The short answer: the use buys the FSI, and the premium is the price list. Regulation 7.1 and Table 7-A grant higher FSI to specific occupancies, and Regulations 7.8 to 7.13 do the same for technology and central business district uses at very different prices.
Key takeaways
- Higher FSI equals the maximum potential by road width under Table 6-A or 6-G, minus the basic FSI.
- Instead of taking it, an owner may take premium FSI or TDR to the same extent.
- It is available only for the use it was granted for, plus ancillary uses.
- Premium ranges from nil for Government offices and local authorities to 15 percent for public sector institutions.
- No amenity space under Regulation 3.5 is required for the Table 7-A uses.
- In Agricultural Zone, educational and medical uses get 100 percent additional FSI over what the zone permits.
- Smart Fin-Tech Centre: up to 200 percent additional FSI at 20 percent premium, capped at 3.00 or 4.00 on a 24 m road.
- CBD commercial: 3, 4 or 5 by road width at 12, 18 and 27 m, at 50 percent premium, and no residential on that plot.
- Redevelopment protects the FSI the existing authorised building already consumed, including TDR.
The general rule before the table
Chapter 7, Regulation 7.0, General sets out how higher FSI is computed, and it is a subtraction rather than an addition.
Permissible higher FSI for the buildings in Table 7-A is the maximum permissible building potential according to road width under columns 6 and 9 of Table 6-A or 6-G, minus the basic FSI. And, critically: instead of availing this higher FSI, the owner shall be entitled to avail premium FSI or TDR or both to that extent.
So this is not a bonus stacked on top of the road width ceiling. It is a cheaper way of reaching the same ceiling, available because of what the building will be used for. The choice is between paying the Table 7-A premium and buying TDR or premium FSI on the open market.
Five conditions attach:
| Condition | Effect |
|---|---|
| Use restriction | Higher FSI is available only for the use it was granted for, along with ancillary uses |
| Ancillary area | The ancillary FSI in the notes below Table 6-A and 6-G applies in addition |
| Existing buildings | Higher FSI is permissible on existing authorised uses too, subject to structural stability |
| Planning ahead | A developer intending to take higher FSI later must submit the first building plan with the marginal distances required for the taller building. No condonation of open spaces, parking or other requirements is allowed |
| Amenity space | No amenity space under Regulation 3.5 is required for the Table 7-A uses |
The fourth row is a trap with a long fuse, and it costs money years later.
If an owner may want higher FSI in future, the very first building plan must already carry the marginal distances required for the height that higher FSI would produce. Not the height being built now.
Get that wrong and the option is gone, because the regulation is explicit that no condonation in open spaces, parking or other requirements will be allowed to rescue it. A building designed to the margins of its current height has spent the land that the taller version needed.
The condition is relaxed only for proposals on existing buildings, and there only after strictly conforming to structural and fire safety norms.
There is also a zone specific bonus that is easy to miss: in Agricultural Zone, the educational and medical categories (Sr. No. A and B of Table 7-A) are entitled to 100 percent additional FSI over what is permissible in that zone.
Who is in Table 7-A, and what they pay
Chapter 7, Regulation 7.1, Higher F.S.I* lists the categories. The premium is a percentage of the ASR land rate for the survey or CTS number, shared 50:50 between the State Government and the Authority, with the Government's share deposited in the Urban Development Department's account head. In Regional Plan areas the entire premium goes to Government through the district Town Planning and Valuation office.
| Category | Premium |
|---|---|
| A. Educational: pre-primary, nursery, kindergarten, and special institutes for physically challenged or mentally ill | 5 percent |
| B. Medical institutions | Per Table 7-A |
| C. Institutional | Per Table 7-A |
| D. Starred category hotels | Per Table 7-A |
| E. Government and semi-Government offices, local authorities and public sector undertakings, and MSRTC land | Nil for Government, semi-Government and local authorities. 15 percent for public sector institutions |
| F. Religious buildings | Per Table 7-A |
| G. Yatri niwas | 15 percent |
| I. Basic shelter | Per Table 7-A |
| J. Students' hostel | Per Table 7-A |
Category E carries its own ceiling rather than following the road width table generally: maximum building potential is 3.00 for roads of 18.0 m and above. And the Authority may allow the higher FSI limit in column 3 to be exceeded in the cases the table specifies.
The educational category's conditions are worth reading in full if a school is the use, because the playground rules are unusually detailed. The existing playground need not be enlarged where higher FSI is taken on upper floors of an existing building. Where higher FSI is taken on vacant land at an existing building, the playground shall not be less than 40 percent or the existing area, whichever is minimum. And only where upper floor use is impossible and expansion is necessary to accommodate students may the required playground area be reduced.
Technology, and the price of a policy FSI
Three regulations grant FSI on the strength of an economic policy rather than a building type, and each ties the grant to an external approving body.
