Document type / Article 26
What it costs to swap one plot for another
Swapping land for land rather than for money does not reduce the charge. An exchange deed carries the same 4.9 per cent stamp duty as a sale, and this page shows the one question the official table leaves unanswered.
The unanswered question is which of the two properties the valuation is taken from. The table says market value and stops there. Because two acres in this region can differ several times over on the government price list, that gap decides the size of the bill and it is settled at the office rather than on paper.
Stamp duty 4.9 per centRegistration fee 1 per centValuation basis not publishedLast verified: 4 August 2026
01Two properties, one deed
An exchange is a single document under which two people swap properties. It comes up when neighbours straighten a boundary, when a family reorganises holdings between branches, and when land is traded for a plot elsewhere rather than for money.
Article 26 of the stamp table charges an exchange at 4.9 per cent, the same as a sale, and the registration fee is 1 per cent of market value. There is no discount for the fact that both sides are giving as well as receiving.
An exchange is charged at the ordinary sale rate. What has to be settled is which of the two properties the rate is applied to.
| Charge | Article | Applies to | Rate | Charged on |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stamp duty | 26 | Exchange of property | 4.9% | as printed in the official table |
| Registration fee | 26 | Deed of exchange | 1% | market value |
02The valuation question the table does not answer
Two acres of farmland in this region can be worth six times each other on the government's own price list, which is exactly why the question of which side the duty is charged on is not academic.
| Side of the exchange | Government valuation Rs. |
|---|---|
| One acre in Kadipur | 9,26,740 |
| One acre in Otariya | 1,49,740 |
| Difference between the two | 7,77,000 |
The published table gives the rate and says it is charged on market value. It does not say whether that means the more valuable of the two properties, the less valuable one, or the difference between them. That is not a small omission when the two sides can differ this widely, and it is not resolved on this page.
Applied to the higher of the two valuations above, the charge would be Rs. 45,410 of stamp duty and Rs. 9,267 of registration fee, coming to Rs. 54,678. That is an illustration of the arithmetic, not a statement of which basis the office will use.
The official stamp duty help file prints Article 26 Exchange of Property at 4.9 per cent and states no valuation rule for a two sided transaction. The rule is not inferred here. The Sub-Registrar office having jurisdiction decides it.
03Where an exchange is not the cheap option
People reach for an exchange expecting it to be treated as a lesser event than a sale. It is not. At 4.9 per cent it costs the same as selling, and unlike a partition there is no reduced rate, so a family reorganising land between members is almost always better served by a partition where the facts genuinely support one.
The rates for both are on the partition page for comparison.
The words on this page, in plain English
- Market value
- Not the price on the street. In this context it is the value the government calculates from the jantri, and it is what the tax is charged on.
- Conveyance
- The legal name for a sale deed, the document that moves ownership from the seller to the buyer.
- Jantri
- The government's own price list for land. It is printed village by village and it sets the value the tax is charged on, whatever price the buyer and seller agree between themselves.
- Sub-Registrar
- The local government office where the deed is presented, the duty is checked and the document is entered in the public record.
- Survey number
- The number the revenue record uses to identify one piece of land, the way a house has a street number.