SCSS Calculator
SCSS pays its interest out every quarter rather than compounding it, so the number that matters is the quarterly cheque — not a maturity value. Enter your deposit to see it.
Your deposit
Your quarterly income
Quarterly payout
on — at —, credited in April, July, October and January
- Annual income —
- Post-tax quarterly income —
- Income tax on a year's interest —
- TDS deducted each year —
- Total interest over 5 years —
- Principal returned at maturity —
- Total you receive before tax —
What this calculator assumes
- Interest is paid out quarterly and does not compound. The balance in the account never changes, so there is no maturity value beyond the deposit itself.
- The rate is fixed for the whole 5-year term at the rate prevailing when the account was opened. A later revision to the notified rate does not touch an existing account.
- Every quarter is treated as an equal quarter of a year. The first credit is usually short, because it runs only from your deposit date to the end of that quarter.
- The payout table starts its cycle at April. Interest is credited in April, July, October and January, so your own first credit falls on whichever of those months comes first after you open the account — shift the column accordingly.
- Tax is applied at the single marginal rate you selected, plus 4% cess. Surcharge is not modelled, and the calculator does not know your other income — if the interest pushes you into a higher slab, your real tax will be higher. The slab list carries the new regime's ladder; the old regime has only 5%, 20% and 30% bands, and nothing stops you pairing a rate with a regime that does not offer it.
- The senior citizens' deposit-interest relief — familiar as section 80TTB of the Income-tax Act, 1961, renumbered by the Income-tax Act, 2025 that replaced it from 1 April 2026 — is applied in full against SCSS interest under the old regime. In reality the ₹50,000 limit is shared across all your deposit interest, so if you also hold FDs the relief available here will be less.
- The premature-closure table shows only the penalty charged on the deposit. Interest already credited to you is not adjusted in it, and the terms for closure within the first year are not covered.
How the quarterly payout is worked out
SCSS is the simplest calculation on this site, because there is no compounding to model. The deposit earns simple interest at the notified rate, and one quarter of a year's interest is paid into your bank account every three months:
Quarterly payout = deposit × annual rate ÷ 4
Take a deposit of ₹15,00,000 at the current 8.2%. A full year's interest is ₹1,23,000, so each quarterly credit is ₹30,750. Over the 5-year term that is ₹6,15,000 of income across 20 credits, and at the end the post office or bank returns your ₹15,00,000 intact. At the ceiling of ₹30 lakh the figures scale straight up: ₹61,500 a quarter, ₹2,46,000 a year, and ₹12,30,000 over five years.
Why SCSS has no maturity value — and why most calculators get this wrong
A fixed deposit leaves the interest inside the account, where it earns interest of its own. SCSS does the opposite: the interest leaves. Nothing accumulates, so there is no exponent anywhere in the arithmetic, and the deposit is worth exactly what you put in on the day it matures.
This is why you should be suspicious of any SCSS page that shows a "maturity amount" larger than the deposit. Feed ₹30 lakh into a quarterly-compounding formula for 5 years and it produces ₹45,01,751, which looks wonderful and is not what the scheme pays. The real outcome is ₹12,30,000 of spendable income plus ₹30 lakh returned. That difference is not a rounding disagreement; it is the difference between an income product and a growth product.
Which one you want depends entirely on whether you need the money. SCSS suits a retiree covering monthly household costs, because the cash arrives whether or not markets cooperate. It is a poor choice for someone who does not need the income yet, because every rupee paid out has to be reinvested somewhere else, usually at a lower rate and with the reinvestment risk sitting on you.
Who is allowed to open an account
Age 60 is the general threshold, but there are two earlier doors:
- 55 and above for someone who has retired on superannuation or under a voluntary retirement scheme — provided the account is opened within the window the scheme rules allow after the retirement benefits are received, and the deposit does not exceed those benefits. That window is short, it has been revised since the scheme rules were first notified, and missing it is a common reason an application is refused. Ask the post office or bank for the limit currently in force before you plan around it.
- 50 and above for retired defence personnel, subject to the same conditions.
A joint account may be opened with a spouse only, and the whole deposit is treated as belonging to the first holder for the purposes of both the ceiling and the tax. Hindu Undivided Families and non-resident Indians cannot open SCSS accounts.
The ₹30 lakh ceiling is an aggregate, not a per-account limit
You may hold more than one SCSS account, at the post office and at banks, but the total across all of them cannot exceed ₹30 lakh. Deposits are made in multiples of ₹1,000. The limit is per person, so a qualifying couple can hold ₹60 lakh between them as long as each deposit is funded from that person's own money — which also means each of them gets their own ₹50,000 of senior deposit-interest relief and their own ₹1 lakh TDS threshold. Splitting a family's deposit across two eligible people is the single most effective thing you can do about the tax on it.
Tax: fully taxable, with one relief that only exists in the old regime
SCSS interest is taxable in full as income from other sources. There is no exemption and no special rate; it simply adds to your income and is taxed at your slab.
