Clean price vs dirty price: do I pay accrued interest?

Yes. When you buy a bond between coupon dates you will receive the whole of the next coupon, so you pay the seller the share of it that built up while they held the bond. The clean price excludes that accrued interest; the dirty price includes it. Which one you see depends on where you buy.

Which venues quote clean and which quote dirty?

Where you buy	Price you see	Accrued interest
NSE or BSE order book (Kite and other broker apps)	Dirty	Already inside the price
RFQ platform (bond apps and other OBPPs)	Clean	Added separately to reach the total you pay
NDS-OM (RBI Retail Direct)	Clean when matched	Added at settlement

NSE's circular NSE/CMTR/39581 of 4th Dec 2018 is explicit: "The trading in G-SEC shall be inclusive of accrued interest i.e. dirty price". NSE/CMTR/45096 of 22nd Jul 2020 applies the same rule to SDLs, and both are restated as item 1.18 of NSE's consolidated circular NSE/CMTR/61813 (NSE circulars). BSE's debt market FAQ says its retail segment trades and settles at the dirty price, RBI's NDS-OM primer says trades match on clean price and settle dirty, and NSE's RFQ user guide lists price, accrued interest and consideration as separate fields (NSE RFQ). SEBI requires every registered bond platform to show both the clean and the dirty price of each bond it lists (SEBI NCS Master Circular), and some broker apps show both too: Paytm Money's bond section did from its launch on 22nd May 2023 (Business Standard).

A worked example

Illustrative numbers, not a real bond: ₹1,000 face value, a 9% coupon paid once a year, and 4 months since the last coupon.

• Accrued interest is about ₹1,000 × 9% × 4/12 = ₹30.
• Clean price ₹1,000, dirty price ₹1,030.
• On the exchange you see ₹1,030. On an RFQ platform you see ₹1,000 plus ₹30 of accrued interest, and pay ₹1,030.
• 8 months later you receive the full ₹90 coupon. ₹30 of it repays what you gave the seller, so you earned ₹60 for the 8 months you held the bond.

The exact amount depends on the bond's day count convention and the settlement date, not the trade date.

Why was no accrued interest added when I bought on the exchange?

Because it was already in the price. In Jul 2026 a Kite user who bought an NCD on BSE expected accrued interest on top and found nothing extra was deducted; replies explained that the traded price already carries it (TradingQnA). Zerodha's Console shows the dirty price as your buy average for G-secs (Zerodha support). Selling works the same way: the price you receive includes the interest earned up to settlement.

Why did a bond app charge more than face value?

Usually the accrued interest, sometimes also a price above face value. A GoldenPi buyer asked why ₹10.21 lakh was charged for ₹10 lakh of face value; the difference was accrued interest (TradingQnA). The TradingQnA thread on the clean price of corporate bonds has 2,500 views (TradingQnA).

Why does it matter after the trade?

• Comparing quotes. A dirty quote on one app and a clean quote on another can look like a price gap that is not there. See Why does the same bond show a different yield on two apps?.
• Tax. A buy average at the dirty price mixes accrued interest into your cost, which changes how interest and capital gains split. See How do I report accrued interest paid at purchase in my ITR?.
• Record dates. If you sell before the record date, the buyer gets the next coupon and pays you the accrued part through the price.