You opened an account in the month she was born. Every year since, you walk into the post office, put in some money, and walk out. Nobody ever explained what happens at year 15, or what happens if she needs college fees at 18, or whether you are allowed to touch a single rupee before then.
Here is the version written from the scheme document itself, not from summaries of it.
**In short.** The account belongs to your daughter and you are only the guardian. You can open it any time from her birth until the day before she turns 10, one account per girl child and two per family. Deposits run from Rs 250 to Rs 1,50,000 a year, in multiples of Rs 50, and stop 15 years after opening. The money is payable 21 years after opening. There is exactly one partial withdrawal, for education, capped at 50% of the previous financial year’s balance and at the actual fee demand. Marriage is not a withdrawal route; it closes the whole account. Deposits qualify for deduction under section 123 of the Income-tax Act, 2025, and the interest is exempt under section 11(1) with Schedule II, entry 11. Those are two separate facts.
**Interest rate for the current quarter: 8.2% per annum.** Ministry of Finance, notified 30 September 2026, for 1 October to 31 December 2026, unchanged from the preceding quarter.
To project what your balance becomes, use the [SSY calculator on this site](https://thewealthblog.in/calculators/sukanya-samriddhi-yojana-calculator/). The worked example further down explains the one rule the calculator cannot show you.
The calculator is a tool, not a second article. It answers one question, which is how much a given deposit becomes. Everything it cannot show you is on this page: who can withdraw, when, on what proof, and what a withdrawal costs you. Use the calculator for the projection and this page for the decision.
## Who the account belongs to
The account is in your daughter’s name. Not yours. You are the guardian who operates it, not the holder. This matters more than it sounds, because every withdrawal right in the scheme belongs to the girl child and not to you.
The guardian can open the account any time after her birth, provided she has not yet turned 10 on the date of opening. In plain terms: the last day you can open it is the day before her tenth birthday. After that it is too late.
One account per girl child. Never two.
Two accounts per family. If you have three daughters, the third does not qualify, unless the second and third are twins or triplets born in the first or second order of birth, in which case you submit an affidavit from the guardian supported by the birth certificates of the twins or triplets.
She must be a resident Indian citizen when you open the account. Documents at opening: her birth certificate, plus the required guardian documents as per RBI KYC norms.
**Who operates it.** The guardian operates the account until she turns 18. After 18, she operates it herself by submitting the necessary documents.
## Deposits: the limits and the traps
Under the Sukanya Samriddhi Account Scheme, 2019:
– Minimum initial deposit: Rs 250
– Subsequent deposits: multiples of Rs 50
– Minimum in a financial year: Rs 250
– Maximum in a financial year: Rs 1,50,000
Deposits may be made only until the completion of 15 years from the date of opening. That is the one people miss. Depositing in year 16 or year 20 is not permitted. You are done at 15.
The ceiling works like this: if you deposit more than Rs 1,50,000 in a financial year and the excess is accepted because of an accounting error, it earns no interest and is returned to you immediately.
**Missed a year?** If the minimum is not deposited in a financial year, the account is in default. You can regularise it any time up to 15 years from opening by paying the minimum due for the defaulted years plus Rs 50 penalty for each year of default. After that, the whole deposit stays eligible for interest at the rate applicable to the Scheme until the account is closed. Which surprises people: **as the scheme is currently written, letting an account go into default and never fixing it carries no penalty on the interest rate at all.** The only cost is the Rs 50 per year regularisation charge, and only while you can still fix it. What you do lose is the discipline of the yearly deposit, so treat the 15-year regularisation window as the real deadline rather than leaning on the fact that nothing bites afterwards.
## The 15-year deposit period and what happens after
This is the shape of the scheme in one line: you fund it for 15 years, it runs to 21 years.
The last six years are pure compounding on the balance you built, which is just interest earning interest. No more deposits, but interest keeps crediting every financial year.
The account matures at 21 years from the date of opening. On an application in Form-4 by the account holder, the balance outstanding along with interest is payable to her.
