How to read a shareholding pattern (NSE & BSE guide, 2026)

Learning how to read a shareholding pattern starts with knowing what it is: a quarterly disclosure that tells you who owns a listed company and in what proportion: the promoters who run it, the foreign and domestic institutions that have bought in, and the public. It is filed with the NSE and BSE and it is one of the cleanest public records of how ownership of a company is shifting over time. The next round is close: the quarter ends on 30 September 2026, and Regulation 31(1)(b) gives companies twenty one days, so the Q2 FY27 patterns are due by 21 October 2026. Both rule texts were re-read on 29 September 2026: Regulation 31 in SEBI's LODR Regulations as consolidated to 14 July 2026, and the formats in Section II-A of SEBI's LODR Master Circular, last updated 30 January 2026.

How to read a shareholding pattern: what is it, and who files it?

The rule sits in Regulation 31 of SEBI's Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements (LODR). Every company listed on an Indian exchange has to submit its shareholding pattern to the NSE and BSE each quarter. Because it is filed under a regulatory obligation and published by the exchange, it is a primary source: the numbers come straight from the company, not from an estimate.

One wording change is worth knowing, because it explains why these filings now arrive so reliably. Paragraph 9 of Section II-A used to read that listed entities shall "disclose the" shareholding pattern; it now reads that they shall "ensure disclosure of" it. SEBI substituted the phrase to account for system-driven disclosure, under circular SEBI/HO/CFD/CFD-PoD-2/CIR/P/2024/185 dated 31 December 2024, and the same circular added that the depositories shall provide the shareholding data to listed entities "and/or Stock Exchanges". The pattern you read is increasingly assembled from depository records rather than keyed in by the company.

When is the next shareholding pattern due?

Regulation 31(1) sets three clocks, and only one of them is the quarterly season. Read on 29 September 2026 in the consolidation amended to 14 July 2026, the rule requires a pattern:

• one day prior to listing of the company's securities;
• within twenty one days from the end of each quarter, which for the quarter ending 30 September 2026 is 21 October 2026; and
• within ten days of any capital restructuring that changes the paid-up share capital by more than two per cent.

A proviso moves companies listed on an SME exchange to a half-yearly filing, also within twenty one days of the half-year end. None of this wording has changed since the page was last updated.

Most companies file late in the window. NSE's shareholding-pattern filings list, read 29 September 2026, holds 2,305 filings for the quarter ended 30 June 2026. Of those, 311 carry a submission date on or before 10 July 2026, 803 on or before 15 July 2026, and all but 46 on or before 21 July 2026, the twenty-first day. So a quarter-on-quarter comparison for most companies is only possible in the last week of the window. Flock's Smart Money Report for Q2 FY27 ranks the changes as patterns are filed, 1 to 21 October 2026.

The main ownership categories

A shareholding pattern splits every owner into three top-level buckets. Learning these is most of the job.

• Promoter and Promoter Group. The founders and the entities they control. This is the "skin in the game" line most readers check first.
• Public. Everyone else, split into two parts. Institutions covers FIIs or FPIs, mutual funds, insurers, banks, and alternative investment funds. Non-institutions covers individual retail holders and bodies corporate.
• Non Promoter and Non Public. Smaller technical categories such as shares held by an employee trust or a custodian against depository receipts.

The percentages in these buckets always add up to 100. When one rises, another falls, so the useful reading is always relative.

What promoter holding and pledging tell you

Two numbers on the promoter line matter. The first is the promoter's overall stake and how it moves quarter over quarter. A steady or rising promoter stake is a fact some readers weigh differently from a falling one. The second is pledging: the share of promoter holdings put up as collateral for loans, which the pattern reports on its own line. Pledged shares can be sold by the lender if a loan goes bad, so the pledge percentage is a risk fact worth reading alongside the stake itself.

Since the June 2025 quarter, the pledge column is no longer the whole encumbrance picture. Read the total encumbered figure instead, for the reasons in the next section.

