What is the difference between brokerage and DP charges?

Brokerage is charged when you place and execute a trade. DP (Depository Participant) charges are charged separately, usually only when you sell shares that are sitting in your demat account and need to move out to the exchange. So a same-day intraday trade, which never involves delivery, typically doesn’t attract DP charges at all, while a delivery sell order does. DP charges are also often a flat amount per company sold per day (commonly in the ₹10 to ₹20 range across Indian brokers, plus GST), regardless of how many shares of that company you sell that day, which is different from brokerage that scales with order value or count. You keep the two separate in your head: brokerage is an execution cost, DP charges are a demat movement cost, and they show up on different parts of the contract note and ledger.