself. Your DP registers you, for Rs 50 a year, when you tick MeroShare on the demat form or ask later. CDSC counted 72,15,336 registered users on 3 November 2026: 9,08,637 fewer than there are demat accounts. 51,15,178 were active, 71% of those registered.

1. 1Ask your DP for MeroShare on the demat form, or later, and pay Rs 50.
2. 2Wait for the email with your username and password, usually 2–4 working days.
3. 3Log in at meroshare.cdsc.com.np or in the MeroShare app. The form has three fields: Select your DP (pick yours from the list), Username (numbers only, up to eight digits, from the email) and Password.
4. 4Set your transaction PIN. On the first login MeroShare asks you to "setup a 4 digit PIN code to execute transaction through mero share". It replaced the old one-time password in 2020, and MeroShare asks for it to confirm every IPO application.
5. 5Check My Details: your name and the other details should match your documents.
6. 6Get a CRN from your bank before your first application (next section).

C-ASBA (centralised application supported by blocked amount) is how MeroShare blocks IPO money in your bank account without taking it. Your bank checks that its account and your demat account belong to the same person, registers you in CDSC's C-ASBA system and gives you a CRN (C-ASBA registration number). SEBON makes the CRN mandatory for every applicant.

Ask for it at the bank where your money is, online or at a branch; 43 banks take part. Global IME Bank says the first registration there needs a branch visit. If your CRN is not registered, MeroShare stops the application with: "CRN Number Not Registered! Please make sure your ASBA bank has registered your CRN Number in C-ASBA."

• The CRN belongs to a bank account. A different account, such as a remittance account for the migrant-worker quota, needs its own CRN, as SEBON's FAQ says.
• The charge is at most Rs 5 an application, where the bank charges at all.
• The money must be in the account when you apply. It stays blocked, not taken, until the allotment, and is released for any shares you do not get.

A child of any age can have a demat account, opened and run by a parent as guardian. CDSC's spokesperson put the number at 10,03,006 in August 2026, 12% of all demat accounts. Parents open them mainly to apply for IPOs.

You need the child's birth registration certificate (a hospital certificate or a minor ID card is not accepted), the guardian's citizenship, an NID number (ask the DP whether it takes the guardian's or the child's), and photos of both. The guardian must be the father or the mother; NMB Bank also accepts a member of the same household with a consent letter from the ward office.

Why families do it, in numbers. In Sanigad Hydro's IPO in June 2026, 4,67,400 of 27,27,515 valid applicants got 10 units each, about 17%. A family of four applying separately had about a 53% chance that at least one of them would get shares, taking each draw as independent. The cost is Rs 600 a year in fees for four accounts, plus up to Rs 20 in C-ASBA charges for each issue.

• Each child needs a CRN to apply for an IPO, which means a bank account the bank can match to the child's demat account. Ask the bank how it registers a minor's account in C-ASBA.
• At 18 the account becomes the holder's own. The new adult takes their own citizenship to the DP to convert it. Until that is done, CDSC may freeze the account, by NMB Bank's page.
• Each demat account has its own MeroShare login. Whether a guardian can apply for a child from the guardian's own login is not something we could confirm.

Nepalis working abroad can open a demat account and a remittance account online, by SEBON's FAQ, and NMB Bank runs an online video form (call.nmb.com.np) for savings and demat accounts. Global IME treats foreign employment as a kind of demat account of its own, opened with a passport, visa and work permit.

The reason most people abroad open one is the IPO quota. Companies approved for an IPO since 3 November 2022 set aside 10% of the shares on offer to the public for Nepalis working abroad with labour approval. To apply in it you need:

• Labour approval (श्रम स्वीकृति) from the Government of Nepal. Without it you are not eligible.
• A remittance savings account in your own name at an ASBA bank, and a CRN for that account, which the bank gives once it has seen your labour-approval papers.
• At least Rs 50,000 sent into it from the country where you work in the last six months. Money deposited from inside Nepal does not count; you may top it up from abroad until the issue closes.
• A demat account with any DP. An old one is fine; it needs the remittance account and its own CRN.
• One quota or the other. Anyone who applies in the migrant quota cannot also apply in the general public issue of the same company. The quota opens for the first 4 days, and stays open up to 15 in all if it is under-subscribed.

Every demat account owes an annual renewal fee (वार्षिक शुल्क): Rs 100 for the demat account and Rs 50 for MeroShare, Rs 150 a year in all. CDSC's regulations make it due by the end of Asar, the last month of the fiscal year, whether or not you used the account.

In 2026 CDSC kept MeroShare running until 2083/04/15 (31 July 2026) and froze unpaid accounts from 2083/04/16 (1 August 2026), by its notice of 2083/04/01. That notice set the dates, not the amounts; no change to the fees was found.

• Where to pay: at your DP or its bank's branches, on the DP's website, or through a digital wallet. NMB Bank's page names wallets and its branches, and Khalti lists several DPs whose renewal it takes.
• NID is not needed to pay the fee, by CDSC's NID notice.
• Opening late in the year? The fee is per fiscal year, Shrawan to Asar. If you open in Baisakh, Jestha or Asar, ask whether what you pay at opening also covers the year that starts in Shrawan, or you may pay twice within weeks.
• Keep the receipt, and check in MeroShare afterwards that nothing is pending.

A frozen (रोक्का) demat account is one that has been stopped from being used, most often for an unpaid annual fee. The shares in it are still yours; you just cannot use the account until the cause is fixed.

What it stops: applying for IPOs and other issues, and delivering shares you sell, so a sale can end in a closeout with a penalty. CDSC warned in 2023 that not renewing "might lead to account suspension and potential closeout while selling shares in secondary market". The usual causes come first below, then the steps to unfreeze it.

