Sell or Hold Stocks Calculator
See if selling your stocks and paying tax beats holding through a market fall.
What you paid for it, including buying costs.
How far you expect the market to fall before you buy back.
Your rate on this gain, short- or long-term, including any surcharge. Use Amount if exemptions or slabs apply.
If the market moves differently
| Market change | Selling vs holding |
|---|---|
| +20% | -216,667 |
| +10% | -145,455 |
| 0% | -60,000 |
| -6% (break-even) | 0 |
| -10% | +44,444 |
| -20% | +175,000 |
| -30% | +342,857 |
| -40% | +566,667 |
| -50% | +880,000 |
What selling and buying back leaves over holding, once the market is back at today's price.
If you expect the market to fall, you can sell your stocks or funds now, pay tax on your gain, and buy back lower. Or you can hold, pay nothing, and wait for the market to come back. This calculator compares the two once the market is back where it started, and shows how far it must fall before selling is worth the tax.
It does arithmetic, not forecasting: the fall is your own guess. You enter the tax yourself, as a rate or an amount, so it works for any country and any asset taxed on its gain.
Understanding the result
Selling costs you the tax. Buying back after the fall gets you more shares for each unit of cash. The headline figure is how much more or less selling and buying back leaves you than holding, once the market is back at today's price. The line beneath says whether selling is worth it, with the tax and the change in your share count.
For selling to pay, the market must fall is the break-even: the tax as a share of the holding's value. A bigger fall favours selling; anything smaller, or a rise, favours holding. A large gain taxed at a high rate needs a deep fall, and a small gain hardly any.
The table shows the same comparison if the market moves differently from your guess, including what a wrong call costs when the market rises and you buy back higher.
Two things are left out. Brokerage and other trading costs are not counted: add roughly twice your cost per trade to the break-even. And the tax you pay is treated as lost, which is right for shares you mean to keep. If you will sell them one day, part of it comes back, because the shares you buy back start with a higher cost and a smaller taxable gain. For those shares the real break-even is lower than the one shown.
How it works
Selling now leaves the value less the tax. At a rate, the tax is the rate times the gain; a loss is taxed at nothing unless you tick the box that lets it reduce tax on your other gains, which appears when the purchase cost is above the value. Buying back after the fall and waiting for the recovery multiplies that cash by 1 ÷ (1 − fall). Amounts show in whole units and percentages to two decimal places; the calculation is not rounded.
Tax = Rate × (Value − Purchase cost)
Cash = Value − Tax
Worth after the recovery = Cash ÷ (1 − Fall)
Break-even fall = Tax ÷ Value
Examples
A 20% fall
With the default inputs, a holding worth 1,000,000 that cost 600,000 is sold at 15% tax, leaving 940,000 after 60,000 of tax. If the market then falls 20%, buying back gives 17.50% more shares, worth 1,175,000 once the market is back: 175,000 more than holding. Selling pays once the fall is more than 6.00%.
A fall that is too small
Change the expected fall to 4%. The cash left after tax buys back fewer shares than you sold, worth 979,167 once the market recovers, so selling leaves you 20,833 less.
A small gain
Change the purchase cost to 950,000. The tax is only 7,500, so selling pays once the market falls more than 0.75%.
A large, old gain
With a purchase cost of 100,000, a tenth of the value, the tax is 135,000 and the market must fall more than 13.50% before selling leaves you ahead.
A tax amount after an exemption
Where part of the gain is exempt or taxed in slabs, set the tax to Amount and enter what you would actually pay: here 35,000 on the default 400,000 gain. The break-even fall is 3.50%.
Selling at a loss
With a purchase cost of 1,200,000 and This loss reduces tax on my other gains ticked, the 200,000 loss saves 30,000 of tax at 15%. Selling and buying back wins at any fall, and holding wins only if the price rises more than 3.00% before you buy back. Check that your country allows the loss when you buy back soon after.
Finding your tax rate
The calculator applies no country's tax law. These are the rules for listed shares in two countries, to help you choose the rate or the amount.
India, under the Income-tax Act, 2025, for listed equity shares and equity-oriented fund units on which securities transaction tax is paid:
- Short-term gains are taxed at 20% (section 196). A holding is short-term for its first 12 months (section 2(101)).
- Long-term gains are taxed at 12.5% on the amount above ₹ 1,25,000 (section 198). Where that exemption applies, use Amount.
- For shares acquired before 1 February 2018, the cost is the higher of the actual cost and the lower of the 31 January 2018 market value and the sale value (section 90(7)).
- An inherited holding keeps the previous owner's cost (section 73(1)), so the deferred tax passes to the heir.
- These rates are before surcharge and cess, which the yearly Finance Act sets.
United States, federal tax:
- A holding is long-term when held more than one year (26 U.S.C. § 1222). Short-term gains are taxed at ordinary income rates.
- Long-term gains are taxed at 0%, 15% or 20% (§ 1(h)). For 2026 the 0% rate ends at $49,450 of taxable income for a single filer and $98,900 for a joint return, and the 15% rate at $545,500 and $613,700.
- A 3.8% net investment income tax is added above an income threshold (§ 1411).
- A loss is disallowed when substantially identical shares are bought within 30 days before or after the sale (§ 1091). The rule does not apply to gains.
- A holding passed on at death takes its market value at that date as the heir's cost (§ 1014), so the deferred tax is never paid.
Sources
- Income-tax Act, 2025, as amended to 29 May 2026 — Income Tax Department
- Revenue Procedure 2025-32 — inflation-adjusted items for 2026 — Internal Revenue Service
- 26 U.S.C. § 1 — Tax imposed — U.S. Government Publishing Office
- 26 U.S.C. § 1014 — Basis of property acquired from a decedent — U.S. Government Publishing Office
- 26 U.S.C. § 1091 — Loss from wash sales of stock or securities — U.S. Government Publishing Office
- 26 U.S.C. § 1222 — Other terms relating to capital gains and losses — U.S. Government Publishing Office
- 26 U.S.C. § 1411 — Imposition of tax — U.S. Government Publishing Office
Reviewed
Frequently asked questions
See also
- CAGR Calculator — to turn a past gain into a yearly return.
- Lumpsum Calculator — to project what a holding grows to at a given return.