What do record date and ex-date mean?

Record date: The record date is when the company checks its records to identify the eligible shareholders for a corporate action such as entitlement of rights shares, bonus shares, stock splits, dividends, etc.

Ex-Date: The date on which a stock starts trading without the benefit of corporate action, i.e., ex-benefit, is known as the ex-date.

Usually, the ex-date and the record date for all the corporate actions are on the same day due to the T+1 settlement cycle.

An investor needs to hold the shares in their demat accounts on or before the ex-date or record date to be eligible for corporate action benefits. You can check your eligibility for any corporate action by logging into Jplus and selecting corporate actions.