Skip to content

Independent. Unsponsored. Built for India.

Live rates Repo rate 5.25% USD/INR ₹95.88 Gold 24K (10g) ₹1,53,727 All rates
Advertiser disclosure. Some links on this page are partner links. They never change our rankings. Read how

Credsir earns money when you apply for a product through some of the links on this site. That revenue funds the research. It does not buy a placement: our rankings come from a published scoring method that runs on the same data for every product, partner or not. Products we do not earn from appear in these lists whenever they win on the numbers — and several currently do.

Investing

IPO Subscription Status: How to Read QIB, NII and Retail Numbers

IPO subscription status shows how many times each investor category's shares have been bid for, as published by NSE and BSE.

VD

Written by Vikram Desai

Published 16 September 2026·6 min read

On this page9 sections
Credsir Investing guide cover with a trending up icon

IPO subscription status shows how many times the shares reserved for each investor category have been bid for. NSE and BSE publish the figures during the bidding period. If the retail category shows 5x, retail bids add up to five times the retail shares on offer, so many retail applicants will get nothing.

Key facts

Item Detail
Published by NSE and BSE, for each issue, during the bid period
Formula Shares bid for ÷ shares reserved for that category
Anchor investors Excluded from the public subscription figure
Retail (bids up to ₹2 lakh) At least 35% of the net offer in a Regulation 6(1) issue
Non-institutional (bids above ₹2 lakh) At least 15%; one-third for ₹2 lakh–₹10 lakh (sHNI), two-thirds for above ₹10 lakh (bHNI)
Qualified institutional buyers At most 50%, of which up to 60% can go to anchors
Legal minimum disclosure Demand shown on exchange websites at the end of each bidding day

Where to see live subscription data

The SEBI (Issue of Capital and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2018 require the exchanges to show demand on their websites at the end of each bidding day. The exchanges publish figures during the day as well.

  1. NSE: open the upcoming issues page under Market Data (nseindia.com/market-data/all-upcoming-issues-ipo), select the IPO, and choose NSE Bid Details or Consolidated Bid Details under Category.
  2. BSE: open the public issues page (bseindia.com/publicissue.html), select the IPO, and choose BSE Bid Details or Cumulative Bid Details.

The consolidated or cumulative view combines bids from both exchanges and is the one to read. A single-exchange table shows only part of the demand. Our IPO calendar lists which issues are open for bidding.

The categories in the table

Category Who bids here Share of net offer: Reg 6(1) Reg 6(2)
QIB Mutual funds, banks, insurers and other large institutions At most 50% At least 75%
NII (HNI) Anyone other than retail and QIBs bidding above ₹2 lakh At least 15% At most 15%
Retail (RII) Individuals bidding up to ₹2 lakh At least 35% At most 10%

Regulation 6(2) applies to companies that do not meet the Regulation 6(1) eligibility tests, such as the operating profit track record. The red herring prospectus says which route an issue uses.

ItemDetails
sHNI and bHNI.Since 2022, the NII portion is split: one-third for bids above ₹2 lakh and up to ₹10 lakh, and two-thirds for bids above ₹10 lakh. Either sub-category’s unsold shares can move to the other. NSE labels these sNII and bNII.
Anchor investors.They bid one working day before the issue opens, for at least ₹10 crore each, and can take up to 60% of the QIB portion. From 1 December 2025, 40% of the anchor portion is reserved: 33.33% for domestic mutual funds and 6.67% for life insurers and pension funds.
Employees.An employee quota can be up to 5% of the post-issue capital. Allotment per employee is capped at ₹2 lakh, rising to ₹5 lakh if the quota is undersubscribed.
Shareholders.Shareholders of a listed promoter company or listed subsidiary can get a quota of up to 10% of the issue size.

How the times-subscribed figure is calculated

Each category’s figure is the number of shares bid for divided by the shares reserved for it. The anchor portion is left out of the public figure, so a QIB number refers to the non-anchor QIB shares only.

Take an illustration. The retail portion has 1,00,00,000 shares and retail bids total 5,00,00,000 shares. Retail is then subscribed 5 times, or 5x. The overall figure divides all bids by all shares on offer, excluding anchors.

Subscription figures show demand during bidding. They do not tell you how the share will trade after listing.

What ‘5x subscribed’ means for your allotment odds

The times figure counts shares, while the retail draw counts applicants. Regulation 49(4) says each allotted retail investor gets at least one minimum lot. The registrar divides the retail shares by the lot size to find how many people can get a lot, then draws lots if more people applied.

Many retail bidders apply for several lots. So the number of applicants is usually smaller than the share count suggests, and a 5x retail figure does not mean exactly 1 chance in 5. Your real odds depend on how many separate applicants there were, which you see only in the basis of allotment.

SEBI’s own worked example in Schedule XIII of the ICDR Regulations makes the point for small NIIs. In it, the ₹2 lakh–₹10 lakh sub-category is 15.5 times subscribed, with 2,000 applicants. Only 200 minimum-size allotments are possible, so 200 applicants are picked by lottery: 1 in 10, not 1 in 15.5.

How oversubscription changes retail allotment

ItemDetails
Up to 1xevery valid retail bid gets the shares applied for.
Above 1x, but fewer applicants than available lotsevery applicant gets one lot, and leftover shares go proportionately to those who bid for more.
More applicants than available lotsa draw of lots decides who gets one lot. Everyone else gets nothing, however many lots they bid for.

Unsold shares in the retail or NII category can be given to bidders in other categories. If an issue gets less than 90% of the offer in subscriptions, SEBI’s rules require all application money to be returned. That rule does not apply to offers for sale. Once you have bid, you can track the result on the registrar’s site or the BSE and NSE status pages. Our explainer on how IPOs work covers the rest of the process.

Why the final figure can differ from day-one data

ItemDetails
The data is cumulative.Day-one figures count only the bids placed so far, and each update adds new bids.
Institutions may bid late.The issuer can even close QIB bidding one working day before the issue closes, if the prospectus says so.
Retail bids can be withdrawn.Retail investors can revise or withdraw until closing. NIIs and QIBs cannot withdraw or lower their bids.
Invalid bids drop out later.Exchange data counts bids as uploaded. The registrar finalises rejections by 6 pm on the day after closing, removing bids with PAN mismatches, unapproved UPI mandates or multiple applications. The subscription shown in the basis of allotment, based on valid bids, can therefore be lower than the exchange’s final figure.
Price band changes extend bidding.A revised band keeps the issue open for at least 3 more working days.

Frequently asked questions

What does IPO subscription status mean?

It shows how many times the shares set aside for each investor category have been bid for, as reported by NSE and BSE during bidding.

Where can I check NSE IPO subscription status?

Open the IPO on NSE’s upcoming issues page and choose Consolidated Bid Details. BSE shows the same under Cumulative Bid Details.

What are sHNI and bHNI?

Sub-categories of the non-institutional portion. sHNI covers bids above ₹2 lakh and up to ₹10 lakh and gets one-third of the portion; bHNI covers bids above ₹10 lakh and gets two-thirds.

Are anchor investors included in the subscription figure?

No. Anchor shares are allotted before the issue opens and are excluded from the public figure.

If retail is subscribed 50 times, do only 1 in 50 applicants get shares?

Not exactly. The figure counts shares, and many applicants bid for several lots, so the number of winners depends on how many separate applicants there were.

Does high subscription mean the share will list at a gain?

No. Subscription reflects demand during bidding and does not predict the listing price.

Sources

Related articles