• An unpaid annual fee. Bank notices say the account stays frozen until the fee is paid.
• A minor who has turned 18 and not converted the account, by NMB Bank's page.
• More than two accounts. CDSC said in 2017 it would suspend accounts beyond the limit.

1. 1Find out why. Log in to MeroShare, or call your DP with your BOID.
2. 2Pay what is owed at the DP, its branches or its online channel, and ask whether any earlier unpaid year is owed too.
3. 3For a minor turned 18, take the new citizenship and NID to the DP and convert the account.
4. 4Ask the DP to confirm the freeze is lifted, keep the receipt, and check in MeroShare that My ASBA works again before the next IPO.

KYC (know your customer) is the identity file behind your account. When something in it changes, update it with your DP, or applications, resets and transfers can fail. CDSC runs a central KYC, C-KYC, at ckyc.cdsc.com.np, which NMB Bank points its customers to for online updates, and lists 123 registered C-KYC agents. SEBON told NEPSE in August 2026 to link C-KYC with the brokers' TMS, so that one update reaches both in time.

Since 2083/03/08 every KYC update needs your NID. A biometric update needs a branch visit with your original citizenship at NMB Bank, and possibly elsewhere. Update it when you have:

• A new mobile number or email. MeroShare's logins, resets and notices go there.
• A new address, a marriage, or a name corrected on your citizenship.
• A new bank account for dividends. MeroShare has a request form for changing the bank account on the demat account, "only for cash dividend collection".
• A child turning 18, whose account must become their own.
• A request from your DP, which often comes with the renewal notice.

A BOID cannot move between DPs, because its first eight digits are the DP's. Changing DP therefore takes four steps, and the last of them is how any account is closed. Most people never need to do it.

1. 1Open a new demat account at the new DP. You will hold two for a while, which is within the limit of two.
2. 2Ask the old DP to transfer your shares to the new BOID. NMB Bank's page lists copies of your citizenship and BO confirmation letters from both DPs for this BO-to-BO transfer. The charge is on each DP's tariff, so ask first.
3. 3Check that the shares arrived with their purchase prices and holding days. If MeroShare shows them wrong, CDSC's WACC Reset and Holding Days Reset forms cost Rs 100 per company, and the cost matters for your capital gains tax (3.75% or 5%).
4. 4Close the old account: a closure form at a branch, with your original citizenship. The account must be active and hold no shares.

Listed shares change owner on NEPSE, through a broker. CDSC allows a transfer outside the market only in a few cases, done at your DP:

• To a family member: CDSC allows a household transfer within three generations, at 2% of the shares' face value with a minimum of Rs 200: Rs 200 for 100 shares of Rs 100, Rs 2,000 for 1,000. Both people go to the DP and CDSC with their originals.
• On a death, the heirs claim the shares by transmission, with the death registration, a relationship certificate and the other heirs' consent.
• On a partition of family property, at the same fee as a household transfer.
• To a friend: not as a gift, as NMB Bank's page says. Between unrelated people, listed shares pass by a sale on NEPSE.

No DP is best for everyone, and the choice matters less than people think. Your shares are recorded at CDSC under your BOID whichever DP you use; every DP gives the same MeroShare; the DP makes no difference to your IPO chances or to which shares you can buy; and any broker works with any DP. What differs is cost, convenience and service. Check six things:

• 1. Where your bank account is. A DP in your bank's group can often do the demat account, MeroShare and C-ASBA in one visit or one form.
• 2. Online opening with video KYC, and whether a biometric visit is still needed. This decides it for anyone living abroad.
• 3. The opening fee: free, Rs 50 or Rs 150 at the DPs above. The yearly Rs 100 and Rs 50 matter more over time, and they were the same everywhere we looked.
• 4. How you can pay the renewal: online or through a wallet, so the account is never frozen for want of a trip to a branch.
• 5. Branches near you, for KYC updates, delivery slips, resets and closure, which still need paper at many DPs.
• 6. How it handles problems: a locked MeroShare, a PIN reset, a CRN that will not register. Ask people who use it, and see whether its forms are online.

• A second demat account for a second IPO chance. Applying for the same issue from both gets every application rejected, and holding more than two can get the extras suspended.
• Details that do not match between citizenship, NID, bank account and demat account. C-ASBA matches the bank account to the demat account, and a different spelling can stop the CRN.
• Typing the BOID wrong. In Standard Chartered's 2017 FPO, applications with a wrong BOID were rejected, as were duplicates.
• Forgetting the renewal, and finding the account frozen on the day an IPO opens.
• An old phone number in KYC, which makes a forgotten password hard to reset.
• Giving your password or PIN to an agent or a relative "to apply for you". Whoever has them acts as you in MeroShare.

To buy and sell shares on NEPSE you need one more account: a broker account with TMS (Trade Management System), the broker's online trading screen. Any of the 90 SEBON-licensed brokers will do. The broker gives you a client code linked to your BOID and a TMS login, and pays sale money to the bank account you give it.

From here: the share market for beginners explains how trading works and what a first trade costs; how to sell shares covers TMS, EDIS and settlement; capital gains tax explains the 3.75% and 5%; dividends are paid to the bank account on your demat account; and a mutual fund SIP puts its units into the same demat account (SIP in Nepal). For the whole picture, start at how to invest in Nepal.

A first month, in order:

1. 1Open the demat account with MeroShare online or at a branch, with your citizenship and NID.
2. 2Set your PIN and get your CRN the same week.
3. 3If you want to, apply for an IPO open to the general public (the minimum is 10 units), and check the result with your BOID.
4. 4Put the renewal in your calendar for Jestha.
5. 5Open a broker account only when you want to buy and sell, and read what a trade costs first.