Savings
HDFC Bank FD interest rates: one band pays 6.50%, and the day after it pays less
HDFC Bank pays 6.50% only from 3 years 1 day to under 4 years 7 months, 7.10% to seniors, from 19 August 2026. The 55-month trap and the closure penalty.
HDFC Bank’s retail fixed-deposit schedule, applicable from 19 August 2026, peaks at 6.50% for the general public on a single band — 3 years 1 day to under 4 years 7 months — with 7.10% for resident depositors aged 60 and above. There is no separate rate for depositors aged 80 or more; the bank publishes two columns, not three. Every band longer than the peak pays less, down to 6.15% from 5 years 1 day to 10 years, and the row that begins the day the peak ends, at exactly 4 years 7 months, pays 6.40%.
Rates below are read from HDFC Bank’s own rate page on 10 September 2026 and apply to resident domestic term deposits below ₹3 crore. Confirm the rate on the booking screen: the bank’s note says the rate applied is the one on the value date of the deposit, and asks you to read it on the Confirm screen before booking through NetBanking.
The buckets that actually pay
| Tenure | General | Age 60 and above |
|---|---|---|
| 7–29 days | 2.75% | 3.25% |
| 30–45 days | 3.25% | 3.75% |
| 46 days to 6 months | 4.25% | 4.75% |
| 6 months 1 day to 9 months | 5.50% | 6.00% |
| 9 months 1 day to under 1 year | 5.75% | 6.25% |
| 1 year to under 15 months | 6.25% | 6.75% |
| 15 months to under 18 months | 6.35% | 6.85% |
| 18 months to 3 years | 6.45% | 6.95% |
| 3 years 1 day to under 4 years 7 months | 6.50% | 7.10% |
| 4 years 7 months to 5 years | 6.40% | 6.90% |
| 5 years 1 day to 10 years | 6.15% | 6.65% |
Adjacent rows that HDFC Bank prices identically are collapsed here; the bank’s own table prints 19, two of them exactly one day wide.
For orientation, HDFC Bank’s savings rate is 2.50% a year across all balances, revised from 24 June 2025 and paid quarterly on daily balances. A 7-to-29-day deposit pays a quarter of a percentage point more than the savings balance it came from, and takes away your access to the money for the privilege.
Two rows are one day wide, and neither pays for it
The single-day rows are labelled 2 Years 11 Months (35 months) and 4 Year 7 Months (55 months) — the shape of the bank’s former special-edition tenors, kept as rows of their own. Neither carries a premium now. The 35-month row pays 6.45%, exactly what the bands on either side pay. The 55-month row is worse: 6.40%, while the band that ends the day before it pays 6.50%. Asking for 55 months because you remember it as a special rate costs ten basis points against asking for a day short of 4 years 7 months — about ₹2,300 on ₹5,00,000 over the term, on simple interest.
One bank’s comb is not another’s. HDFC Bank’s peak sits beside the other large banks, each with its own effective date, in our comparison of FD interest rates across major banks.
Nothing longer than four years and seven months pays more
The usual assumption is that a bank pays you to wait. HDFC Bank pays you to wait until 3 years and 1 day, and then charges you for waiting longer.
From 18 months the general rate is 6.45% and stays there, through five separately printed rows, to exactly three years. One day later it steps up to the 6.50% peak and holds it to a day short of 4 years 7 months. Then it falls: 6.40% to five years, and 6.15% from 5 years 1 day to ten years, 35 basis points under the peak. Beyond fifteen months a ten-year deposit is the worst-paid commitment on the schedule; on ₹5,00,000 the gap to the peak is about ₹1,750 a year.
The senior column has the same shape, exaggerated at the top: it jumps from 6.95% to 7.10% at 3 years 1 day, because the uplift on that one band is 60 basis points rather than 50, and falls to 6.65% at ten years.
A rolling series of 3-year-1-day deposits therefore pays more over ten years than one ten-year deposit at today’s card — roughly ₹14,000 to ₹16,500 on ₹5,00,000 on simple interest, depending on how the final stub is booked — at the cost of accepting whatever rate exists on each renewal date. Which risk you would rather carry is a real decision; the card is not making it for you.
