FIIs sold ₹4.03 lakh crore of Indian shares in 2026

The year so far

From 1 January to 30 September 2026, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold a net ₹4,03,068 crore of Indian equities. They bought ₹28,96,718 crore and sold ₹32,99,785 crore.

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

Over the same nine months the Nifty 50 fell 13.4%, from 26,129.60 at the end of 2025 to 22,620.45 on 30 September.

Every month a net sale

Not one month of 2026 has been a net purchase. The record covers 185 sessions this year; FIIs were net buyers on 54 and net sellers on 131.

Front-loaded

The selling was heaviest in the first half.

The first two quarters account for 85.8% of the year's net selling. July and August were the lightest months of the year, under ₹8,000 crore each. September then brought ₹44,013 crore, most of it in the last week, as our September flows post shows.

March is the outlier. FIIs sold a net ₹1,22,540 crore across 19 sessions, and were net sellers on every one of them. The Nifty 50 fell 11.3% that month, its worst of the year.

The biggest days

29 May stands well clear of anything else: nearly twice the next-largest day. On the buying side, the year's largest net purchase was ₹6,688.4 crore on 2 September, followed by ₹5,236.3 crore on 3 February.

Against 2025

Our daily record starts in September 2024, so 2025 is the one complete year to compare against.

• In all of 2025 FIIs sold a net ₹3,06,419 crore.
• In January to September 2025 they sold ₹2,52,222 crore.
• In January to September 2026 they sold ₹4,03,068 crore.

Nine months of 2026 have already exceeded the whole of 2025 by 31.5%.

The currency alongside

Foreign investors measure their returns in dollars, so a falling rupee eats into them. Over the same nine months the dollar rose from about ₹89.77 at the end of 2025 to ₹95.83 at the end of September, up 6.75%.

The two moved together this year. These figures cannot show which caused which, or whether something else drove both.

What these numbers do not tell you

Provisional, and cash market only. NSE publishes these each evening. They leave out derivatives, debt and primary-market deals such as IPOs, so they will not match NSDL's monthly FPI figures.

The older days are rounded. Our history before 30 September 2026 comes from a one-off import that rounds each figure to ₹0.1 crore. A total of many days carries a small rounding error.

Selling is not the same as a falling market. In April FIIs sold ₹70,136 crore and the Nifty 50 rose 7.5%. Domestic buyers, covered in our DII post, were on the other side.

A flow is not a forecast. Nine months of net selling describes what happened, not what October holds.

Where to go from here

The FII and DII data page has every session and monthly totals, updated each trading evening. For why foreign money moves at all, the guide on how global macro reaches your fund covers interest rates, the dollar and oil.