**If you do not claim it, the money does not freeze.** Under the Government Savings Promotion General Rules, 2018, which this scheme applies, an account that has matured but not closed keeps earning interest at the rate applicable to the Post Office Savings Account until you close it. So an unclaimed SSY account is not penalised. But the Post Office Savings Account rate is far below what your SSY account was earning, and you are not collecting anything. Go and claim it.
**Marriage is a closure route, not a withdrawal route.** The account may be closed before 21 years if the holder applies on account of intended marriage, on furnishing a declaration duly signed on non-judicial stamp paper and attested by a notary, supported by proof of age confirming that she will not be less than 18 on the date of marriage. The timing is narrow: no closure earlier than one month before the intended marriage date, and none later than three months after it.
Marriage does not close the account automatically. You have to apply, in that window.
## Partial withdrawal: the one real rule, and the myth that will cost you
There is exactly one partial withdrawal in this scheme, and it is for **education**.
– Up to 50% of the balance at the end of the financial year preceding the year in which you apply
– Available after she turns 18 or has passed the tenth standard, whichever is earlier
– One lump sum, or instalments not exceeding one per year, for a maximum of five years
– Capped by the actual fee and other charges at the time of admission
Note that it says education, not higher education. The earlier version of this scheme said “higher education”. The current one says “education of the account holder”. That is a real widening, and it works in your favour: if she has passed the tenth standard and is about to pay class 11 or 12 fees, or move into a vocational course, that sits inside this provision.
**Proof required.** A confirmed offer of admission from the educational institution, or a fee slip from that institution showing the financial requirement. Not a self-declaration. Not a projected fee structure for a course she might join in three years. The institution’s own document. The application is in **Form-3**.
For comparison, NPS Vatsalya has its own age-18 and age-21 withdrawal rules, and they are not the same as these. Our [NPS Vatsalya withdrawal guide](/nps-vatsalya-withdrawal-rules-at-18-and-21/) sets out that scheme separately.
One detail that catches people: the amount you can take is restricted to the actual demand shown in the admission offer or the fee slip. If the ceiling is higher than what she actually needs, you cannot take the difference for another purpose.
### “50% for the wedding” is not the scheme
You will have read this online, probably from a bank, probably recently. It is wrong, and here is exactly why, so you can push back when you hear it.
The original 2014 rules allowed a partial withdrawal “for the purpose of higher education and marriage”. Marriage was removed from that provision in 2016. The current scheme text says education only, and puts marriage in a separate paragraph as a **full closure** of the account.
So if someone offers you 50% of the balance for a wedding, they are reading a superseded rule. What the scheme gives you instead is closure of the whole account, applied for in Form-4, with the stamp-paper declaration, inside the one-month-before to three-months-after window. There is no middle path where you keep the account open and take half of it out for the marriage.
That is a real cost to weigh, and it is worth weighing before the wedding, not after. Closing the account ends it, at 18, several years before maturity, with the rest of the balance paid out at that point. If your daughter marries at 22 rather than 18, three more years of compounding happen first. The timing is not incidental.
## Premature closure: the short list
You cannot close this account early because you changed your mind. The routes are narrow.
**Death of the account holder.** Closed immediately on application in Form-2, on production of the death certificate from the competent authority. The balance and interest due up to the date of death are paid to the guardian. Between the date of death and the date of closure, interest is paid at the Post Office Savings Account rate.
**Extreme compassionate grounds.** Life-threatening medical support for the holder, or death of the guardian. The accounts office must be satisfied that operating or continuing the account causes undue hardship, with complete documentation and reasons recorded in writing. No closure under this route before five years from opening.
That is the list, for closure. **Residency is handled separately and differently**, and it is the one rule families relocating for work get wrong.
