What is ex-showroom price?
Ex-showroom is the manufacturer's price for the car itself, GST included. It is what advertisements quote, because it is the smallest number that can honestly be called the price — and it is not a number you can pay. Nobody drives away for the ex-showroom price. Everything between it and what leaves your account is tax, a statutory fee, insurance or a charge the dealer adds. The taxes and fees are fixed; the own-damage half of the insurance and the dealer's own lines are not.
What is on-road price, line by line?
Here is every line for a real car — the Tata Altroz Pure S 1.2 CNG AMT, registered in Delhi.
| Line | Amount | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Ex-showroom price | ₹9,04,990 | The manufacturer's price including GST. It is the only line the manufacturer sets, and the only one that is the same at every dealer in the state. |
| Road tax | ₹63,349 | Set by your state and charged as a percentage of the ex-showroom price. This is the line that makes the same car cost different amounts in different states. |
| Delhi levy | ₹4,000 | A fixed charge Delhi adds on top of the road tax, billed with it at the RTO. |
| Cess | ₹1,629 | A flat 0.18% of the ex-showroom price. It appears at that exact rate on every invoice we checked, in every state — we have not traced the notification that sets it, so we bill it and describe it rather than name it. |
| Registration & FASTag | ₹1,200 | The fixed RTO fee for issuing the registration, plus the FASTag you cannot drive out without. |
| Hypothecation (car loan only) | ₹1,500 | The fee to record a car loan on the registration. Strictly a charge for a financed car; we include it because dealers' on-road quotes do, and show the cash total below without it. |
| Handling (dealer's charge) | ₹400 | Not a government charge. Dealers add it to most quotes; it is theirs, so you can question it or refuse it. |
| Insurance | ₹45,250 | A new private car needs three years of third-party cover — ₹10,640 at this engine size, fixed by IRDAI and identical at every insurer — plus a year of own-damage cover, which is where quotes differ. |
| On-road price | ₹10,22,318 | ₹1,17,328 over ex-showroom — 13%. |
| Paying cash, no loan | ₹10,20,818 | The same, without the loan endorsement. |
Swipe the table sideways for what each line is.
Why does the same car cost more in another state?
Because road tax is set by the state, not the manufacturer, and the spread is larger than most buyers expect. The same Tata Altroz Pure S 1.2 CNG AMT, same ex-showroom price, costs ₹1,19,011 more to put on the road in Karnataka than in Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. The three cheapest and three dearest of the 36 states and union territories:
| State | Road tax + cess | On-road |
|---|---|---|
| Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu | ₹24,254 | ₹9,77,594 |
| Arunachal Pradesh | ₹28,779 | ₹9,82,119 |
| Sikkim | ₹28,779 | ₹9,82,119 |
| Andhra Pradesh | ₹1,28,328 | ₹10,81,668 |
| Telangana | ₹1,28,328 | ₹10,81,668 |
| Karnataka | ₹1,43,265 | ₹10,96,605 |
Every state for this car is on the Tata Altroz on-road price page, and the tax rates themselves, slab by slab, are in RTO charges by state.
Which of these lines can you actually argue about?
Split them in two.
Fixed — nobody can move these
- Road tax, any state levy and the 0.18% line
- Registration and FASTag
- TCS, on a car over ₹10 lakh
- The third-party insurance premium, fixed by IRDAI
- Hypothecation, if you take a loan
Yours to question or refuse
- The own-damage insurance premium — buy it from any insurer
- Handling or logistics charges
- An accessory pack sold as mandatory
- Extended warranty, which is optional
A dealer collects the fixed lines and passes them on, and no amount of negotiating moves them. Everything in the second list is the dealer's or the insurer's, not the government's.
Which is the practical use of this page: put your own quote beside the calculator, line for line, and anything that does not appear here is something to ask about.
The one statutory line that changes a lot is road tax, and it changes by state rather than by anything you can negotiate. How much it changes, car by car — the same car priced in every state and union territory.
Is TCS an extra cost?
No, and it is the line buyers most often mistake for one. TCS is 1% on any car over ₹10 lakh ex-showroom, and it is your own income tax collected early: it appears against your PAN in Form 26AS and you set it off when you file, or claim it back as a refund. You are out the money for a few months, not for good.