If you are someone who always ends up cancelling your railway tickets at the last minute, here is some sad news for you. Recently, the Indian Railways has made some major changes to its ticket cancellation fee starting from April 1st. Read on to know more about the new rules.
Indian Railway Revises Ticket Cancellation Fee
As per a report by the Financial Express, the Indian Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw recently announced the new rules of train ticket cancellations. As per the latest news, if you cancel your ticket between 24 and 72 hours before the train departs, you will lose 25% of the ticket fare as a deduction. And if you cancel the ticket less than eight hours before departure, you will get zero refund. That is, no money will be refunded at all. The new ticket cancellation rules will be effective in phases between April 1 and April 15, 2026.
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Cancellation Charges As Per The New Rules
Additionally, the cancellation charges increase the closer you are to departure. If you cancel your ticket between 24 hours and 8 hours before the journey, 50% of your ticket will be deducted, along with the taxes. If the ticket cancellation is done within 8 hours before the departure, then no refund will be initiated.
Indian Railways is continuously making changes to the ticketing system. Last year, the railways brought in several important rules to stop the misuse of the booking system. As per the rules, anyone booking a reserved ticket under the general quota on the IRCTC app or website must have Aadhaar authentication and verification during the first 15 minutes of the booking window. The idea behind the rule was to make sure every passenger gets a fair chance at tickets instead of bots and agents. Before that, Aadhar verification was also made compulsory for Tatkal tickets back in July 2025.