**If she becomes a non-resident but is still an Indian citizen,** the account may be continued until maturity. The benefits are available only on a non-repatriation basis, in plain terms you can spend the money in India but you cannot remit it abroad, the account may not be extended or continued beyond maturity even if extension would otherwise be permissible, and no interest is payable after maturity.
**If she ceases to be a citizen of India,** the account is closed or deemed to be closed **from the last day of the month preceding the month in which she ceases to be a citizen**. Interest at the Post Office Savings Account rate is payable on the account until closure.
Two very different answers to what sounds like one question. One of them does not close the account at all. If your family is abroad or the citizenship question is live for you, this is worth reading twice.
A job loss, a medical bill, a house down payment or a change of heart are not closure grounds.
## The tax treatment: two separate facts
Do not blend these. They are different things and they are constantly confused, including in advice you will read elsewhere.
**Fact one: the deduction.** Deposits qualify for deduction under section 123 of the Income-tax Act, 2025, the provision that replaces the old section 80C, at a ceiling of Rs 1,50,000. Schedule XV paragraph 1(h) covers subscription to a security or deposit scheme notified by the Central Government in the name of an individual or any girl child, and that is the entry for SSY. The Rs 1.5 lakh is shared with EPF, PPF, ELSS, life insurance premiums and housing loan principal. If you fill it with those, nothing is left for SSY.
**Fact two: the exemption on interest.** Interest on SSY is exempt from tax entirely, under section 11(1) read with Schedule II, entry 11 of the Income-tax Act, 2025. That entry covers income by way of interest on savings certificates, other certificates issued by the Central Government and deposits, and it applies to such certificates and deposits as the Central Government has notified, subject to the conditions and limits specified in the notification. SSY is a notified deposit scheme for this purpose.
**No TDS.** Because the interest is exempt, nothing is deducted at source on the annual interest credit, and nothing is deducted when the amount is paid out at maturity. Those are two separate things, and it is worth being precise about which one is doing the work here: the interest is not taxed because of the exemption above, not because no tax happened to be deducted at the counter. If you were reading advice that treats “no TDS” as the reason SSY interest is tax-free, that advice has the wrong end of the stick.
## A worked example: opened at birth, reaching the education withdrawal
Take the maximum deposit, since the arithmetic is cleanest there. Rs 1,50,000 at the start of every year for 15 years, at 8.2% compounded yearly, credited at the end of each financial year. Stay with the running balance, because the number this builds to is the one the counter will never tell you.
Ananya is born in April 2026. Her father opens the account the same month.
Year 1 ends with Rs 1,62,300. Year 5, Rs 9,55,954. Year 10, Rs 23,73,618. Year 15, Rs 44,75,989, which is where deposits stop.
From here the account runs on its own. Year 16, Rs 48,43,020. Year 17, Rs 52,40,148.
Ananya is now 17. Her father wants to know what college will cost.
**Year 18, the withdrawal year.** The ceiling is 50% of the balance at the end of the financial year preceding the application, which is the Rs 52,40,148 figure from year 17. Half of that is **Rs 26,20,074**.
So suppose she takes the full Rs 26,20,074 in year 18 against a confirmed offer and fee slip.
Balance after the withdrawal: Rs 26,20,074. It keeps compounding through to maturity, and interest keeps crediting every year.
– Year 18: Rs 28,34,920
– Year 19: Rs 30,67,384
– Year 20: Rs 33,18,909
– Year 21: **Rs 35,91,060**
At maturity she gets Rs 35,91,060.
Now the comparison that actually matters, which is not the one it looks like at first.
**The cost of the withdrawal is Rs 9,70,985. Not Rs 35 lakh.**
Here is the trap. The untouched balance at 21 is Rs 71,82,119, and the balance after the withdrawal is Rs 35,91,060. The difference between those two numbers is Rs 35,91,059, and it is tempting to call that the price of the withdrawal.
It is not the price. Rs 26,20,074 of it is the family’s own money, sitting outside the account in their hand. They have not lost it; they have taken it.
