Post office savings schemes pay the same rate everywhere in India, notified quarterly by the Ministry of Finance. For Q2 FY 2026-27 — 1 July to 30 September 2026 — that is 7.1% on PPF, 8.2% on SCSS and Sukanya Samriddhi, 7.7% on NSC, 7.5% on KVP and the 5-year time deposit, and 7.4% on the Monthly Income Scheme. The rate is identical at every post office and at every authorised bank that offers the scheme, so there is no branch that pays a quarter-point more and no rate shopping — there is only scheme selection.
Rates across the whole family have been unchanged since April 2024. What separates one scheme from another is everything else: the term, the deposit ceiling, whether interest is paid out or compounded, and whether it is taxed.
How the family works as a group
Three structural facts explain most of what follows.
Rates are set centrally and change on fixed dates — 1 April, 1 July, 1 October and 1 January. A rate cut or rise arrives for everyone at once. This removes the single biggest reason to compare providers, which is what most deposit comparison content is built on.
The schemes split into two rate behaviours, and this is the distinction that matters most. PPF and Sukanya Samriddhi are floating: whatever rate is notified each quarter is what your balance earns that quarter, for the life of the account. The certificates and deposits — SCSS, NSC, KVP, the Monthly Income Scheme, recurring deposits and time deposits — lock in the rate in force on the day you open, and hold it for the full term. In a falling-rate environment that makes the timing of an opening genuinely consequential. In a rising one it works against you.
The money is a Government of India liability. Bank deposits are insured by DICGC up to ₹5,00,000 per depositor per bank, covering principal and interest together. Small savings balances are not insured because they do not need to be — the sovereign is the counterparty and there is no ceiling. For a large, safety-first sum this is a real advantage over splitting a corpus across four banks to stay inside the insurance limit.
Every scheme, side by side
Rates below are for Q2 FY 2026-27.
| Scheme | Rate | Term | Deposit limits | Interest taxable? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Public Provident Fund (PPF) | 7.1% | 15 years, extendable in 5-year blocks | ₹500 to ₹1,50,000 a year | No — exempt |
| Senior Citizens Savings Scheme (SCSS) | 8.2% | 5 years, extendable in 3-year blocks | ₹1,000 minimum, ₹30,00,000 maximum | Yes — fully taxable |
| Sukanya Samriddhi (SSY) | 8.2% | Long-term, tied to the girl’s age | ₹250 to ₹1,50,000 a year | No — exempt |
| National Savings Certificate (NSC) | 7.7% | 5 years | No upper limit | Yes — fully taxable |
| Kisan Vikas Patra (KVP) | 7.5% | Until the deposit doubles | No upper limit | Yes — fully taxable |
| Post Office Monthly Income Scheme (POMIS) | 7.4% | 5 years | ₹1,000 minimum; ₹9,00,000 single, ₹15,00,000 joint | Yes — fully taxable |
| Post Office Recurring Deposit (RD) | 6.7% | 5 years | Monthly deposit, no upper limit | Yes — fully taxable |
| Post Office Time Deposit — 1 year | 6.9% | 1 year | No upper limit | Yes — fully taxable |
| Post Office Time Deposit — 2 years | 7.0% | 2 years | No upper limit | Yes — fully taxable |
| Post Office Time Deposit — 3 years | 7.1% | 3 years | No upper limit | Yes — fully taxable |
| Post Office Time Deposit — 5 years | 7.5% | 5 years | No upper limit | Yes — fully taxable |
| Post Office Savings Account | 4.0% | None | Effectively none | Yes — taxable |
Two rows carry lower confidence than the rest. The recurring deposit rate of 6.7% and the savings account rate of 4.0% are marked likely rather than verified in our own data — they are strongly supported but the primary notification could not be read directly, because several government sites block automated requests. Everything else in the table was read on a primary source. Confirm the RD and savings rates at the counter before you commit money, and treat any article that states them without qualification with the same scepticism.
The savings account row reads “taxable” rather than “fully taxable” on purpose: interest on a post office savings account carries a small exemption of its own, and we could not confirm the current limit on a primary source, so this page does not state one.
Minimum deposits for NSC, KVP, recurring deposits and time deposits are small and are set by India Post; check the scheme page rather than trusting a figure in an article. KVP’s maturity period is notified alongside its rate and moves when the rate moves, so read the current notification instead of a fixed number of months.
