HDFC Bank Stock (HDB): The ADR, the Rupee and the Premium That Vanished

Michael Whitman · Trading since 2017, full-time since 2020 · YouTube creator, 137K subscribers · Published 2026-11-07

HDFC Bank, with 9,706 branches across India at September 30, 2026, is one of the country’s biggest lenders, and US investors buy it through HDB, an American depositary share (ADS) on the New York Stock Exchange. An ADS is a receipt held by a US depositary bank for shares that sit in India: each HDB stands for three HDFC Bank shares listed in Mumbai, according to the bank’s 20-F annual report for the year to March 31, 2026.

So the useful question is not just what HDB costs, but what it costs next to the three shares behind it.

HDB, its Mumbai shares and the ADR premium

Closing prices on November 6, 2026. HDFC Bank’s fiscal year ends March 31, so “FY27” below is the year to March 2027 and the latest results cover the quarter to September 30, 2026, approved by the board on Saturday, October 17.

In 2026 to November 6, HDB fell 31.2%. Its closing high over the past year was $37.13 on November 18, 2025 and its low $21.36 on October 27, 2026; the last eight sessions added 17.7% from that low.

How it works: one ADS, three Mumbai shares and the 2023 merger

The receipt and the shares. HDFC Bank’s equity shares trade on India’s two exchanges, the NSE and BSE. The depositary holds some of them and issues ADSs against them in New York, priced in dollars and settled like any US stock. Dividends are paid to the depositary and passed on to ADS holders in dollars.

The two prices are linked, not locked. Nothing forces HDB to equal three Mumbai shares on any given day, and for most of the last 23 years it has sat above that value. The gap is the ADR premium, and the rupee rate sits inside it: the same Mumbai price is worth fewer dollars when the rupee falls.

The 2023 merger. HDFC Bank merged with Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC Ltd), a large Indian mortgage lender. The 20-F says the deal took effect on July 1, 2023, with 42 HDFC Bank shares issued for every 25 HDFC Ltd shares. Shares outstanding went from 5.58 billion at March 31, 2023 to 7.60 billion a year later.

The 2025 bonus issue. The bank then issued one bonus share for every share held, ADS holders included, on a record date of August 27, 2025. Yahoo’s data treats it as a 2-for-1 split, on August 26 in Mumbai and September 8 in New York. One ADS still represents three shares. The share count reached 15.39 billion by March 31, 2026.

Why HDFC Bank’s ratios differ from site to site

HDFC Bank reports twice. Its quarterly results in India follow Indian accounting rules for the bank alone (“standalone”); the 20-F filed with the SEC follows US GAAP for the whole group. The two give different earnings and very different book values, so quote pages that mix them disagree.

On November 7, Yahoo’s HDB page showed a price-to-book of 1.44 and Investing.com’s HDB page showed 2.0.

Earnings. On the Indian accounts, trailing diluted earnings are ₹49.50 a share: ₹48.40 for fiscal 2026, plus ₹24.98 for the half year to September 2026, minus ₹23.88 for the same half a year earlier. Under US GAAP, fiscal 2026 diluted earnings were ₹45.75 a share, or $0.48 at the 20-F’s convenience rate. More on reading a multiple is on our P/E ratio page.

Book value. Standalone net worth was ₹566,722 crore at September 30, 2026 (a crore is 10 million rupees), or ₹367.56 for each of the 15.42 billion shares. Under US GAAP, stockholders’ equity was ₹8,167 billion at March 31, 2026, or ₹530.58 a share, about ₹2,500 billion more. The 2023 merger covers that gap on its own: the 20-F books it as an acquisition (of “eHDFC”), so the US-GAAP balance sheet carries goodwill of ₹1,630 billion (₹75 billion before the deal) and other intangible assets of ₹1,371 billion at March 31, 2025, the latest year in the SEC’s XBRL data. Those two items come to about ₹3,000 billion; the other rule-book differences, such as counting the subsidiaries and the different dates, net to roughly ₹500 billion the other way, and we have not split them out. Our price-to-book page covers why the ratio matters more for a bank.

The latest quarter. Standalone net profit for the September 2026 quarter was ₹19,510 crore, up 4.7% from a year earlier. Gross non-performing assets were 1.11% of gross advances and net non-performing assets 0.37%. The common equity tier 1 (CET1) ratio, the bank’s core loss-absorbing capital against its risk-weighted assets, was 17.1%. Deposits were ₹33,274 billion, up 18.8%, and gross advances ₹32,195 billion, up 16.3%.

A worked example: 100 HDB shares, from Mumbai to your account

1. What you hold. 100 ADSs = 300 HDFC Bank shares.
2. Their Mumbai value. 300 × ₹788.25 = ₹236,475. At ₹94.46 per dollar that is $2,503.47.
3. What you paid for them in New York. 100 × $25.14 = $2,514.00, a premium of $10.53, or 0.4%.
4. The same trade on December 31, 2025. The premium was 10.3% that day, so the same three shares cost about a tenth more in New York than in Mumbai.
5. The dividend. The fiscal 2026 final dividend was ₹13.00 a share (ex-dividend June 19, 2026 in Mumbai). For 300 shares that is ₹3,900. India’s 10% tax takes ₹390 before surcharge and cess, leaving at most ₹3,510. At ₹94.46, the gross ₹3,900 is $41.29 and the ₹3,510 is $37.16, before any depositary fee. The real conversion uses the rate on the payment date.