Compare like with like, at 21:
– Withdrew at 18: Rs 35,91,060 in the account **plus** Rs 26,20,074 in hand = **Rs 62,11,134**
– Never withdrew: **Rs 71,82,119**
– The real difference: **Rs 9,70,985**
That Rs 9.7 lakh is the compounding the family gave up by moving the money out of the account four years before maturity. It is the genuine cost of funding a degree out of SSY, and it is the number to argue with.
It is also worth knowing how sensitive that number is. The scheme fixes the **ceiling** on the end-of-year-17 balance but says nothing about when within the application year the money actually leaves. The figures above assume it leaves early in year 18, before that year’s interest is credited, which is the conservative assumption for the family. If the payment lands after the year-18 credit, the forgone compounding falls to about **Rs 6,98,835**. Either way the decision looks very different from “it costs Rs 35 lakh”.
**Now put the Rs 9.7 lakh next to what the money buys.** If it pays for a degree that earns more over the following forty years, Rs 9.7 lakh of forgone growth is a price worth paying and this arithmetic is simply the cost of a good decision. If it pays for a gap year that would have happened anyway, it was expensive. Decide it when she is 17, with the real fee slip in hand, not now.
Two more things the example shows. Depositing Rs 1.5 lakh every year is not advice, it is the ceiling. At a more ordinary Rs 50,000 a year for 15 years, the same shape gives:
– Untouched at 21: about Rs 23,94,040
– Withdrawn at 18: about Rs 8,73,358, leaving about Rs 11,97,020 in the account at maturity
– Forgone compounding: about Rs 3,23,662
And the scheme is not designed to be the whole answer to funding a degree. It is a guaranteed, tax-efficient, government-backed floor that you combine with other things.
## The risks, stated plainly
**It is locked.** Deposits stop at 15 years. Money comes out only at 21, on the marriage closure window, or on the narrow closure grounds. And the date is fixed, whether or not it is when your family needs it. Open it in the month she is born and the money arrives twenty-one years later, long after the deposits stopped, on a day chosen by the scheme and not by you.
**Marriage is the exit people plan for and rarely need.** If it happens early, you are closing the whole account, not taking half. That is a bigger decision than a partial withdrawal.
**Premature closure is not a facility.** Death, extreme compassionate grounds, loss of citizenship. That is all.
**Interest is not guaranteed at today’s rate.** The rate is notified quarterly. Nothing fixes it for the next twenty-one years.
**The ceiling is a real limit.** Rs 1.5 lakh a year, and excess earns nothing.
**The education withdrawal is a ceiling, not an entitlement.** It is also capped by the actual fee demand, and it needs the institution’s paper.
**Concentration risk.** Putting the maximum into one government small savings scheme every year for fifteen years is a choice about certainty, and certainty has an opportunity cost. Compare it with how the same money would have behaved elsewhere before you commit. Our guide to [saving options for parents and professionals](https://thewealthblog.in/sip-vs-fd-vs-nps-vatsalya-best-investment-guide-parents-professionals/) covers that comparison.
The obvious alternative for a parent is a scheme that is not locked to a single government instrument. [NPS Vatsalya for minors](/nps-vatsalya-minors-complete-guide-2026/) is the one we write about next door, and the two are not substitutes; they sit in different tax buckets with different exit rules.
**Bureaucracy is a risk too.** Passbook losses, transfer formalities, and the marriage window closing. Our [passbook guide](https://thewealthblog.in/post-office-savings-account-rd-fd-passbook-download-password-guide/) covers the operational side.
## What to do today
1. Note the date fifteen years after opening, and the date she turns 18. Those two dates are the ones that matter, and neither is written anywhere you will look twice.
2. Put a recurring deposit reminder in for each financial year. The Rs 250 minimum is small, but a default you never regularise is a habit you will not notice forming.
3. Work out now, not later, whether a 50% ceiling is enough for the education you have in mind, and what you will hold outside this account.
4. If your family lives abroad or the citizenship question is live, read the two residency cases above properly. They give opposite answers.