The compounding difference is worth stating explicitly. NSC and KVP compound annually and pay everything at maturity, so ₹1,00,000 in NSC at 7.7% grows to roughly ₹1,44,900 over five years. SCSS and POMIS do the opposite — they calculate interest and pay it out, so the principal never grows. A calculator showing a compounded SCSS or POMIS maturity value is describing a product that does not exist.
Mahila Samman Savings Certificate: closed
The Mahila Samman Savings Certificate has not accepted new deposits since 31 March 2025. The scheme was announced with a fixed two-year deposit window and that window has expired. It carried a 7.5% rate while it ran.
This matters because a large volume of published content — comparison tables, “best schemes for women” listicles, bank blogs — still presents it as something you can walk into a post office and open today. Those pages were written while the window was open and never revisited. Anyone who goes to a counter on that basis will be turned away.
A certificate opened before the cut-off is unaffected; the closure applies to new deposits only. For a woman looking for a comparable short-dated home for a lump sum now, the two-year post office time deposit at 7.0% is the nearest structural substitute, though it pays less and its interest is taxable.
Choosing by goal, not by scheme
The useful question is not “which scheme is best” — it is “what is this money for”.
Regular income in retirement
SCSS first, POMIS second. SCSS pays 8.2%, the joint-highest rate in the family, and pays it quarterly into your account. The ceiling is ₹30,00,000 per individual, aggregated across every SCSS account you hold anywhere, so a couple who each qualify can hold ₹60,00,000 between them. Eligibility starts at 60, or 55 for those retiring under a voluntary retirement scheme who open within a month of receiving their benefits, or 50 for retired defence personnel. The full rules, including the premature-closure penalties, are in our guide to the Senior Citizens Savings Scheme, and you can work a deposit through the SCSS calculator.
POMIS is the overflow. It pays 7.4% monthly rather than quarterly, and its limits are lower — ₹9,00,000 for a single account, ₹15,00,000 held jointly. A retired couple who have filled ₹60,00,000 of SCSS and still need income can add ₹15,00,000 of POMIS. Below that point SCSS is simply the better product.
A daughter’s education and marriage
Sukanya Samriddhi, and nothing else in this family comes close. It pays 8.2% — the joint-highest rate — and the interest is exempt from tax, which no other scheme paying above 7.4% manages. Deposits run from ₹250 to ₹1,50,000 a year. The account is tied to the girl’s age, which is what gives it the long compounding runway that makes the arithmetic work. The scheme rules and the eligibility window are covered in Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana.
The trade-off is illiquidity of an unusually strict kind. The money is the child’s and the withdrawal rules are built around her milestones, not your circumstances. Do not route an emergency fund through it.
Long-term tax-free accumulation
PPF. At 7.1% it is not the highest rate on the table, but it is exempt at all three stages, which changes the comparison entirely once you are paying tax. The account runs 15 years and extends in 5-year blocks indefinitely. Deposits are capped at ₹1,50,000 a year.
Two mechanics are worth knowing before your next deposit. Interest is calculated on the lowest balance between the 5th of the month and month end, so a deposit made on the 6th earns nothing that month — pay in by the 5th, or better, pay the full year in April. Liquidity arrives slowly: a loan against the balance is available from the third year to the sixth, and partial withdrawal from the seventh. Model a contribution pattern in the PPF calculator before deciding between monthly and annual deposits.
A fixed sum for a dated need
NSC or a time deposit, matched to the date. If a payment falls due in three years, a 3-year time deposit at 7.1% is the honest answer. If it is five years away, the 5-year time deposit at 7.5% and NSC at 7.7% are near-equivalents, with NSC the better rate. Neither pays out along the way, which is the point — you want the money intact on the date, not dribbling into a savings account where it earns 4%.
KVP fits the same slot but suits a saver who cares about doubling rather than about a specific date, because its term moves with the notified rate.
Monthly discipline
The recurring deposit, at 6.7%, is the lowest rate in the family and that is not an accident — you are paying for the ability to commit a small amount each month instead of a lump sum. As a savings habit it works. As a return it does not, and the gap against a 5-year time deposit is over three-quarters of a percentage point. Once you have a lump sum, move it. The RD calculator will show what the difference compounds to.
Tax: the 80C argument is over for most savers
Almost every one of these schemes was sold, for decades, on its deduction under the provision long known as section 80C. That pitch no longer works, and this is the most important thing on the page.