Banded by which regulation
- 7.8 Information Technology establishments and data centresAdditional FSI as set out in the IT and ITES Policy 2023, for registered public and private IT or ITES parks, AVGC parks, IT SEZs, standalone units in a public IT park and data centres, including those in a residential or industrial zone
- 7.9 Biotechnology parksMinimum 0.80 ha of land or 1,858 sq m built up. Permitted in Industrial Zone on plots fronting roads wider than 12.0 m. In No Development Zone, maximum FSI 0.20 on gross area, ground coverage not above 10 percent, and 500 trees per hectare on the remaining land
- 7.12 Smart Fin-Tech CentreUp to 200 percent additional FSI at 20 percent of the ASR land rate, on an 18.0 m access road, approved by a committee chaired by the Principal Secretary IT. Total FSI capped at 3.00, or 4.00 fronting a road of 24.0 m or more
- 7.13 Commercial in a CBD or commercial or residential zoneFSI 3 at 12.0 m, 4 at 18.0 m and 5 at 27.0 m minimum road width, at 50 percent of ASR for FSI 1.00, shared equally between Government and the Authority
Source: Chapter 7, Regulations 7.8, 7.9, 7.12 and 7.13, UDCPR as updated 30 January 2025
Each of the last two carries conditions that shape what actually gets built.
Fin-tech. At least 85 percent of the proposed built up area excluding parking must go to fin-tech start-ups, incubators and accelerators, banking and financial services including NBFCs and insurance, and IT or ITES with a fin-tech focus. No amenity space is required up to 2.00 hectares. And the developer must maintain, on a Directorate of Information Technology web portal, yearly information about the units in the park, built up area utilisation, activities and manpower employed.
CBD. Residential development is capped at 30 percent of the permissible FSI under Table 6-G, and the additional FSI under this regulation is not available for residential use at all. Where the entire commercial development is on a commercial zone plot or an independent plot in a residential zone, the higher table applies but no residential development is allowed on that plot. And inclusive housing does not apply in a CBD, which is the same removal a TOD zone makes.
Regulation 7.12's penalty clause is the sharpest enforcement mechanism in this chapter, and it is worth knowing because it prices misuse per day rather than per event.
Where a Smart Fin-Tech Centre has taken the additional FSI and its space is later found in non fin-tech use, a team from the Directorate of Information Technology and the Authority verifies the misuse on site, and a penalty of 0.3 percent of the prevailing ready reckoner value of the misused built up area is imposed for every day, running from the date the unauthorised use commenced.
At 0.3 percent per day, the annual rate exceeds the value of the space itself. That is not a fine, it is a mechanism designed to make the misuse unsustainable rather than to raise revenue, and the penalty is shared between the Authority and Government in a 3:1 ratio.
After paying, the centre must restore the original use. Failing that, the Authority proceeds under the MR&TP Act.
The two protections in redevelopment
Two short regulations protect FSI that already exists, and they matter to any deal priced off a redevelopment.
Chapter 7, Regulation 7.5, Protection of FSI in Redevelopment of Existing Buildings provides that for redevelopment or reconstruction of existing buildings, the FSI allowed shall be the FSI permissible under Regulation 6.1 or 6.3, or the FSI consumed by the existing authorised building including TDR and premium FSI, whichever is more. And the parenthesis is the operative half: TDR and premium FSI used in the existing building shall be treated as authorisedly consumed FSI entitled for redevelopment.
So a building that bought TDR twenty years ago does not lose it when it comes down. That purchased right survives into the new scheme, which is what stops redevelopment from destroying value every time the zone's basic FSI is lower than what was historically built.
Chapter 7, Regulation 7.4, Development / Redevelopment of Housing Schemes of Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority* covers MHADA's own schemes. FSI for a new low cost housing scheme implemented departmentally by MHADA on vacant land for EWS, LIG and MIG categories is 3.00, or the maximum building potential by road width, with ten sub-regulations setting out the rest of the framework.
What the register shows
MahaRERA does not publish a project's FSI in an auditable form, and this is a case where saying so precisely is more useful than a chart.
The filing carries a permissible FSI field, but dividing it by the filed land area produces implausible ratios on a meaningful share of the corpus, with a 99th percentile above 20. The likeliest reason is structural rather than an error: RERA registers phases, and a phase's filed land area is its own parcel while the FSI figure may relate to the sanctioned layout as a whole. Either way, you cannot audit a project's FSI from its MahaRERA filing, and any analysis that claims to is reading a number the filing does not support.
What the register does publish reliably, free, is the physical outcome: the buildings and the floors proposed and sanctioned on each, the units where filed, the construction progress by building, the promoter's extension history with the reasons given, and any complaints or litigation with case numbers. For a use-linked FSI grant, the observable question is whether the building that was permitted is the building being sold, and floor counts answer that better than any FSI arithmetic.
Related rule cards
- Whether the road width makes your plot R1 or R2
- Surrender land for a road, get FSI
- The green building incentive FSI
- IT township, logistics park and defence township
Where the filings come in
Higher FSI grants, premium receipts and Directorate of IT approvals sit with the Planning Authority and the department concerned.
The register carries what was registered to sell, free at reragenie.com: the filed land area, the buildings and their floors, the sanctioned and sold units where filed, the construction progress by building, the promoter's extension history with reasons, the certifying professionals, and any complaints or litigation with case numbers.
ReraGenie's project analysis, Rs 2,999 for one project, reads the full filing and the documents behind it. The area consolidated report covers a whole micro-market at Rs 2,999 for the first project and Rs 1,999 per additional one.
Source: Unified Development Control and Promotion Regulations for Maharashtra, UDCPR as updated 30 January 2025. Sanctioned under the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act, 1966.
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