Maturity, and the day after it
Pick the band that matures before you need the cash rather than the one nearest the rate you want; the FD interest rates calculator gives the maturity value on either. HDFC Bank’s page sets out how it pays: deposits of six months or less earn simple interest at maturity; above six months, interest is worked out quarterly — paid quarterly, paid monthly at a discounted rate, or added to the principal each quarter on a reinvestment deposit — on the actual number of days in the year; the deposit policy adds that interest is rounded off to the nearest rupee.
The renewal end works differently from most public sector banks. HDFC Bank’s Comprehensive Deposit Policy provides that, absent maturity or renewal instructions, a term deposit is automatically renewed for a period equal to the original, at the rate prevailing on the renewal date; on a cumulative deposit the entire maturity proceeds roll over. Tax-saver deposits, deposits without a premature-closure option and recurring deposits are the exceptions.
That is kinder than paying the savings rate on overdue money, but it has its own trap. A 3-year-1-day deposit left without instructions becomes another 3-year-1-day deposit on the day it matures, at whatever the card then says, and retrieving the money a month later is a premature closure of the new deposit, with the penalty below. Give the maturity instruction when you book. Money that goes genuinely unclaimed earns the prevailing savings rate from maturity until it is transferred to RBI’s Depositor Education and Awareness Fund, ten years later.
Breaking it early: the rate is rebuilt from the booking-day card, then one percentage point comes off
HDFC Bank’s rule, in force since 22 July 2023, is one sentence on the rate page. On premature withdrawal, including a sweep-in or partial withdrawal, interest is paid at 1% below the rate that applied, on the date the deposit was booked, to the period the money actually stayed with the bank — not the contracted rate. The rate is rebuilt from the booking-day card for the shorter period, and then a full percentage point comes off.
Take ₹5,00,000 booked for 3 years 1 day at 6.50% and closed on day 200. Two hundred days falls in the 6-months-1-day-to-9-months band, which paid 5.50% on the 19 August card. Deduct 1% and you receive 4.50%, or about ₹12,300 of interest. Had the same 200 days earned the contracted rate, the interest would have been about ₹17,800. The gap is close to ₹5,500, and the penalty accounts for exactly half of it; the other half is the rebuild, which no one advertises. Both figures use simple interest; the quarterly compounding the bank applies above six months lifts each a little and does not change the comparison.
Four rules attached to that mechanism are worth knowing:
- No interest at all is paid where the deposit is closed before seven days, the minimum tenure for earning interest.
- There is no published exemption for senior citizens. The rate page exempts central and state government establishments and wholly government-owned entities, arranged at a branch and not on an online booking; the deposit policy waives the penalty where the primary holder dies before maturity. A senior citizen breaking the deposit above pays the same 1% on the senior column — 6.00% less 1%, about ₹13,700 for the 200 days.
- Splitting a deposit does not buy a better band. Below ₹2 crore, several deposits placed on the same day in the same tenor band earn the rate for the aggregate or the individual amounts, whichever is lower.
- The retail schedule is entirely callable. Non-withdrawable deposits begin at ₹2 crore; the policy states that deposits below that are withdrawable on request.
If the need is temporary, the bank’s alternative is an overdraft of up to 90% against the deposit, available in NetBanking on a single-name deposit of at least ₹25,000 booked for at least 6 months 1 day. The deposit and its rate stay alive while you pay a spread over it; our page on a loan against an FD sets out when that beats closing.
Seniors get 50 basis points, 60 at the peak, and no 80-plus band
| Category | What HDFC Bank publishes |
|---|---|
| Age 60 and above, every band except the peak | +50 basis points over the general rate |
| Age 60 and above, 3 years 1 day to under 4 years 7 months | +60 basis points: 7.10% against 6.50% |
| Age 80 and above | No separate column; the same senior rate |
| Retired staff who are senior citizens | Staff rate and senior rate together, on resident deposits below ₹5 crore |
The extra ten basis points on the peak band is worth about ₹1,500 on ₹5,00,000 over three years — small, but it makes the senior peak 7.10% rather than 7.00%, on the same band that pays best for everyone else.
