Atal Pension Yojana (APY) Calculator

About the Atal Pension Yojana (APY) Calculator

The Atal Pension Yojana (APY) is the Government of India’s pension scheme for people aged 18 to 40: you pay a fixed contribution from your savings account until 60, and from 60 you get a guaranteed minimum pension of ₹1,000, ₹2,000, ₹3,000, ₹4,000 or ₹5,000 a month for life. After you, your spouse gets the same pension, and after both of you, your nominee gets the pension wealth built up till your 60th birthday.

The contribution is not a formula you work out yourself: it is fixed by the official chart for your age at entry, the pension you choose and how often you pay. This calculator looks it up — monthly, quarterly or half-yearly — and shows what it adds up to by 60, what every other pension would cost at your age, how much more you pay by joining later, and what the chart’s figures imply. Nothing you enter leaves your browser.

Who can join APY

• Any Indian citizen aged 18 to 40 with a savings account at a bank or post office.
• Not anyone who is or has been an income-tax payer: they cannot open a new APY account. Accounts opened on or before 30 September 2022 continue whatever the holder’s tax status, and someone who starts paying income tax after joining keeps the account. If a subscriber who was a taxpayer when applying is found later, the account is closed and the pension wealth is returned, without a penalty.
• You can join at the bank or post office branch where you have your savings account, or online through eAPY, giving your spouse and nominee details.

Sources: PFRDA — Atal Pension Yojana and the APY FAQs published by NPS Trust (questions 3 to 8).

What you get from 60, and if you die before 60

• You: the guaranteed minimum pension you chose, every month for life. The Central Government guarantees it; if the money earns more than assumed, the pension can be higher.
• Your spouse, after you: the same pension for life.
• Your nominee, after both of you: the pension wealth accumulated till your 60th birthday — indicatively ₹1.7 lakh for each ₹1,000 of pension (₹8.5 lakh for ₹5,000). This is the chart’s indicative figure, not a guaranteed amount.

If you die before 60, your spouse can either carry on paying into your account until the date you would have turned 60 and then receive the pension for life, or take the accumulated corpus. You can also leave APY early of your own accord: you then get back your contributions with the net income earned on them, after account maintenance charges.

Where the figures come from

The contributions are the prescribed amounts from the age-wise, pension-wise and frequency-wise chart annexed to the current APY FAQs of NPS Trust and Protean CRA (the two tables are identical). The monthly amounts are the same as in the Ministry of Finance’s original APY notification. That notification’s quarterly and half-yearly amounts are a few rupees lower — ₹125 and ₹248 instead of ₹127 and ₹256 at 18 for ₹1,000 — so charts copied from it differ slightly. The amount your bank debits is the one that counts.

Totals are simple arithmetic: contribution × payments a year × (60 − age at entry).

What the chart implies

Two figures, worked out from the chart itself, help you compare APY with other ways of saving for retirement:

• Implied return — the yearly return at which your contributions, paid at the start of each period, would grow to the nominee corpus by 60. For monthly payments it is about 8.2% a year at every age and pension. It is what the chart’s corpus figure assumes, not a promise.
• Payout rate — the pension as a share of that corpus: ₹12,000 a year on ₹1.7 lakh is 7.06% a year, paid for the rest of your life and then your spouse’s.

What APY adds is the Government guarantee of the pension, whatever the returns turn out to be. The pension stays the same amount every year, so inflation reduces what it buys.

Changing the pension or the frequency later

You can raise or lower the pension once a financial year through the bank or post office where your APY account is (a ₹50 fee applies). If you are 40 or younger, an upgrade is re-fixed at your age at the time and the new pension, so you do not pay the difference for the past years; on a downgrade, the excess paid is refunded with its returns. You can also switch between monthly, quarterly and half-yearly payments once a year. Source: the APY FAQs (questions 35 and 39).

Limitations

• The amounts are the prescribed contributions from the official chart. The figure your bank debits is final; ask the bank if it differs.
• The corpus for the nominee is indicative: what is actually paid depends on the returns earned. The guarantee covers the pension, not that figure.
• Missed or late payments, overdue interest, account charges (₹15 to open the account and ₹20 a year to maintain it, plus small fund-management and custody fees taken from the returns, as listed in the APY FAQs) and changes of pension part-way are not added to the totals.
• Tax on contributions and on the pension is not covered.

Privacy

Everything is calculated in your browser from the chart built into the page. Your age and choices are never uploaded or stored on a server.