Equity fund expense ratios by fund house, 2026

The averages

The average equity fund in our data charges 1.20% a year in its Direct plan and 2.35% in its Regular plan, a gap of 1.15 percentage points. The median Direct plan is 1.09%. These are the total expense ratios (TER) that fund houses file with AMFI, on the latest filing for each fund, dated between July and October 2026, across 591 equity-category funds.

Each figure below is a simple average over a house's funds, not weighted by assets. That matters: a house with a few expensive thematic funds and many cheap ones can look different on an asset-weighted basis. Index funds and ETFs are a separate category and are not in these numbers.

Fund houses with at least ten equity funds

Two different rankings

The Direct column and the Regular column rank the houses differently. Mirae Asset, Canara Robeco and Edelweiss have the three cheapest Direct plans but charge 2.08% to 2.33% in Regular. SBI, HDFC and Nippon India have the three cheapest Regular plans, at 1.86%, 1.93% and 1.97%, because their Regular-to-Direct gap is the narrowest among the larger houses: 0.76, 0.87 and 0.90 points.

So the cheapest house depends on how you buy. If you invest directly, the houses at the top of the list cost about 0.4 points less than the average. If you buy through a distributor, the cheapest Regular plans cost about half a point less than the average.

What the gap costs

A 1.15-point gap is the average commission and distribution cost built into a Regular plan. On a ₹10 lakh holding that is roughly ₹11,500 a year at the average gap, or about ₹7,600 at SBI's gap and ₹16,000 at ITI's. The amount is the same every year while you hold, because the expense ratio is taken from the NAV daily, and it compounds against you. See the Direct versus Regular gap by category and what it adds up to in lakhs.

The small houses at both ends

Smaller houses with five or more equity funds sit outside the table. Their averages: Samco 2.02% (9 funds), Taurus 2.14% (6), The Wealth Company 2.33% (6) and Trust 1.85% (5), all above the 1.20% average. Averages over five or six funds are driven by one or two products, and these houses' funds are often young or niche, so treat them as a description of that handful, not of the house.

Spread within a house can be wide as well. Motilal Oswal's equity funds range from 0.84% to 4.78% in Direct plans, with a median of 1.30%, well below its 1.59% average, so a few expensive funds lift the house figure.

Reading TER well

Expense ratios are not a quality score. A fund that costs 1.5% and earns after costs more than a 0.8% rival has still done more for you, though only if it keeps doing so. What the ratio does tell you is the head start the fund must make up each year before it matches the market. For index-style or passive exposure the index versus active cost comparison shows how large that head start is. To check one fund's cost against its category, open it on the screener.