Eligibility is narrower than the column heading suggests. The rate page restricts the senior rate to resident individuals aged 60 and above, and it does not apply to NRE or NRO deposits. The deposit policy adds that the uplift is not paid on a deposit in the name of a Hindu Undivided Family even where the karta is a senior citizen, and that it applies to resident deposits below ₹5 crore. Neither document says what happens if you turn 60 during the deposit; the card fixes the rate on the value date and applies senior rates to fresh and renewal deposits, so the safe reading is that a running deposit is not repriced until renewal. Confirm at the branch rather than assume.
Two leftover notes still sit under the senior table: the Senior Citizen Care FD, an extra 0.25% on tenures over five years for an offer that ran from 18 May 2020 to 7 November 2023, and a line that the rates are inclusive of 0.75%. The current column is not — 6.65% against 6.15% on the ten-year band is the ordinary 50 basis points. How the other large banks structure the uplift, and where an 80-plus band exists at all, is in our page on senior citizen FD rates.
The schedules HDFC Bank publishes separately
Two other products sit on or beside the same page, and neither prints a rate table of its own.
Non-withdrawable deposits begin at ₹2 crore, with a minimum tenure of one year below ₹5 crore and 89 days above. The product page prints no rate table, so the premium for surrendering early access is not something a retail depositor can read, and at that ticket size it is out of reach anyway.
The five-year tax-saver deposit is the one to be careful with. Its product page, when we opened it, carried nothing beyond its name; the card prints no separate tax-saver row, and the ordinary band that ends at five years pays 6.40%. What the deposit policy does say is that no overdraft or loan is given against a tax-saver deposit and that it is not auto-renewed. Alongside the lock-in the name implies, the only thing bought is the section 80C deduction — which the new regime, now the default, does not offer. Confirm the rate on the booking screen before accepting the lock.
Tax takes the next bite
FD interest is taxable at your slab rate as income from other sources, in the year it accrues, whether or not the bank has paid it. A cumulative deposit in the 3-year-1-day band runs past at least three 31 Marches, so its interest is taxed across four financial years.
HDFC Bank deducts tax at source once interest across all your deposits at the bank crosses ₹50,000 in a financial year, or ₹1,00,000 for a resident senior citizen — 10% where PAN is on record and 20% where it is not. The thresholds apply bank-wide, so splitting one deposit into four changes nothing; the deposit policy measures the aggregate across all fixed and recurring deposits.
Where you have no tax liability at all, the nil-deduction declaration is Form 121, which replaced Forms 15G and 15H from 1 April 2026; HDFC Bank’s deposit policy, dated June 2025, still names the older forms. The test — nil estimated liability and total income below the basic exemption limit, for every age group — is stricter than commonly assumed, and TDS is an advance credit, not a settlement. Our guide to tax on FD interest sets out the thresholds, the declaration and the accrual rule.
At 6.50% before tax, a depositor in the 30% slab keeps about 4.5% after cess. That number, not 6.50%, is what should be compared with anything else you are considering.
Insurance stops at ₹5 lakh per depositor per bank
Deposit insurance covers eligible principal and accrued interest up to ₹5 lakh per depositor per bank, in the same right and capacity, after lawful set-off. It is not ₹5 lakh per deposit, per branch or per app, and HDFC Bank’s size does not raise it.
That interacts directly with the peak band. A ₹5,00,000 reinvestment deposit at 6.50% for 3 years 1 day matures at about ₹6,07,000, so it is over the cover from the first quarter’s compounding. To keep the whole maturity value inside the limit the principal has to be capped at roughly ₹4.1 lakh — ₹4.05 lakh at the senior rate — our own arithmetic on the published rate and tenure, not a figure either institution states. Every savings balance, recurring deposit and other FD you hold at HDFC Bank is aggregated into the same ₹5 lakh, so a ladder built entirely at one bank buys liquidity, not extra insurance.
Joint accounts, different capacities and claim timing are covered in our page on DICGC deposit insurance.