The senior citizens' deposit-interest deduction lets you set up to ₹50,000 of interest — bank, post office and co-operative — against income, but it is available only under the old regime. It is universally called section 80TTB, and that number belongs to the Income-tax Act, 1961, which the Income-tax Act, 2025 replaced from 1 April 2026; the relief carries over renumbered, so treat the familiar label as a name rather than a live citation. Since the new regime is now the default, a retiree who does nothing gets no such relief at all. That does not automatically make the old regime better: you have to weigh ₹50,000 of interest relief against the new regime's wider slabs and larger rebate. Run both before you choose, because the election has to be made every year.
Separately, tax is deducted at source once SCSS interest crosses ₹1 lakh in a financial year — a threshold raised from a much lower figure with effect from 1 April 2025. At 8.2%, that means any deposit above about ₹12.2 Lakh will trigger it, so a full ₹30 lakh deposit crosses the threshold with room to spare. TDS is 10% of the interest, or 20% if you have not furnished a PAN. It is not an extra tax — it is your own tax collected early, and it is set off against your liability when you file.
Closing early, and what happens after five years
The account can be closed before maturity, at a cost that falls the longer you hold it. Close after one year but before two and the penalty is 1.5% of the deposit; close after two years and it drops to 1.0%. On a ₹15,00,000 deposit that is ₹22,500 and ₹15,000 respectively — real money, but far less than the interest you would already have collected. The table above works this out for your own deposit.
At maturity you can extend the account for a block of 3 years, and keep extending in further 3-year blocks. The catch worth understanding is that an extended account earns the rate prevailing on the date of extension, not the rate you originally locked in. If small savings rates have fallen by then, extension quietly repriced your income. Compare the prevailing SCSS rate against a bank senior-citizen FD and the Post Office Monthly Income Scheme before you extend by default.
What this calculator cannot tell you
It does not know your other income. The tax figure above applies one marginal rate that you selected; if the SCSS interest itself pushes part of your income into the next slab, your real tax is higher than shown. It does not model surcharge, and it assumes the whole ₹50,000 of 80TTB is available against this interest, which is untrue if you also hold fixed deposits.
It also cannot tell you whether 8.2% will still look good in three years. Small savings rates are notified quarterly by the Ministry of Finance and have been unchanged since April 2024; your account keeps its opening rate for the full term, but inflation does not stand still, and an income that is fixed in rupees is falling in real terms every year. SCSS is a floor under your retirement income, not the whole of it.
Common questions
Does SCSS have a maturity value like an FD?
No, and this is the single most common mistake made about the scheme. SCSS pays the interest out to your bank account every quarter, so nothing is left inside the account to earn interest on itself. At the end of 5 years you receive back exactly what you deposited — not a rupee more. A calculator that shows a ₹15,00,000 SCSS deposit maturing at ₹22,50,875 has silently applied compounding the scheme does not perform. What you actually get is ₹6,15,000 of income spread over 20 quarterly credits, plus your ₹15,00,000 back.
Can my spouse and I hold ₹30 lakh each?
Yes. The ceiling is per individual, not per household, so a couple who both qualify can hold up to ₹60 lakh between them provided each deposit comes from that person's own funds. What you cannot do is stack accounts: the limit applies to the total across every SCSS account you hold, at the post office and at any bank, singly or as the first holder of a joint account. A joint account with a spouse is treated as belonging entirely to the first holder for the limit.
How do I stop TDS being deducted?
Only by genuinely qualifying for it. From 1 April 2026, Forms 15G and 15H were replaced by Form 121. To file it you must have a nil estimated tax liability for the year and total income below the basic exemption limit — both conditions, not either. The widely repeated claim that senior citizens can file on an income ceiling alone is wrong. If your SCSS interest crosses ₹1 lakh and you do not meet both tests, 10% is deducted and you reclaim any excess when you file your return.
Is SCSS better than a bank fixed deposit for a retiree?
They answer different questions. SCSS pays 8.2% a year, credited quarterly, and is backed by the Government of India, so the ₹5 Lakh deposit-insurance ceiling that caps your protection at a bank does not apply. A bank FD can run for any tenure, accepts any amount, and can be structured to compound if you do not need the income. If you need a predictable quarterly cheque, SCSS is usually the stronger instrument. If you are still accumulating rather than spending, a compounding product will end up ahead.
What happens at the end of five years if I do nothing?
The account matures and stops being an SCSS account. You can extend it for a block of three years, and you can keep extending in three-year blocks — an extended account carries the rate prevailing on the date of extension, not the rate you originally opened at. If you neither extend nor close it, the deposit stops earning the SCSS rate. Diarise the maturity date; nobody will chase you about it.
Sources
Rates and rules on this page were read directly from the following sources on the dates shown. Figures change — if you are about to act on one, confirm it at the source.