TL;DR: IRCTC’s ticketing business has changed alongside how Indians book trains. Online bookings now account for nearly 89% of reserved tickets, while convenience-fee revenue has grown to ₹987 crore in 2025-26. UPI has also become the dominant payment route, accounting for over half of online bookings. But UPI carries a lower convenience fee as compared with other payment options. With the new UPI MDR framework taking effect in October 2026, the economics of these transactions could change, raising a question for IRCTC: whether it will continue absorbing the difference or reconsider its lower UPI fee.

Context

For most people in India, booking a train ticket today means opening the IRCTC website or app, choosing a train and paying online. But behind that seemingly simple transaction sits a business model that has changed considerably over the past two decades. IRCTC’s internet ticketing service has grown considerably. During 2025-26, an average of 14.53 lakh tickets per day were booked online for about 25.5 lakh passengers per day travelling in Indian Railways, which comprises of approximately 88.8% of Indian Railways’ reserved tickets booked online.

That huge shift to online booking also built a sizeable business around the small fee added to each ticket. IRCTC’s convenience fee has gone through several twists over the years. It disappeared completely after demonetisation, and returned in 2019. By 2025-26, IRCTC’s revenue reached ₹986 crore in convenience fees.

But there is another change underway. An increasing number of passengers are paying through UPI, which now accounts for more than half of IRCTC’s ticket bookings. At the same time, a new UPI Merchant Discount Rate will come into effect from 15 October 2026. A 0.4% MDR, capped at ₹300, will apply to specified merchant UPI transactions above ₹2,000. For railway services, a flat MDR of Rs 5 per transaction shall be applicable for transactions above ₹ 2,000.

In today’s story, we look at how IRCTC’s e-ticketing business has grown, how much it earns from convenience fees, how that revenue has changed over the years, and what the new UPI charges could mean for its ticketing business.

Who compiles this data?

The data on the revenue of IRCTC from the sale of services or products or other categories is compiled and released in the Company financial statements as part of the Annual Reports.

Where can I download clean & structured data related to this?

Clean, structured, and ready-to-use dataset on IRCTC Revenue sources, including from sales of services and products, is available on Dataful. 

Key Insights

Revenue has grown twelve-fold, but IRCTC is much more than ticketing

IRCTC has come a long way from the ₹418 crore in gross revenue it reported in 2006-07. By 2025-26, that had grown to ₹5,215 crore, roughly twelve times higher. But the numbers also show that IRCTC is not simply a ticket-booking company. Its business is spread across four segments: catering and hospitality, internet ticketing, travel and tourism, and packaged drinking water sold under the Rail Neer brand. The balance between these businesses has changed quite a bit over the years.

Internet ticketing was the company’s largest business through much of the 2010s. That has since changed, with catering emerging as the larger contributor as passenger services recovered after the pandemic and IRCTC expanded its food services, including e-catering and delivery on trains. In 2025-26, among the sale of services, income from catering services accounted for 49%, while internet ticketing accounted for 32%, and Tourism and Train Operations accounted for 19%.

The overall revenue trajectory is also revealing. It rose gradually through the 2000s and early 2010s, fell sharply in 2020-21 when COVID-19 brought passenger services to a near standstill, and then recovered rapidly. In 2025-26, IRCTC reported ₹5,215 crore in revenue, up nearly 12% from the previous year, while net profit after tax rose 6% to ₹1,393 crore.

Even as IRCTC’s different segments have grown and changed in importance, internet ticketing remains a significant and highly visible part of the company. That makes changes to the economics of online bookings, including the growing use of UPI and the new MDR framework, worth looking at alongside the company’s broader revenue story.

From counters to clicks: the online share is now past 88%

There was a time when booking a train ticket usually meant standing in a queue at a railway reservation counter. That has changed dramatically. In 2011-12, 45% of reserved rail tickets were booked online, meaning more than half were still being booked at counters. The shift was gradual at first: the online share rose to 50% in 2013-14, 55% in 2014-15 and 58.5% in 2015-16. It was the kind of slow digital transition that happens as smartphones, online payments and internet access become part of everyday life.

The pace picked up after 2017-18, when online bookings crossed 66%, reaching 70% in 2018-19 and 73% just before the pandemic. COVID-19 then gave the trend a sudden push. The online share jumped to 79.6% in 2020-21 and 80.4% in 2021-22. But there is an important caveat here: the increase was not just simply because more passengers suddenly preferred booking online. With railway reservation counters closed or operating with restrictions during the pandemic, online booking remained one of the few available options, which naturally pushed up its share.

