FII vs DII in February 2026: selling slows to ₹6,641 crore

February at a glance

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold a net ₹6,641 crore of Indian equities in February 2026. Domestic institutional investors (DIIs) bought a net ₹38,423 crore. The Nifty 50 closed January at 25,320.65 and February at 25,178.65, down 0.56%.

That is a much smaller sale than January's ₹41,435 crore, and the lightest month of FII selling since October 2025. It is still a sale: the eighth month in a row in which FIIs sold more than they bought.

Every figure here is NSE's provisional cash-market number in ₹ crore, the series shown day by day on our FII and DII data page.

February in numbers

The record holds 21 sessions for the month, including a Sunday session on 1 February.

• FIIs were net buyers on 11 of the 21. That is more buying days than selling days, which had last happened in October 2025. Their buying days added ₹19,217.9 crore; their selling days took away ₹25,858.8 crore.
• Two sessions decided the month. On 13 February FIIs sold a net ₹7,395.4 crore and on 27 February ₹7,536.4 crore. Together that is ₹14,931.8 crore, more than twice the month's net sale. Without those two days, FIIs would have been net buyers of about ₹8,291 crore.
• The largest FII purchase came on 3 February, ₹5,236.3 crore, on a day the Nifty 50 rose 2.55%.
• DIIs were net buyers on 16 of the 21. Their largest day was 27 February, at ₹12,292.8 crore, the fourth-largest daily DII purchase in our record, which starts in September 2024.

The two heavy FII selling days were also two of the Nifty's three worst sessions of the month: −1.30% on 13 February and −1.25% on 27 February. The worst, 19 February (−1.41%), came with FII selling of only ₹880.5 crore. Big flows and big index moves overlap often, but not every time.

Eight months without a net purchase

The last month in which FIIs bought more than they sold was June 2025, at ₹7,489 crore. Every month since has been a net sale.

February sits with October as one of the two light months of the streak. DII buying slowed with it: ₹38,423 crore is the smallest DII month since April 2025.

So far in 2026, across January and February, FIIs have sold a net ₹48,076 crore and DIIs have bought a net ₹1,07,644 crore. Over the twelve months from March 2025 to February 2026, FIIs sold ₹2,08,132 crore and DIIs bought ₹7,44,384 crore.

March's first session

The new month opened heavier. On Monday 2 March FIIs sold a net ₹3,295.6 crore, half of February's whole net sale in one session, and DIIs bought ₹8,593.9 crore. The Nifty 50 fell 1.24% to 24,865.70, its lowest close since 1 October 2025 and 5.6% below its record close of 26,328.55 on 2 January.

One session is not a trend. It is a reminder that a quiet month says little about the next one.

What this does not tell you

A small net hides big gross trading. FIIs bought and sold more than ₹3.39 lakh crore each way in February. The net figure is the small difference between two very large numbers.

DII is not one investor. It covers mutual funds, insurers, banks and pension funds, each buying for its own reasons.

The figures are provisional and partial. NSE publishes them each evening for the cash market, rounded here to ₹0.1 crore a day. They leave out derivatives, debt and primary-market deals such as IPOs, so they will not match NSDL's monthly FPI totals.

A flow is not a forecast. Eight months of selling describes the past, not March.

Where to go from here

The FII and DII data page has every session and monthly totals. For the whole month's market picture, read our February 2026 market recap. For why foreign money moves at all, the guide on how global macro reaches your fund covers rates, the dollar and oil, and herd mentality is worth a look before reading too much into any single month.