Foreign portfolio investors’ (FPIs) ownership in NSE-listed companies fell to a 15-year low of 16.9 per cent in the September 2025 quarter, extending a decline that began in early 2023, according to NSE’s latest India Ownership Tracker.
Except for marginal upticks for two quarters, FPI shareholding has been steadily falling since March 2023, due to volatility in global capital flows and profit-booking by foreign investors. In the first half of FY26 alone, FPI share fell by 63 basis points, with outflows of $8.7 billion during the September quarter.
In value terms, FPI holdings slipped 5.1 per cent quarter-on-quarter to ₹75.2 lakh crore, even as they have grown at an annualised pace of 17 per cent over the past two decades — slightly ahead of the 16.1 per cent growth in overall market capitalisation.
FPI ownership in the Nifty 50 and Nifty 500 indices also dropped by 43 bps and 46 bps, respectively, to 24.1 per cent and 18 per cent — both at their lowest levels in over 13 years. The decline was broad-based, with continued selling in consumption and commodity-oriented sectors such as FMCG, energy and materials. FPIs remained overweight on financials and communication services but turned cautious on IT and maintained an underweight stance on industrials.
Domestic MFs lead
In contrast, domestic mutual funds (DMFs) continued to gain ground, marking their ninth consecutive quarterly rise in shareholding. Backed by record equity inflows of ₹1.64 lakh crore in Q2 FY26, mutual funds lifted their ownership in NSE-listed companies to a new peak of 10.9 per cent.
DMFs’ share in the Nifty 50 index rose to 13.5 per cent and 11.4 per cent in the Nifty 500 index. Monthly systematic investment plan (SIP) inflows averaged ₹28,697 crore in the quarter, up 6.8 per cent sequentially and 20.6 per cent year-on-year.
The continued strength of domestic flows pushed overall domestic institutional investor (DII) ownership — which includes mutual funds, insurers, banks and other financial institutions — to 18.7 per cent, surpassing FPI share for the fourth consecutive quarter. The DII-FPI ownership gap, which stood at minus 12 percentage points in September 2014, has now decisively turned in favour of domestic investors.
Retail share stable
The share of individual investors in NSE-listed companies remained steady at 9.6 per cent, within the 9.5–9.8 per cent range of the past nine quarters. Retail inflows revived during the quarter, totalling ₹20,469 crore. Meanwhile, their ownership in companies outside the top 10 per cent by market capitalisation rose 48 bps to a 19-year high of 16.7 per cent, indicating a growing interest in mid- and small-cap stocks.
Promoter ownership stayed largely unchanged at 50.1 per cent, with a slight rise in foreign promoter stakes offset by a decline among private Indian promoters. In the Nifty 50, however, promoter share slipped for the sixth straight quarter to 40 per cent, the lowest in 23 years. Government ownership eased 10 bps to 10 per cent, extending a steady decline over the past year