What is more striking is that the shift continued even after counters reopened. Online bookings accounted for 80.9% of reserved tickets in 2022-23, 82.7% in 2023-24, 86.4% in 2024-25 and 88.8% in 2025-26. In other words, the pandemic may have accelerated a transition that was already underway.

The change is easy to see in everyday terms. Fifteen years ago, more than half of India’s reserved train tickets were still being booked across a counter. Today, fewer than one in eight are.

IRCTC’s Convenience Fee has changed over time and touched nearly ₹1,000 Crore in 2025–26

The convenience fee looks like a small charge on a train ticket, but its history tells a much bigger story about IRCTC and its relationship with the Railways. Over the past two decades, the fee has been introduced, withdrawn for years, brought back, and even briefly become the subject of a dispute over how much of the revenue should go to the government. In older IRCTC accounts, it appears as “service charge earned”; since 2019, it has been called the “convenience fee”.

Prior to 2014, IRCTC did not share the Service Charge with Indian Railways, although the quantum of the charge was decided by the Railways. In 2014, a revenue-sharing arrangement was introduced, with the Service Charge shared in an 80:20 ratio between IRCTC and the Railways. In 2015, the sharing ratio was revised to 50:50, alongside an increase in the Service Charge from ₹10 to ₹20 for Non-AC classes and from ₹20 to ₹40 for AC classes, as directed through Railway Board letters.

The arrangement was short-lived. Indian Railways completely withdrew the Service Charge with effect from 23 November 2016. The fee returned on 1 September 2019, this time as a “convenience fee”: IRCTC currently charges a convenience fee of ₹15 plus GST per ticket for non-AC classes and ₹30 plus GST for AC classes, including First Class and FC. The charge is per ticket, regardless of how many passengers are included in the booking. But passengers paying through BHIM or UPI get a lower rate: ₹10 plus GST for non-AC tickets and ₹20 plus GST for AC tickets, to promote digital payments. UPI has become an increasingly important way of booking railway tickets. 50.1% of total online ticketing in 2025-26 was through BHIM/UPI.

IRCTC’s service charge, later renamed the convenience fee, has generated nearly ₹6,962 crore in the last 20 years. Revenue rose from ₹74.31 crore in 2008-09 to ₹362.25 crore in 2016-17, before almost disappearing during the three-year waiver. Once the fee returned in 2019-20, collections quickly recovered to ₹349.78 crore and then climbed further, reaching ₹694.09 crore in 2021-22 and ₹987.33 crore in 2025-26.

The convenience fee is growing, but its share of Total Revenue is in decline

Since its return in 2019, IRCTC’s convenience-fee revenue has grown steadily, from about ₹350 crore in 2019-20 to ₹986 crore in 2025-26. But its share in IRCTC’s overall revenue has been declining, as catering, tourism and Rail Neer have recovered from the pandemic and grown faster.

There is another shift happening within ticketing itself. UPI now accounts for more than half of IRCTC’s online bookings, but UPI transactions attract a lower convenience fee of ₹10–20, compared with ₹15–30 for other payment modes. So, even as more passengers move online, IRCTC does not earn the same amount from every booking.

This becomes particularly relevant with the new UPI MDR framework coming into effect from October 2026. The key question is whether the additional cost of accepting UPI will lead IRCTC to reconsider its lower UPI convenience fee. For passengers, that could eventually affect what they pay to book a ticket online; for IRCTC, it is a question of how to balance UPI’s growing popularity with the economics of each transaction.

Why does it matter?

For passengers, booking a train ticket can feel like a simple digital transaction. For IRCTC, millions of these transactions add up to a significant revenue stream. Convenience-fee collections are now close to ₹1,000 crore, but the growing use of UPI means IRCTC earns less per transaction on a large and expanding share of bookings. With UPI MDR rules changing from October 2026, the cost of processing these payments could change too. That makes IRCTC’s next move on its UPI convenience fee worth watching, particularly for passengers who have come to rely on UPI for ticket bookings.

Key Numbers

• 38.5% (2020-21) → 18.9% (2025-26):  Convenience fee’s shrinking share of total revenue

• 14.53 lakh tickets per day booked online in 2025-26: IRCTC’s e-ticketing growth

• ₹350 crore (2019-20) → ₹986 crore (2025-26): Threefold increase in convenience/service fee revenue