FII vs DII in July 2026: the lightest selling this year

The month at a glance

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold a net ₹5,779 crore of Indian equities in July 2026. Domestic institutional investors (DIIs) bought a net ₹35,099 crore. The Nifty 50 closed June at 23,865.75 and July at 24,383.60, up 2.17%.

It is the smallest FII net sale of any month this year, below February's ₹6,641 crore, and the smallest since October 2025. It is still a sale, the thirteenth month in a row.

All figures are NSE's provisional cash-market numbers in ₹ crore, the series on our FII and DII data page.

July in numbers

The month had 23 sessions, the most of any month this year.

• FIIs were net buyers on 10 of the 23. Their buying days added ₹15,846.4 crore; their selling days took away ₹21,625.4 crore.
• No big selling day. The heaviest was 16 July, at −₹4,205.6 crore, the smallest "worst day" of any month in 2026. In May the worst day was ₹21,105.9 crore.
• The month ended with buying. FIIs were net buyers on each of the last four sessions, 28 to 31 July, for ₹7,638.2 crore, with the largest on 30 July at ₹3,623.5 crore.
• DIIs were net sellers on 5 sessions, as many as in February and more than in any other month this year. Their buying of ₹35,099 crore is the smallest DII month of 2026 and the smallest since April 2025.

Both sides stepped back

July was quieter on both sides at once. FIIs sold less, and DIIs bought less.

The flows and the index did not line up day by day. The Nifty's worst session of July, −2.12% on 8 July, came on a day FIIs were net buyers of ₹1,962.8 crore. And on 16 July, the heaviest FII selling day of the month, the index barely moved: −0.02%.

Year to date, from January to July 2026, FIIs have sold a net ₹3,51,523 crore and DIIs have bought ₹5,05,237 crore. July added less than 2% to the year's FII selling.

August's first session

The buying carried into August. On 3 August FIIs bought a net ₹922.3 crore, their fifth straight session of net buying, which equals the longest such run of 2026 (6 to 12 February). DIIs bought ₹1,571.2 crore. The Nifty 50 rose 1.60% to 24,774.30, its highest close since 2 March.

Five sessions of buying is a short run. Our record holds a 16-session buying run from April to May 2025, and selling resumed afterwards.

What this does not tell you

A small net is not a quiet market. FIIs still bought and sold more than ₹3.28 lakh crore each way in July. The net is a small difference between two very large numbers.

DII is not one investor. Mutual funds, insurers, banks and pension funds all sit inside the figure.

The figures are provisional and partial. NSE publishes them each evening for the cash market only, rounded here to ₹0.1 crore a day. They exclude derivatives, debt and IPO allocations, so they will not match NSDL's monthly FPI totals.

A flow is not a forecast. A light month says nothing certain about August.

Where to go from here

The FII and DII data page has every session. Our first-half flows post covers January to June against the same half of 2025, and the July 2026 market recap covers indices and funds. For why foreign money moves at all, read how global macro reaches your fund.