Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana Calculator

What is Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana?

The Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana (SSY) is a government-backed small-savings scheme launched under the "Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao" campaign to help parents build a corpus for a girl child's education and marriage. It offers one of the highest interest rates among all government savings schemes and full EEE tax treatment — deposits, interest and maturity are all tax-free.

Key rules at a glance

• Who: a parent or guardian can open one account per girl child (maximum two accounts per family), any time before the girl turns 10.
• Deposits: minimum ₹250 and maximum ₹1,50,000 per financial year, for 15 years from the opening date.
• Maturity: the account matures 21 years after opening (or on the girl's marriage after age 18). Years 16–21 earn interest with no further deposits.
• Interest: set quarterly by the government — currently 8.2% p.a., compounded annually.
• Tax: deposits qualify for Section 80C (old regime), and interest plus maturity are fully exempt.

How the maturity builds

Because deposits run for only 15 years but interest compounds for 21, the last six years do a lot of the heavy lifting — a strong reason to open the account early and fund it fully in the initial years.

What common deposit amounts actually grow to

Most people think in monthly terms even though the account is funded annually. At the current 8.2% rate, depositing for the full 15 years and holding to maturity at 21:

The ratio is identical in every row: maturity is about 3.19× what you put in. That is what 8.2% compounding for 21 years does, and it is why the scheme is worth using even at small amounts — ₹500 a month, which most families can manage, still finishes near ₹2.9 lakh.

Two caveats on reading this table. It assumes the rate holds at 8.2% for the whole term, which it will not — the rate is reset quarterly by the Ministry of Finance and has ranged from about 7.6% to 9.2% over the scheme's life. And it assumes the deposit is made early in the financial year; money paid in March earns almost no interest for that year.

The three dates that govern the account

SSY is unusually rigid about timing, and the dates trip people up more than the arithmetic does:

• Open before the girl turns 10. After her tenth birthday the account cannot be opened at all. This is the deadline that is missed most often.
• Deposit for 15 years from the opening date — not until she is 21. Years 16 to 21 require no payment; the balance simply keeps earning.
• Matures at 21, or on marriage after 18, whichever comes first.

That gap between the last deposit and maturity is where a large share of the return is made. In the maximum case, roughly ₹49.3 lakh of the ₹71.8 lakh is interest — and a substantial part of it accrues in those final six years when nothing is being paid in at all. Closing early forfeits that.

If you miss a year

An account with no deposit in a financial year is treated as in default. It can be revived by paying a penalty of ₹50 for each defaulted year plus the ₹250 annual minimum for those years — a small sum, but the account must be regularised before maturity.

The real cost of a missed year is not the ₹50. It is the compounding: a ₹1,50,000 deposit skipped in year 2 is not just ₹1,50,000 missing at the end — at 8.2% over the remaining 19 years it is roughly ₹6.6 lakh of maturity value gone. Deposit early in the year, every year, and the penalty never comes up.

SSY vs PPF

SSY and the PPF are close cousins — both are government-guaranteed, EEE, and 80C-eligible. SSY usually pays a slightly higher rate and is purpose-built for a girl child, while PPF is open to everyone and more flexible on withdrawals. Many parents run both. If you also invest in equity for the same goal, compare the guaranteed SSY return against a market-linked SIP before deciding your split — our guide Will SSY pay for your daughter's education? walks through the opening-age maths, the 50%-at-18 rule and the SSY+SIP strategy.

Partial withdrawal

Once the girl turns 18, up to 50% of the previous year's closing balance can be withdrawn for higher education. The account can be closed early on marriage after 18. Otherwise it runs the full term.