Female investor participation rises to 25% in FY26 in Indian equity markets, says NSE report

Female investor participation has been steadily rising in the Indian equity markets since financial year 2023, the National Stock Exchange (NSE) said in its monthly report Market Pulse. Among the individual states, Maharashtra leads with female investor participation of 29% followed by Uttar Pradesh.

"Female investors have continued to rise steadily since FY23 and currently stand at 24.9% of all investors as of FY26. Within the largest investor bases, Maharashtra led in terms of female investor participation, with 29% share (vs 25.6% share in FY23). UP, despite having a female investor share of 19%, which is significantly below the national average of 24.9%, has recorded notable gains in female participation since FY23," according to NSE’s Market Pulse report.

The report highlighted that smaller states like Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim have shown steady increment in female participation since FY23, underscoring the rapid democratisation of capital markets in India.

Arunachal Pradesh had female investor base of 28.2% while Sikkim had participation of 31.6%, rising by 5.8 percentage points since FY23.

The overall number of investors registered on the NSE stood at 12.9 crore at the end of March 2026, marking 14.4% growth over the year.

"The expansion of the investor base has accelerated significantly over the years. It took 14 years to reach the first crore of registered investors. Today, it takes just 5–7 months on average to add an incremental crore. The investor base touched 11 crores in January 2025 and reached 12 crores in September 2025," NSE said.

North India led with a registered investor base of 4.7 crore by the end of FY26, followed by West India at 3.8 crore, South India at 2.7 crore and East India at 1.5 crore.

NSE added that even though new investor registrations in Uttar Pradesh declined but it added 22.6 lakh investors to India’s investor base in FY26.

"While it was 23.9% YoY lesser than previous year, Uttar Pradesh still held a 14% share. Maharashtra, despite having the largest investor base, ranks second in investor additions. It added 18.3 lakh investors in FY26, compared with 26.3 lakh additions in FY25 (-30.4% YoY). Maharashtra held an 11.3% share in FY26. Following these two major states, Gujarat accounted for 7.1% (11.5 lakh), Tamil Nadu (6.8%, 10.9 lakhs) and West Bengal (6.2%, 10.1 lakhs)," NSE said in Market Pulse.

On a district-wise basis NSE said that the top 50 districts together contributed 36.2% of new registrations in FY26 in comparison to 38% in FY22, reflecting a relatively concentrated but gradually broadening participation base.

Among individual districts, Delhi-NCR recorded the highest number of new investor registrations at 64,202 in March 2026, despite a 9.3% month on month (MoM) decline. On an annual basis, total additions from Delhi-NCR stood at 8.7 lakh in FY26, NSE added.