The columns SEBI added in 2025

The format changed, and a pattern filed today does not match one filed in early 2025. SEBI circular SEBI/HO/CFD/CFD-PoD-2/P/CIR/2025/35 dated 20 March 2025 modified the prescribed formats under the LODR Master Circular of 11 November 2024, with effect from the quarter ending 30 June 2025. Three changes matter when comparing quarters:

• Encumbrances beyond pledges are now itemised. Tables I to IV disclose the non-disposal undertaking, other encumbrances if any, and the total number of shares pledged or otherwise encumbered including NDU. Table I carries pledged, NDU and other encumbrances as separate columns plus a total encumbered column that adds the three. A promoter can show a nil pledge while a real part of the holding is locked by undertaking, which older filings did not surface. The two instruments are compared in pledge vs non-disposal undertaking.
• A fully diluted column was added, capturing the total number of shares on a fully diluted basis including warrants, ESOPs and convertible securities. The existing convertible-securities column header was also clarified to state that it includes ESOPs.
• Promoters with nil holdings are traceable. A footnote to Table II provides that details of promoter and promoter group entities with nil shareholding can be accessed, so an entity that has gone to zero does not simply vanish from the table.

A jump in disclosed encumbrance around that quarter can therefore be a format change rather than new borrowing. The promoter's own encumbrance disclosures under the takeover code, covered in how to check promoter pledging, settle which it was.

What the exchange actually shows, and what it withholds

People search for an "NSE shareholders list" expecting a register of names. That is not what Regulation 31 produces. Six tables are filed, and each answers a narrower question.

Three rules decide what you can and cannot see:

• Only 1 percent and above are named. In the public shareholding disclosure, "names of the shareholders holding 1% or more than 1% of shares of listed entity is to be disclosed" (paragraph 2.4.1). Shareholders acting in concert are named separately where known. Everyone else sits inside a category total.
• PANs are collected but not published. The tables carry each disclosed holder's PAN, used to consolidate holdings across folios so the same person is not counted twice, but SEBI directs that exchanges must not display those PAN numbers on their websites (paragraphs 2.3 and 8.2).
• Empty columns are hidden, not zeroed. Where a company has no encumbered, pledged or locked-in shares, the exchange does not display those columns at all and shows the company's declaration instead (paragraph 8.1). An absent pledge column is not the same as a pledge of zero.

One arithmetic point catches people out. The promoter percentage is not promoter shares over all shares issued. It is calculated as A/(A+B+C2) x 100, where A is the promoter block, B is public, and C2 is the part of the Non-Promoter Non-Public block that carries voting rights (paragraph 3.3). Public shareholding uses B over the same denominator. Depository-receipt shares without votes sit outside it, which is why a hand-rolled percentage sometimes disagrees with the filed one.

How FII and DII holdings show up

Foreign and domestic institutions are the "smart money" names most people come to a shareholding pattern to find. FIIs or FPIs (the term SEBI now uses) sit in the foreign institutional line. DIIs, which include mutual funds, insurance companies, banks, and pension funds, sit in the domestic institutional line. Tracking these two lines across several quarters shows you whether institutions are building or trimming a position, as a matter of record you can verify yourself.

How to read a shareholding pattern without over-reading it

A single filing is a snapshot. The value is in the trend and the context.

• Compare quarter over quarter rather than reading one filing alone.
• Do not read a category total as a shareholder list. Below 1 percent, the names are not there to read.
• Check the filing date. The pattern is up to 21 days old on the day it publishes.
• Read total encumbered next to the promoter stake, not the pledge column on its own.
• Cross-reference the institutional lines against other disclosures for the same company.

Flock turns each shareholding pattern into a readable ownership breakdown, keeps every figure stamped with its filing date and linked back to the exchange filing, and shows how each category moves over time. What that ownership picture means for you is your call to make.