The original data: HDB’s ADR premium on every trading day since 2003

The premium on every trading day since December 2003. We compared HDB’s New York close with three HDFCBANK shares on the NSE, converted at Yahoo’s rupee rate for the same date, on 5,475 days when all three had a value. Both price lines are adjusted for the same splits (5-for-1 in 2011, 2-for-1 in 2019 and the 2025 bonus), so three shares per ADS holds throughout. The Mumbai close comes about 11 hours before the New York close, so single days are noisy; the chart uses monthly medians.

HDB traded below the value of its three shares on 215 of the 5,475 days. The premium has been lower since the merger, but the data shows only the timing, not the cause. The deepest discount in the whole series came during the 2008 crisis, on October 15, 2008.

Where the return came from. A dollar return on HDB is the Mumbai price change times the rupee’s change against the dollar times the change in the premium. The three multiply out to HDB’s own return exactly:

Each period starts at the last close on or before the date five or ten years earlier (November 5, 2021 and November 4, 2016). Over the same ten years the Nifty 50 index rose 196.8% in rupees and the S&P 500 253.8%, price only.

Results days. HDFC Bank’s board has approved results on a Saturday in each of the last six quarters, so New York’s first chance to react is the Monday (Tuesday after the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in January). Dates are the board meetings in the bank’s 6-K filings.

The median HDB move on those six days was 3.28%, against a median daily move of 0.87% from November 2024 to November 2026. The NSE column is Mumbai’s first session after each meeting, which is the same Monday except in January 2026, when Mumbai traded on January 19 while New York was shut. Six results days is a small sample, and HDB moved further than the Mumbai shares on all six.

Download the data: the daily ADR premium since 2003, free to reuse with credit and a link to this page under the site license.

HDB dividends: India’s tax first, then the US credit

India taxes the dividend first. HDFC Bank’s 20-F for fiscal 2026 says dividends on its ADSs are taxed in India at 10% plus the applicable surcharge and cess, under section 209 of India’s Income-tax Act, 2025, which took over from section 115AC of the 1961 Act. The US-India tax treaty, which is on the IRS treaty list, caps the tax on dividends at 25% of the gross amount for ordinary shareholders and 15% for a company owning 10% or more of the voting stock (Article 10). The 10% rate is lower than the 25% cap, so the treaty cap does not reduce it.

Then the US taxes it again, with a credit. A US holder generally reports the gross dividend and may claim the Indian tax as a foreign tax credit, which has a holding-period rule of its own (IRS Topic 856). Our dividend tax page covers how US tax treats the dividend itself.

How much and how often. HDFC Bank pays once a year after its annual results. For fiscal 2026 the board recommended a final dividend of ₹13.00 a share, on top of a ₹2.50 special interim dividend (ex-dividend July 25, 2025 in Mumbai), ₹15.50 in all (adjusted for the bonus issue).

When it fails: the premium, the rupee and the rule book

The premium can work against you. Buying HDB at a 22% premium in 2021 meant paying for something the Mumbai shares did not have, and the premium’s slide from 10.3% to 0.4% took 9.0% off HDB’s price in 2026 alone.

The currency is half the story. Over ten years the Mumbai shares rose 153.5% in rupees, but HDB rose 45.3% in dollars, because the rupee lost 29.4% and the premium disappeared. Over that decade, a growing bank in a weakening currency made a much smaller dollar gain for a US holder.

The ratios depend on the rule book. A screen that shows a P/B of 1.49 and one that shows 2.14 are both reading HDFC Bank’s filings. Comparing HDB with a US bank on either number without saying which one is not a like-for-like test.

Big days cluster around results. Five of the six recent results days were down days for HDB, and the July 2026 one was −10.54%. These are past moves; they say nothing about the next set of results.

Questions people ask

Is HDB the same as HDFC Bank shares in India?

It is a receipt for them: each HDB represents three HDFC Bank equity shares held by the depositary. It trades in dollars on the NYSE and can trade above or below the value of those three shares.

Why is HDB more expensive than three HDFC Bank shares on the NSE?

Usually it has been: the median premium since December 2003 is 10.8%. On November 6, 2026 the gap was only 0.4%. The median for 2026 so far, 2.3%, is the third-lowest yearly figure since 2004, after 2007 and 2008.

Does HDB pay a dividend?

Yes, once a year. The fiscal 2026 final dividend was ₹13.00 a share, which is ₹39.00 for each ADS before Indian tax and conversion into dollars.

What happened to HDFC Ltd?

It merged into HDFC Bank on July 1, 2023. Holders of HDFC Ltd received 42 HDFC Bank shares for every 25 they held.

Related

Start with international stocks for how foreign shares fit a US portfolio, and currency risk for the rupee side of the return. The valuation tools are price-to-book, the P/E ratio and earnings per share. For banks closer to home, see US bank stocks and Canadian bank stocks, which covers another foreign bank listed in New York, without a depositary.

This page is educational, not financial advice. Test every idea on your own charts before risking money.