APY Calculator 2026: Atal Pension Yojana

APY is not a market product — the Government guarantees a fixed monthly pension of ₹1,000 to ₹5,000 from age 60, based on your joining age and contribution. The effective return works out to roughly 8% a year for someone joining at 18, falling as the joining age rises because there are fewer years to contribute.

Any resident Indian citizen aged 18 to 40 years holding a savings bank account or post office savings account is eligible to join APY.

Starting October 1, 2022, per Ministry of Finance notification, any citizen who is or has been an income-tax payer is not eligible to join the Atal Pension Yojana.

APY has a triple benefit structure: (1) Subscriber receives guaranteed monthly pension for life, (2) On subscriber death, the spouse gets the exact same monthly pension for life, (3) On spouse death, the entire indicative accumulated pension corpus (up to ₹8.5 Lakhs) is returned in full to the nominee.

APY contributions are auto-debited automatically from your linked savings bank account or post office savings account on a monthly, quarterly, or half-yearly basis.

Rarely, and the question matters less than it looks. Since 1 October 2022 anyone who is or has been an income-tax payer cannot join APY at all, so most people asking this are not eligible in the first place. If you joined before that and still pay tax, contributions fall under Section 80CCD(1) and 80CCD(1B) — but the ₹50,000 under 80CCD(1B) is a single shared ceiling with NPS Tier-1, not ₹50,000 each. Both deductions exist only under the Old Regime; the New Regime allows neither.

A failed auto-debit attracts an overdue charge of Re 1 a month for every Rs 100 of contribution, so a Rs 500 monthly contribution costs Rs 5 for each missed month, recovered with the arrears when the account is regularised. Keep the savings account funded around the debit date. You may raise or lower your pension slab once a financial year at your bank branch; the contribution is then reset and any difference is adjusted.