The deduction is old-regime only, and the new regime is the default. Under the Income-tax Act, 2025 — in force from 1 April 2026, replacing the Income-tax Act, 1961 — the new regime carries a ₹4,00,000 basic exemption with no age differentiation, a ₹75,000 standard deduction for the salaried, and a rebate that takes tax to nil on total income up to ₹12,00,000. It carries no equivalent deduction. Most savers are better off there, and for them a deposit into PPF, NSC, SCSS or a 5-year time deposit produces no deduction whatsoever. Work your own case through old vs new tax regime rather than assuming.
Strip the deduction away and each scheme has to stand on its post-tax return alone. That reshuffles the ranking:
- PPF and Sukanya Samriddhi still win, because their interest is exempt regardless of regime. PPF’s 7.1% is 7.1% in your hand. For someone in the 30% band, matching it with a taxable product needs a headline rate above 10% — far beyond anything on this table.
- SCSS, NSC, KVP, POMIS and time deposits pay fully taxable interest at your slab rate. SCSS at 8.2% is roughly 5.6% post-tax for someone in the 30% band once cess is added, and the full 8.2% for a retiree whose income leaves nothing to pay. Those are two different products wearing the same headline number.
- Compare the taxable schemes against a bank fixed deposit on post-tax terms, not on the rate. Both are taxed identically, so whichever pays more before tax pays more after it — which makes this the one comparison where the headline number is the right number. Read the bank’s own rate page for its current figure and check the exact tenure bucket it belongs to.
On deduction and TDS mechanics: a resident senior citizen can set up to ₹50,000 of deposit interest against income, and everyone else up to ₹10,000 of savings account interest — the reliefs long numbered 80TTB and 80TTA — but both are old-regime only. Post offices deduct TDS at 10% once interest crosses ₹50,000 in a financial year, or ₹1,00,000 for senior citizens — thresholds raised on 1 April 2025 — and 20% where no PAN is on file. The frequently repeated claim that POMIS interest escapes TDS is false. If your total income is genuinely below the exemption limit and your estimated liability is nil, the declaration to stop deduction is now Form 121, which replaced Forms 15G and 15H from 1 April 2026.
Where to start
If you are over 60 and want income, open SCSS to its limit before considering anything else on the table. If you have a daughter and a long horizon, Sukanya Samriddhi outranks every alternative here on both rate and tax. If you are accumulating and pay tax, PPF is the only scheme in the family whose return survives your slab intact. If you have a dated obligation, match the term and take the rate that comes with it.
And check the notified rate on the day you open a certificate or deposit, not the day you read about it. The rate you lock in is the one in force at the counter.
Common questions
Do post office schemes pay a better rate at one branch than another?
No. The rate on every small savings scheme is notified by the Ministry of Finance for the whole country and applies identically at every post office and at every authorised bank that offers the scheme. A PPF account at a bank branch and a PPF account at a post office earn exactly the same 7.1%. There is nothing to shop for on price. The only real choice is which scheme suits the goal, and after that, which counter is more convenient to deal with.
Is the Mahila Samman Savings Certificate still open?
No. The deposit window closed on 31 March 2025 and no new deposits have been accepted since. A great deal of published content still lists it as a current option, usually with a 7.5% rate attached, because the pages were written while it was running and never revisited. A certificate opened before the cut-off is unaffected by the closure and runs out its term. If you are looking for a two-year home for a lump sum today, a post office time deposit is the closest substitute.
Which post office scheme gives tax-free interest?
Two of them: the Public Provident Fund and Sukanya Samriddhi. Both are exempt at all three stages — the deposit qualifies for deduction under the old regime, the interest accrues without tax, and the maturity proceeds are exempt. Every other scheme in the family, including SCSS, NSC, KVP, the Monthly Income Scheme, recurring deposits and time deposits, pays interest that is fully taxable at your slab rate in the year it accrues or is received.
Is post office interest subject to TDS?
Yes, on the taxable schemes. Post offices deduct tax once interest crosses ₹50,000 in a financial year for most depositors, or ₹1,00,000 for senior citizens — thresholds raised on 1 April 2025. The rate is 10%, or 20% where no PAN has been furnished. The claim that the Monthly Income Scheme escapes TDS is wrong and widely repeated. TDS is not an extra tax: it is credited against your liability and refunded through your return if you owe less.
Are post office deposits covered by the ₹5 lakh DICGC insurance?
They do not need to be. DICGC insurance of ₹5,00,000 per depositor per bank covers deposits with banks. Small savings schemes are liabilities of the Government of India, so the full balance carries sovereign backing with no ceiling. That is the strongest argument for holding a large, safety-first sum at the post office rather than splitting it across several banks to stay inside the insurance limit.
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.