IPO Allotment Status: How to Check It on BSE, NSE and the Registrar

Where allotment status actually lives

There is no single national IPO allotment website, and this confuses almost everyone applying for the first time.

Allotment is processed by the issue registrar, not by the exchange and not by your broker. The registrar is the agency the company appoints to run the application and allotment process — in India that is usually Link Intime, KFin Technologies (formerly Karvy), Bigshare, Cameo or MUFG Intime. Each has its own status page.

You have three practical routes, and any of them will do.

Route 1 — The registrar portal

The most authoritative source. Go to the registrar handling that specific IPO, select the issue from a dropdown, then identify yourself by any one of:

- PAN — easiest, works every time - Application number — from your broker or bank confirmation - DP ID / Client ID — your 16-digit demat identifier - Bank account number — for ASBA applications

The catch is knowing which registrar handles which issue. It is printed on the prospectus and on the issue page.

Route 2 — BSE

BSE publishes a combined allotment status page that covers issues listed on it. Choose Equity as the issue type, pick the company, and enter your application number and PAN.

Route 3 — NSE

NSE lets you verify your bid rather than the allotment itself, which is subtly different but useful — it confirms the exchange received your application at the price and quantity you intended.

We keep direct links to all of these on the Allotment Status tab of our IPO page, so you do not have to hunt for the right registrar each time.

The timeline you are actually waiting on

Under the T+3 listing framework now standard in India:

- Day 0 — Issue closes - Day 1 — Basis of allotment is finalised - Day 2 — Allotment status goes live; refunds initiated; shares credited to demat - Day 3 — The stock lists and starts trading

Allotment status typically appears one to two days after the issue closes, usually in the evening. If you check the morning after closing and see nothing, you are simply early.

Why you got zero shares

This is the single most common question, and the answer is usually not a mistake.

In an oversubscribed IPO, retail allotment is a lottery. If the retail portion is subscribed five times, only about one in five applicants at the minimum lot gets anything. SEBI rules require that the maximum number of applicants receive at least one lot, so the system does not hand large chunks to a few and nothing to everyone else. It runs a computerised draw.

The practical consequences are worth internalising:

Applying for more lots does not improve your odds in the retail category. In a heavily oversubscribed issue, one lot and six lots have the same probability of the draw landing on you. Bidding bigger only helps in the HNI category, which is a different game with different capital requirements.

Applying at the cut-off price does improve your odds. Bidding below the final issue price gets your application rejected outright. Cut-off simply means "I will pay whatever the final price turns out to be", and it removes that risk.

Multiple applications from the same PAN get rejected. All of them, including the first. One PAN, one application. Family members with their own PAN and their own demat account may each apply legitimately.

What happens to your money

If you applied through ASBA — which is now effectively mandatory — your money was never debited. It was *blocked* in your bank account. You could see the balance but not spend it.

On allotment day one of two things happens. If you were allotted shares, the exact amount is debited and the rest unblocked. If you got nothing, the entire block is released, usually within one to two working days.

If the block has not lifted three working days after allotment, raise it with your bank first, not the registrar — a stuck ASBA mandate is nearly always a banking system issue.

Small things that cost people allotments

A dormant or frozen demat account. Shares cannot be credited to an account that is not active. Check before applying, not after.

A PAN and demat name mismatch. If the name on the PAN does not exactly match the demat records, the application can be rejected at verification.

Insufficient balance at the time of blocking. The full application amount must be available. A partially funded account gets rejected.

Applying after the cut-off time on the closing day. Brokers close their windows earlier than the exchange does — often by several hours — to allow for processing.

After allotment

If you were allotted, the shares hit your demat before listing and you are free to sell from the first tick. Whether you should is a separate question entirely, and one that GMP will happily answer wrongly for you — see our piece on what Grey Market Premium really tells you.

If you were not allotted, nothing is wrong with you or your application. The draw did not land on you. That is the entire mechanism.

Disclaimer: Investments in securities are subject to market risk. Read all offer documents carefully before investing. Past listing performance is not indicative of future results.