Rent Agreement Stamp Duty in West Bengal

For a typical residential agreement up to 11 months, West Bengal charges ₹100 stamp paper (flat). Two 2025 sources agree an 11-month agreement runs on ₹100 non-judicial stamp paper with two witnesses and no registration.

Under Section 17 of the Registration Act, a lease of immovable property for 12 months or longer MUST be registered with the sub-registrar — which costs time, registration fees, and higher stamp duty. An 11-month agreement stays below that threshold, so it can be executed on stamp paper without mandatory registration. That's the whole reason 11 months became India's default tenancy term.

Mandatory for leases over 11-12 months; optional but advisable for 11-month agreements.

Partial — duty payable online via GRIPS and WB e-stamping, with e-registration flows on wbregistration.gov.in, but rent agreements still commonly use physical stamp paper.

An unstamped or under-stamped agreement is not admissible as evidence in court until the deficit duty plus a penalty (up to 10× the deficit in most states) is paid. Police verification, HRA claims, address proof, and eviction proceedings can all stumble on an unstamped agreement — the duty is small, so pay it upfront.

The law doesn't fix this; it's whatever the agreement says. In practice the tenant usually bears the stamp duty and registration costs in most Indian cities, though splitting 50:50 is common in some markets. Put the split in writing in the agreement itself.