Senior Citizens' Savings Scheme 2026: 8.2% Interest, Rs 30 Lakh Limit, and the Rules That Actually Cost You Money
SCSS pays 8.2% for the July-September 2026 quarter, with a Rs 30 lakh ceiling and interest paid every quarter. A guide to the 2019 scheme rules as amended: who qualifies, the one-deposit trap, premature closure penalties, and the extension blocks most people get wrong.
Mrunmai Madaye
@mrunmai1995
Mrunmai covers personal finance and the government small-savings schemes at TaxSocial — PPF, the Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana, NSC, the Senior Citizens' Savings Scheme and Kisan Vikas Patra. Her articles start from the notified scheme rules as published in the Gazette rather than from bank marketing pages, and work through the parts households most often get wrong: how interest is actually calculated month to month, what happens when a deposit misses its cycle, what premature closure really costs, and how the tax treatment differs from one scheme to the next. Rate tables carry the date they were checked, because the Finance Ministry resets them every quarter.