IPO investor categories: retail, HNI, QIB, anchor and quotas

Updated 26 October 2026 · 4 min read

Every Indian IPO divides its shares into portions for different kinds of investors: retail individuals, non-institutional investors (HNIs, split into small and big), qualified institutional buyers (QIBs) with anchor investors inside them, and sometimes reserved quotas for employees and shareholders of a listed parent. Each portion has its own rules on who can bid, how much, and how shares are allotted if demand is high.

Knowing your category matters because it decides your bid limit, whether you can bid at cut-off, and how your chance of allotment is worked out. It also explains the subscription figures you see during the issue, which are always published category by category.

The categories at a glance

How much of the issue each category gets

The split depends on whether the company meets SEBI's profitability conditions. Most mainboard IPOs come from profitable companies under Regulation 6(1) of the ICDR rules; companies that do not meet those tests list under Regulation 6(2) with a very different split.

So if you see an issue with only 10% for retail, it is usually a company that did not meet the profitability tests. That is worth noticing, because the retail portion becomes much smaller and often more crowded.

Retail investors (RII)

Retail is for individuals bidding up to ₹2 lakh, calculated at the cap price. If the retail portion is oversubscribed, the aim is to give one lot to as many applicants as possible, and a computerised lottery picks who gets it. Applying for more lots barely changes your chance. If retail is undersubscribed, everyone gets what they applied for, and any unsubscribed part can usually be shifted to other categories.

Non-institutional investors: small and big HNI

Bids above ₹2 lakh go to the NII portion. It is split into two parts: one-third for bids above ₹2 lakh up to ₹10 lakh (small NII) and two-thirds for bids above ₹10 lakh (big NII). In each, if oversubscribed, a lottery allots the minimum application size of that sub-category to as many applicants as possible. NIIs cannot bid at cut-off and usually bid at the cap price. Applications above ₹5 lakh need net-banking ASBA, since UPI is limited to ₹5 lakh.

QIBs and anchor investors

Qualified institutional buyers are large regulated institutions. Their portion is allotted proportionately to the size of each bid. Up to 60% of the QIB portion can go to anchor investors, who bid one working day before the issue opens with a minimum of ₹10 crore each. Anchors are allotted at the discretion of the company and lead managers within SEBI rules, and their shares are locked in: 50% for 30 days and the rest for 90 days from allotment. Anchor demand is published before the issue opens, which many investors read as an early signal.

Employee and shareholder quotas

• Employee quota: for eligible employees, often with a discount to the issue price. Bids can go up to ₹5 lakh, but allotment above ₹2 lakh happens only if the quota is undersubscribed.
• Shareholder quota: for shareholders of a listed parent company on the record date stated in the RHP, with bids up to ₹2 lakh.
• An eligible person can usually bid in these quotas and also in retail from the same PAN. These quotas are often less crowded than retail.

Rules that apply to every category

• One application per PAN per category. Two bids from the same PAN in one category are both rejected.
• A bid is placed in only one of retail, small NII or big NII, decided by its size at the cap price.
• Only retail, employee and shareholder bidders can bid at cut-off.

Each IPO page on this site shows live subscription for every category, including anchors, so you can see how crowded your own category is. In My IPOs you can record the category each family member applied in and follow allotment for each.