IPO Allotment Status: How to Check It and How Allotment Really Works

The days between an IPO closing and the allotment being announced produce more refreshing of web pages than any other event in Indian retail investing. Most of that anxiety comes from not knowing how the decision is being made — so it is worth understanding the mechanism before worrying about where to check the outcome.

This guide covers both: how allotment is actually decided for each category of investor, the four places you can check your status, what the signals in your own bank account tell you before any website does, and what happens to your blocked money if you get nothing.

How allotment actually gets decided

There is no single allotment rule. Each investor category has its own, and they are genuinely different in character. Understanding which one applies to you removes most of the folklore.

Retail: a lottery, by design

The governing principle for the retail category is that as many applicants as possible should receive at least the minimum lot. So the registrar works out how many minimum lots the retail portion can supply, and if there are more valid applicants than lots available, allotment is made by a computerised draw of lots. It is random, it is audited, and it is not influenced by how early you applied, which broker you used, or how large your bid was.

When the retail portion is only lightly oversubscribed, everyone gets a minimum lot and the surplus is distributed proportionately among those who bid for more. When it is heavily oversubscribed, the arithmetic collapses to a straight lottery for one lot each — and a great many applicants get nothing at all. This is the normal, intended outcome, not a malfunction.

Non-institutional: proportionate, until it cannot be

The non-institutional (HNI) category is allotted proportionately, so a larger application does buy a larger expected allotment — subject to a minimum-lot floor. The category is itself sub-divided into a bucket for smaller applications and a bucket for larger ones, which was introduced so that very large applicants could not crowd out the rest of the category entirely. When demand is extreme enough that a proportionate share falls below one lot, this category also resolves into a draw of lots.

Institutional: discretion within the rules

The qualified institutional portion is allocated by the issuer and the book-running lead managers within the regulatory framework, with a portion of it reserved for mutual funds. It is a negotiated, relationship-driven allocation rather than a mechanical one — which is precisely why it tells you nothing about your own chances.

The basis of allotment document

Once allotment is finalised, the registrar publishes a Basis of Allotment — a short document that is the most informative and least-read artefact of the whole process. It sets out, for each category, how many valid applications were received, how many shares were available, the subscription ratio, and the exact allotment logic applied, including the ratio used in the draw of lots.

Read it once and the lottery stops feeling arbitrary. It will tell you, for example, that in the retail category the ratio was such that a defined number of applicants out of every hundred received one lot. That is a far more useful thing to know than the outcome of your own single application, because it calibrates what to expect next time.

Where to check your allotment status

There are four independent places to look, and they update at slightly different times. Checking more than one is sensible when a page is slow or gives an odd answer.

1. The registrar to the issue. Every issue appoints one registrar — commonly names such as MUFG Intime (formerly Link Intime), KFin Technologies, Bigshare or Cameo — and the registrar hosts an allotment-status page. Which registrar handles a given issue is stated in the offer document and in your broker's IPO listing. Find the page through the registrar's own website rather than a link someone forwarded you, because these addresses change and fake lookalikes appear around popular issues.
2. The NSE and BSE websites. Both exchanges host an IPO application-status facility where you can look up a bid by application number and PAN. This is often the fastest source in the hours immediately after allotment, and it is a useful cross-check on a registrar page that seems out of date.
3. Your broker. If you applied through a broker's UPI route, the IPO or orders section of the app will show the status of your bid and, once allotted, the shares appearing in your holdings. This is the least effort and usually the last to update.
4. Your demat holdings. Allotted shares are credited before listing. If they are in your demat account, the question is settled regardless of what any website says.

The quiet signal: your own bank account

Before any status page updates, your bank tells you the answer. Because applications are made under ASBA, the money was blocked rather than debited — so the movement on that block is the outcome.

• The block is released in full and nothing is debited — you were not allotted.
• Part of the block is debited and the rest released — you were allotted a portion of what you bid for.
• The full blocked amount is debited — you were allotted your full application.

If you applied by UPI, the mandate status in your UPI app shows the same thing: a revoked or lapsed mandate means no allotment, an executed one means shares are coming. This is often visible hours before the registrar's page stops timing out.

If you were not allotted

Nothing is required of you. There is no refund to claim, because your money never left your account — the block simply lapses and the amount becomes available again. Under the current shortened timeline, unblocking happens promptly after the basis of allotment is finalised, and the regulatory framework provides for compensation to investors when funds remain blocked beyond the prescribed period. If your funds are still blocked well after the allotment has been announced, that is a defined grievance, not bad luck.

1. Check the block, not the balanceLook for the lien or hold on the account specifically. Some banks show the amount back in the available balance a cycle later than they release the hold.
2. Give it the prescribed windowUnblocking is a batch process across every unsuccessful applicant in the issue. A same-day check after allotment often shows nothing yet.
3. Raise it with the blocking entity firstThe bank that blocked the funds, or the broker whose mandate you approved, is the first point of escalation — they hold the record of the block.
4. Then escalate to the registrar or the regulatorIf it is still unresolved, the registrar to the issue handles allotment grievances, and SEBI operates an online investor-complaint facility for issues the intermediary does not settle.

The other thing to do is nothing dramatic. Not being allotted is the base case in a popular issue, and it is not a signal about the company or about you. If you had a genuine view on the business, the stock will be available on the exchange after listing — with the advantage that you can then buy the quantity you actually want at a price you can see.

If you were allotted

Shares are credited to your demat account before the listing date, and they will show in your holdings at the issue price. On listing day the stock goes through a special pre-open session that discovers the first traded price, which can be well above or well below the issue price — the pre-listing chatter around any issue is a poor guide to which, as the grey market premium guide explains at length.

The more important decision is what the holding is for. An allotment you intended to flip on listing day and an allotment you intended to hold for years are two entirely different positions that happen to share a ticker, and the mistake is to blur them — to hold a failed flip because it is now down, or to sell a genuine long-term conviction because it opened up. Decide which one it is before listing day, while you are still calm.

What the process is not

There is a persistent belief that allotment can be improved by applying early, by applying at cut-off rather than the cap, by using a particular broker, or by bidding at an odd quantity. None of that is true for the retail category. The only levers that genuinely exist are: a valid application with no administrative defects, bidding at cut-off so you are not excluded on price, and separate applications from separate PANs within your family. Everything else is folklore.

AIVITTA is an analytics and education platform, not an advisor. We explain how the mechanism works and what your numbers mean — we do not recommend applying to any issue, and the decisions stay with you.