Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana 2026: interest rate, rules, tax benefits

Sukanya Samriddhi is a small-savings account for a girl who has not turned 10. A guardian opens it. For 1 October 2026 to 31 December 2026 the notified rate is 8.2% a year. You may deposit for 15 years. The account matures 21 years after opening, so the balance earns interest for 6 further years with no new deposit.

The payment at the end is tax-free in both tax regimes. The deposit reduces taxable income only in the old regime, and only inside the ₹1,50,000 cap. It is not a bank fixed deposit, and it is not PPF, even though the interest sum looks similar.

Who can open an account

The account is for one girl, opened by a guardian, before she turns 10. A family can usually hold 2 such accounts. A third is allowed when the girls are twins or triplets, up to 3. This page follows one account. It does not split a deposit across sisters.

You cannot open it on her tenth birthday. The Sukanya Samriddhi calculator stops the age slider at 9 years and 11 months for that reason. If the account is already open, her later birthdays do not close it. Maturity is still 21 years from the opening date.

A financial year takes ₹250 to ₹1,50,000, in multiples of ₹50. ₹1,50,000 is also the cap on the section 123 basket, so a deposit at the scheme maximum uses the whole of that basket if nothing else is in it. PPF, EPF, ELSS and life insurance share the same cap. They do not each get ₹1,50,000.

The rate for this quarter

8.2% is the rate for 1 October 2026 to 31 December 2026. The Ministry of Finance, in its office memorandum of 30 September 2026, kept small-savings rates where they were for 1 July 2026 to 30 September 2026. Sukanya Samriddhi did not get a new number. The DEA small-savings page lists those notifications.

The 2019 scheme booklet can still show an older rate. The quarterly notification is the rate that is paid. Next quarter can be different. The calculator lets you type another rate. The box starts at 8.2%.

Interest is not a bonus paid on 21st birthday as a lump. It is credited every year and then earns interest itself. A projection that holds 8.2% for all 21 years will be wrong if the government cuts or raises the rate. Use it to see the shape of the account, then look again when the rate changes.

How a deposit earns interest

Paragraph 5 of the Sukanya Samriddhi Account Scheme, 2019 works like PPF. A month earns interest on the lowest balance between the close of the 5th and the end of that month. The twelve monthly interests are added, rounded to the nearest rupee, and credited at the end of the financial year. 50 paise rounds up. From the next year, that interest is part of the balance.

A deposit on or before 5 April is in the balance for all 12 months of that financial year. A deposit on 10 April misses April. It starts earning from May. The calculator has two timings: the whole yearly amount by 5 April, or a monthly amount paid by the 5th. It assumes you opened the account on 1 April, so each row is one financial year. An opening later in the year makes the final year shorter. The table does not cut that last year.

There is no monthly compounding inside the year. Twelve simple slices are added up, rounded, and only then does the balance compound. That is why “8.2% compounded monthly” on a generic compound-interest page will not match this scheme.

Fifteen years of deposits, twenty-one years to maturity

Deposits run for 15 years from the opening date. The account matures 21 years from that date. The gap is 6 years of interest only. If you need the money in year 8, this is the wrong account, unless a partial withdrawal covers the bill. The design is a long lock-in on purpose.

Take the scheme maximum, ₹1,50,000, paid by 5 April, for a girl who is 5 when you open the account. The rate stays at 8.2% in this picture.

Year 1 interest is ₹12,300 and the balance is ₹1,62,300. That interest is ₹1,50,000 times 8.2%, because the deposit was in for the whole year. Year 2 interest is ₹25,609. The balance is now earning on the first deposit, the first year’s interest, and the second deposit.

You put in ₹22,50,000 over 15 years. Interest over 21 years is ₹49,32,127. Maturity is ₹71,82,127.

She is then 26. The same yearly amount, paid monthly by the 5th, matures at ₹69,32,655. Year 1 interest on that monthly timing is ₹6,663, because most of the year’s deposit was not in the account in April.

A small account is allowed. ₹1,000 a year, which is four times the ₹250 minimum, matures at ₹47,886 on the same by-5-April rule and the same single rate. The scheme does not pay a higher rate for a larger deposit.

Run your own deposit on the Sukanya Samriddhi calculator. The year table shows the deposit years and the interest-only years separately.

Withdrawals before maturity

After she turns 18, or passes class 10, whichever is earlier, a withdrawal of up to 50% of the balance at the end of the preceding financial year is allowed for her education. It can be taken in one sum or in parts, within the scheme’s limits. Closure of the account on her marriage is allowed once she is 18.

Neither of those is subtracted in the maturity figure above. If you plan to use the education withdrawal, the amount left to mature is smaller, and the later interest is smaller with it. The calculator does not model that path. Do the withdrawal on paper, then put the remaining balance back into the rate only if you are checking one year. Do not pretend the full ₹71,82,127 is still there.

Premature closure is also allowed in the scheme on specified grounds, including death of the girl, or after five years on compassionate grounds. Those are exceptions with their own interest treatment. They are not a way to treat the account as a five-year deposit. If you need a five-year parking place, look at a recurring deposit or a fixed deposit instead. The FD, RD and PPF comparison is about that choice.

Tax: what is free, and what is only a deduction

People call this EEE. The letters mean three different rules, and the new regime splits them.

The payment from the account is excluded from total income under Schedule II, table item 5. That was Section 10(11A). Section 202 (this was Section 115BAC) does not switch this exclusion off. Interest credited during the 21 years is not taxed year by year, and the maturity payment is not added to her income or to the guardian’s income under that item. That part is the same in both regimes.

The deposit is the part that depends on the regime. It can be claimed under Section 123, read with Schedule XV. That was Section 80C. Section 202 does not allow section 123. If the guardian files under the new regime, the ₹1,50,000 deposit does not reduce tax. The account can still be worth opening for the rate and for the tax-free payment. It is just not an 80C-style deduction anymore, because 80C is now section 123 and the new regime drops it.

The ₹1,50,000 cap is one basket. A Sukanya deposit, a PPF deposit and an employee’s provident-fund contribution share it. Claiming the Sukanya deposit does not create a second ₹1,50,000.

There is no TDS line on this calculator, unlike a bank fixed deposit. Do not subtract 10% from the maturity “just in case”. The exclusion is in the Act. Keep the passbook. The rate notification and the scheme are the other two papers worth keeping when someone asks why the interest was not offered as income.

Figures were checked on 28 October 2026 against the scheme, the 30 September 2026 small-savings memorandum, and Schedule II of the Income-tax Act, 2025. If the next quarter’s memorandum moves the rate, the calculator’s starting rate and this page should move with it. The deposits already in the account keep earning at whatever rate is notified, quarter by quarter. They do not keep 8.2% by contract the way a bank deposit keeps the rate printed on the receipt.