5. Keep the birth certificate and guardian KYC papers current. The scheme is unforgiving about documentation, and the transfer process is easier than you expect while the closure process is harder. If you also want a bank account in her name alongside this one, our [child savings account guide](/how-to-open-a-savings-bank-account-for-your-child-in-india-a-complete-guide/) covers the documents a bank will ask for.
6. Review once a year whether her education and marriage plans have changed enough that the marriage closure window is worth planning around.
## Key takeaway
Open it early, deposit the minimum or a bit more, and then leave it alone. The scheme rewards fifteen years of patience more than it rewards any clever use of it.
**The one thing to do today: note the date she turns 18, and the date fifteen years after opening, in the same calendar entry.**
## Questions parents ask
**Can I withdraw half the account for my daughter’s wedding?**
No. Marriage is not a partial withdrawal under the current scheme. It is a separate route that closes the whole account, and it has to be applied for on Form-4 with a declaration on non-judicial stamp paper attested by a notary, between one month before and three months after the intended marriage date. The 2014 rules that allowed a partial withdrawal for “higher education and marriage” were rescinded in 2019.
**What is the highest I can deposit in a year?**
Rs 1,50,000 in a financial year, in multiples of Rs 50, with a minimum of Rs 250 for the year. Anything deposited above the ceiling because of an accounting error earns no interest and is returned.
**How old does my daughter have to be before I can touch the account?**
For the education withdrawal, 18 or passing the tenth standard, whichever comes first. To operate the account at all, she takes over from you at 18. To open the account in the first place, she must not have turned 10 on the opening date.
**What happens if I miss a year of deposits?**
The account is in default, and you can regularise it any time up to 15 years from opening by paying the minimum due for the missed years plus Rs 50 for each year of default. As the scheme is currently written, never fixing it costs you no interest rate, only the regularisation charge while the window is open.
**Is the interest on this account taxed?**
No. It is exempt under section 11(1) read with Schedule II, entry 11 of the Income-tax Act, 2025, and nothing is deducted at source. The deposit itself is a separate matter and qualifies for deduction under section 123 up to the shared Rs 1,50,000 ceiling.
**What if she moves abroad for work?**
It depends on whether she is still a citizen. A non-resident who remains a citizen may continue the account till maturity on a non-repatriation basis, with no interest after maturity. If she ceases to be a citizen of India, the account is closed or deemed closed from the last day of the month preceding the month in which that happens.
**Does the account keep earning after it matures?**
Yes, at the Post Office Savings Account rate until you close it. It is not frozen, but that rate is far below what the account was earning, so claim it.
**Can I open more than two accounts in the family?**
Only in one case. Two accounts per family, extendable to a third if the second and third children are twins or triplets of the first or second order of birth, supported by a guardian’s affidavit and their birth certificates.
## Sources
– Sukanya Samriddhi Account Scheme, 2019, G.S.R. 914(E), 12 December 2019, as amended by G.S.R. 288(E) dated 5 May 2020
– Government Savings Promotion General Rules, 2018, G.S.R. 1003(E), 5 October 2018, rules 4(1), 4(3), 4(4), 9(5) and 9(6)
– G.S.R. 912(E) and G.S.R. 913(E), 12 December 2019, rescinding the superseded rules including the Sukanya Samriddhi Account Rules, 2016
– Ministry of Finance small savings interest rate notification, 30 September 2026, quarter 1 October to 31 December 2026
– Section 123 and Schedule XV, Income-tax Act, 2025, Income Tax Department portal
– Section 153, Income-tax Act, 2025, Income Tax Department portal
– Section 11(1) read with Schedule II, entry 11, Income-tax Act, 2025
## Disclosure
This is general information about a government scheme, not personal advice. Rules and rates change. Confirm the position for your own account with your post office or bank before you act. We do not recommend specific schemes or securities. Past rates do not predict future rates.
*Last checked: 2 October 2026*
