Between an issue closing and shares appearing in a demat account, a registrar runs a defined process. Most of the confusion about allotment comes from not knowing which part of that process an application is sitting in.
The issue is split before anyone applies
Every book-built IPO reserves fixed portions for different categories of applicant. A typical mainboard split is half to qualified institutional buyers, 15% to non-institutional investors, and 35% to retail — though the exact split is set in the offer document and differs when a company is loss-making. Employees may have a separate reserved portion.
This matters more than anything else on this page: your application only ever competes against others in your own category. The headline subscription number is an average across all of them and often has little to do with the odds facing any individual applicant.
What happens when retail is oversubscribed
If the retail portion receives bids for more shares than are reserved, the registrar cannot give everybody what they asked for. SEBI's rules require that as many applicants as possible receive at least one lot. So:
- Every valid retail application of at least one lot enters a draw.
- The draw is computerised and supervised, and its outcome is published as the basis of allotment.
- Applications that win receive one lot. If shares remain after every winner has a lot, the surplus is distributed proportionately.
The consequence surprises people: in a heavily oversubscribed issue, applying for ten lots does not make you ten times more likely to receive anything. One application is one entry. The extra lots affect how much you might receive if you win, not whether you win.
Why applications get rejected outright
A rejected application never reaches the draw. The common causes are mechanical rather than bad luck: a PAN mismatch between the application and the demat account, more than one application on the same PAN, insufficient funds when the ASBA block is attempted, a UPI mandate never approved, or a bid below the cut-off price in a book-built issue.
The dates, and what each one means
| Issue closes | Bidding stops. Nothing has been decided. |
| Basis of allotment | The registrar finalises who gets what, usually two to three working days later. |
| Refunds / unblocking | ASBA blocks released, UPI mandates revoked for unsuccessful applicants. |
| Credit to demat | Allotted shares appear, usually a day before listing. |
| Listing | Trading begins. |
A holiday anywhere in that sequence pushes everything after it. When that happens the registrar reissues the schedule, and the registrar's notice is the authority — not any aggregator, including this one.
Checking, without being scammed
Allotment is checked free on the registrar's own site or on the exchange, using a PAN, application number or demat ID. It never requires a payment, an OTP or a demat password. Around allotment dates, lookalike pages appear that collect PAN numbers; the address bar is the only thing that distinguishes them.
The quietest signal is often the bank account: if the ASBA block has been released, the application was unsuccessful, and that usually shows before any portal updates.
Allotment dates and the correct registrar for each current issue are on the allotment page.