Before you book
| If the money is needed in | The band that fits | General rate | The trap next to it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under a month | 7–29 days | 2.75% | Only 0.25 pp over the savings rate, and you lose access |
| About six months | 90 days to 6 months | 4.25% | 6 months 1 day pays 5.50% — one more day is worth 1.25 pp |
| Nine months to a year | 9 months 1 day to under 1 year | 5.75% | 365 days pays 6.25% |
| About a year | 1 year to under 15 months | 6.25% | 364 days pays 5.75% |
| Eighteen months to three years | 18 months to 3 years | 6.45% | 3 years 1 day pays 6.50% |
| Three to four and a half years | 3 years 1 day to under 4 years 7 months | 6.50% | Exactly 4 years 7 months pays 6.40% |
| Five years | 4 years 7 months to 5 years | 6.40% | 5 years 1 day pays 6.15% |
| More than five years | 5 years 1 day to 10 years | 6.15% | The longest commitment is the worst paid beyond 15 months |
Set the tenure in days, read the maturity date on the Confirm screen, give the maturity instruction at booking so the deposit does not roll into another of the same length, and check the customer category on the receipt — a deposit booked at the general rate by someone entitled to the senior column is not usually corrected by the bank noticing later.
Common questions
Does a longer HDFC Bank deposit always pay more?
No. On the card applicable from 19 August 2026 the general rate peaks at 6.50% on the band from 3 years 1 day to under 4 years 7 months, and every longer band pays less: 6.40% to five years and 6.15% from 5 years 1 day to 10 years. A depositor who commits money for a decade earns 0.35 percentage point a year less than one who commits it for a little over three years — about ₹1,750 a year on ₹5,00,000. Longer tenure buys a fixed rate for longer, not a higher one.
Is the senior citizen uplift at HDFC Bank always 0.50%?
Almost. The senior column is 50 basis points above the general column on every band except one: from 3 years 1 day to under 4 years 7 months it is 60 basis points, 7.10% against 6.50%. That band is also the senior peak. The uplift applies only to resident individuals aged 60 and above — not to NRE or NRO deposits, and not to a Hindu Undivided Family deposit even where the karta is a senior citizen. There is no separate rate for depositors aged 80 and above; HDFC Bank publishes two columns, not three.
What happens to an HDFC Bank FD on maturity if I give no instruction?
It is renewed automatically for the same period as the original deposit, at the rate on the card on the renewal date. On a cumulative deposit the entire maturity value rolls over, not only the principal. Tax-saver deposits, non-withdrawable deposits and recurring deposits are the exceptions and are not auto-renewed. So a 3-year-1-day deposit left without instructions becomes another 3-year-1-day deposit, and taking the money out a month later is a premature closure of the new deposit, with the 1% penalty. Give the maturity instruction when you book.
How does HDFC Bank work out the interest if I break an FD early?
Since 22 July 2023 the rule is that interest is paid at 1% below the rate that applied, on the booking date, to the period the deposit actually ran — not the contracted rate. Take ₹5,00,000 booked for 3 years 1 day at 6.50% and closed on day 200: the 6-months-1-day-to-9-months band paid 5.50% on the booking-day card, and less 1% that gives 4.50%, or about ₹12,300 on simple interest against ₹17,800 at the contracted rate. Nothing is paid if the deposit is closed before seven days. The rate page lists no exemption from the penalty for senior citizens.
Is it better to book exactly 55 months at HDFC Bank?
No. The row labelled 4 Year 7 Months (55 months) is printed on its own, which suggests a special rate, but it pays 6.40% — the same as the band running on to five years — while the band that ends one day earlier pays 6.50%. Booking 55 months therefore costs ten basis points against booking a day short of 4 years 7 months, about ₹2,300 on ₹5,00,000 over the term on simple interest. The other single-day row, 2 Years 11 Months (35 months), pays 6.45%, exactly what its neighbours pay. Neither row carries a premium on the current card.
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.
- FD Interest Rates (September 2026) — Domestic / NRO / NRE fixed deposit rate, less than ₹3 crore, applicable from 19th August, 2026
- Comprehensive Deposit Policy, June 2025
- Savings Account Interest Rate — Domestic, NRO and NRE savings rate revised from June 24th, 2025
- Overdraft Against Fixed Deposits
- Non-Withdrawable Deposits
- Five Year Tax Saving Fixed Deposit
- Guide to deposit insurance
- Small savings schemes — interest rates
- Income Tax Department e-Filing portal