Maharashtra ready reckoner rates 2026-27: how they're set and what they do to your stamp duty

Rules and rates as of 19 October 2026.

Every flat in Maharashtra has two prices. One is the price you and the seller agree. The other is the government's own estimate of what the property is worth, read off the Annual Statement of Rates, better known as the ready reckoner. Stamp duty is charged on whichever is higher. This explainer covers how that statement is set, what happened to it for 2026-27, and what a gap between the two prices does to your duty and to income tax.

What the ready reckoner is, in law

The Maharashtra Stamp Act, 1958 charges duty on most property documents by "market value". Section 2(na) of the Act, in the consolidated text on the Inspector General of Registration (IGR) website (modified up to 3 June 2022), defines market value as the price the property "would have fetched if sold in open market on the date of execution of such instrument or the consideration stated in the instrument whichever is higher".

That last phrase is the whole point. If your agreement says ₹95 lakh but the property's market value is higher, duty is on the higher figure. The Annual Statement of Rates is the government's yardstick for that market value. It is prepared under the Bombay Stamp (Determination of True Market Value of Property) Rules, 1995, which section 32A of the Act names. The IGR's own page describes it as the rates "to assess the true market value" of property for stamp duty, published through its e-ASR application.

How the rates are set

• Once a year, from 1 April. A Revenue and Forests Department notification of 31 December 2015 (No. Mudrank 2015/7911/C.R.379/M-1) amended rule 4 of the 1995 Rules so the annual statement takes effect "every year on the 1st day of April". It used to be 1 January.
• With valuation guidelines. The rates come with guidelines that adjust the base rate for an individual property. The IGR lists separate guidelines for Mumbai and for the rest of Maharashtra; the latest on its page are for 2025-26. Read the guideline for your year before you compare a flat's price with the rate.
• By location. The IGR says it is working with the Maharashtra Remote Sensing Applications Centre on GIS-based valuation zones, so rates can be read off a map. Its homepage gives no date for when that will be complete.

We could not read rule 4 of the 1995 Rules in full on a government page, so we are not describing the data or the committee process behind each year's figures.

What happened for 2026-27

News agency IANS reported on 1 April 2026 that the IGR's office had announced the 2025-26 rates would continue unchanged for 2026-27, a decision it attributed to Revenue Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule. The same report said the 2025-26 revision had raised rates by 3.39% in the Mumbai municipal area and 5.95% in other municipal corporations. We could not find the notice on the IGR website, whose rate pages block automated readers, so treat the freeze and those percentages as reported, not confirmed. The IGR guidelines page listing 2025-26 as its latest year is consistent with the report. Check the e-ASR value for your property yourself.

A freeze does not mean your flat's ready reckoner value stays put. The guidelines still adjust for features of the individual flat, and a resale flat's value can change as it ages.

Why the ready reckoner reaches beyond stamp duty

The same figure now feeds two other bills.

• Income tax. Under section 78 of the Income-tax Act, 2025, if a seller receives less than the stamp duty value, the stamp duty value is treated as the sale price for capital gains, unless it is no more than 110% of the actual price. For the buyer, section 92(2)(m) taxes the gap as income if it is more than the higher of ₹50,000 and 10% of the price. Where a builder's agreement is dated earlier than the registration, the value on the agreement date can be used if some payment was made by bank or online mode by then.
• Mumbai property tax. The Mumbai Municipal Corporation (Amendment, Re-enactment of Capital Value Rules with retrospective effect and Validation) Act, 2026 (Maharashtra Act XXI of 2026) makes the Annual Statement of Rates under the 1995 Rules the base rate for capital-value property tax, with effect from 1 April 2010. The ready reckoner affects your annual tax bill too.

Worked example: a ₹95 lakh flat

Assumptions. Agreement value ₹95,00,000. Ready reckoner value, after guidelines, ₹1,02,00,000. The combined duty rate of 6% is an assumption (the 5% Article 25 duty plus 1% metro cess usually quoted for Mumbai). We could not confirm either figure on an official page, so use the rate the sub-registrar's computation shows.

Duty base = higher of ₹95,00,000 and ₹1,02,00,000 = ₹1,02,00,000
Duty = ₹1,02,00,000 × 6% = ₹6,12,000
Duty had the agreement value been the base = ₹95,00,000 × 6% = ₹5,70,000
Extra duty from the gap = ₹7,00,000 × 6% = ₹42,000

Income tax: ₹1,02,00,000 ÷ ₹95,00,000 = 107.37%, within the 110% band, so the seller's sale price stays ₹95 lakh. For the buyer, the gap of ₹7,00,000 is below the threshold of ₹9,50,000 (10% of ₹95 lakh, higher than ₹50,000), so nothing is taxed.

Ready reckoner value	Duty at 6% (assumed)	Extra vs agreement value	As % of price	Seller's sale price for tax	Buyer's income taxed
₹90,00,000	₹5,70,000	₹0	94.74%	₹95,00,000	₹0
₹1,02,00,000	₹6,12,000	₹42,000	107.37%	₹95,00,000	₹0
₹1,08,00,000	₹6,48,000	₹78,000	113.68%	₹1,08,00,000	₹13,00,000
₹1,15,00,000	₹6,90,000	₹1,20,000	121.05%	₹1,15,00,000	₹20,00,000

The stamp duty difference is modest. The income-tax effect is not: once the ready reckoner value is more than 10% above the price, the buyer has taxable income equal to the whole gap, and the seller is taxed as if he received the ready reckoner value.

If you think the rate overvalues your flat

The Act gives a route, as the IGR's consolidated text reads:

• The registering officer can refer a document he believes is undervalued to the Collector, who decides the true market value after a hearing (section 32A). Any shortfall carries a penalty of 2% a month, capped at four times the shortfall. On the ₹42,000 above, that is ₹840 a month, up to ₹1,68,000.
• An order fixing market value can be appealed within 60 days (section 32B), to the Additional Controller of Stamps, Mumbai for Mumbai City and Suburban districts, and to the Deputy Inspector General of Registration elsewhere.
• For income tax, section 78 lets the assessing officer refer the value to a Valuation Officer if the seller claims the stamp duty value is above fair market value.

These are fights for a lawyer or a CA, and only worth it when the gap is large. For a buyer, the cheaper protection is to find the ready reckoner value before agreeing a price.