This page used to say that every rental agreement in Karnataka had to be registered within 60 days, with a ₹5,000 penalty. That rule comes from the Model Tenancy Act, which Karnataka has not adopted. We were wrong to repeat it.
What the law actually requires is shorter, and registering can still be worth an afternoon.
What is actually required
A lease for a term of more than one year must be registered. A shorter one may be registered, and need not be.
REGISTRATION ACT, 1908, SECTIONS 17 AND 18 · IN FORCE 1 JANUARY 1909 · CHECKED 27 SEP 2026This is why agreements in Bengaluru run for eleven months: it keeps them below the line where registration is compulsory.
Stamp duty is paid as a digital e-stamp through Karnataka’s Kaveri-2 system.
KARNATAKA STAMP (DIGITAL E-STAMP) RULES, 2025 · IN FORCE 16 JANUARY 2026 · CHECKED 27 SEP 2026The rules were notified in July 2025 and brought into operation by a notification of 16 January 2026. If your agreement was stamped some other way, ask whoever prepared it whether that stamp is still accepted.
An eleven-month agreement still has to be stamped. Registering it is a choice. What the law actually says.
A notarised agreement is a document. A registered one is a public record.
When registering is worth it anyway
- A society that asks for a registered copy before it issues a move-in permit. Ask the facility office; some do.
- Address proof, where some offices accept a registered agreement more readily than a notarised one.
- A dispute about what was agreed. Registration fixes the text and the date beyond argument.
- A lease you want to run longer than a year, which has to be registered.
None of those is likely in any given tenancy. Across two years and a deposit of several lakh, one of them is likely enough to be worth an afternoon.
What it costs
Calculated on the rent and the deposit for the term. Kaveri-2 computes it; confirm the figure there rather than from an old table.
Paid on the portal, if you register. Check the current schedule when you file.
Optional. Plenty of vendors will do the whole thing for you, and for most people that is a sensible trade.
Small against the deposit it protects, whichever way it comes out.
How to do it
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01
Agree the text first
Rent, deposit, term, notice, lock-in, who pays for what, the inventory as an annexure. Registration records a document exactly as it stands. Everything you want enforceable has to be in the text before it goes anywhere near the portal.
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02
Collect what you’ll need
Both parties’ Aadhaar and PAN, the property details, and the owner’s proof of ownership or authority to let. Add photographs and witnesses where the portal asks for them. Almost every delay at this stage is a missing document rather than a difficult one.
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03
Get the e-stamp
Through Kaveri-2. The duty is calculated on the term and the amounts.
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04
Create the application on Kaveri
kaveri2.karnataka.gov.in. Enter the parties, the property and the document, then upload the agreement.
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05
Authenticate and sign
Both parties authenticate with Aadhaar. This usually needs both people available at roughly the same time, so agree a slot rather than discover the delay.
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06
Pay and submit
Stamp duty and registration fee, on the portal.
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07
Download the registered copy
Save the PDF somewhere you will find it in two years, not only in a WhatsApp thread.
Who pays, and what to settle first
There is no rule. Convention in Bengaluru puts it on the tenant more often than not, but it is one of the easiest things to split and one of the least contested asks in a negotiation.
- Whether you are registering at all, decided before signing.
- Who pays the stamp duty, and the registration fee if you register.
- Who files it: you, the owner, or a vendor.
- Where the registered copy lives, and that both parties have one.
It belongs with the rest of what you settle before signing. The questions worth asking before you sign.
Fees get revised and portals change. This describes the process as of the date above, checked against the Registration Act and Karnataka’s digital e-stamp rules. If something on Kaveri has moved since, tell us and we’ll update it.
