What is the age limit for a child train ticket in India?

Children below 5 years travel free and are not issued a ticket, though they get no berth of their own. From 5 years up to under 12, a ticket is required. Age is reckoned as on the date of the journey, not the date of booking.

Do children between 5 and 12 pay full fare on Indian Railways?

It depends on whether you want a berth. Since 21 April 2016, a child aged 5 to under 12 allotted a separate berth or seat pays the full adult fare. If you choose not to take a separate berth, the child pays half fare — subject to the minimum fare for the class — and shares the accompanying adult’s berth.

Can a child under 5 be given a berth?

Yes, but not free. A child under 5 travels free only without a berth. If you want a berth reserved for them, you book them at full fare like any other passenger — which for a long overnight journey with a toddler is often worth it.

Is the senior citizen concession on train tickets available in 2026?

No. The senior citizen fare concession — 40% for men aged 60 and above and 50% for women aged 58 and above — was withdrawn on 20 March 2020 and has not been restored. What does continue is the lower berth preference: senior citizens are still given priority in lower berth allotment, which is an allocation rule rather than a discount.

Which railway concessions still exist?

Three groups survived the 2020 withdrawal: persons with disabilities (Divyangjan) across four categories, patients travelling for treatment of eleven specified conditions including cancer, tuberculosis, thalassemia, heart and kidney disease, and students. Most other categories — senior citizens, journalists, sportspersons, teachers, and others — remain withdrawn.

Do I need age proof for a child train ticket?

You declare the child’s age at booking and it is printed on the ticket. Staff can ask for proof, so carrying an Aadhaar card, birth certificate or school ID for a child close to the 5 or 12 year boundary is sensible. Declaring an under-age falsely to avoid a fare is treated as travelling on an incorrect ticket.

Child Tickets, Senior Fares & Concessions

Reviewed on August 1, 2026 • Author: Railmonk Research Team • Reviewer: Travel Review Desk • 9 min read

Rules reviewed 1 August 2026

Two questions in this area get asked far more than any others, and both have answers that changed in the last decade — which is why so much of the advice floating around is confidently out of date. Children aged five to eleven have not automatically travelled at half fare since 2016. Senior citizens have not received a fare concession since March 2020. Neither change was quietly reversed, however often you hear otherwise.

Child tickets: the rule turns on the berth, not the age

Age decides whether a ticket is needed at all. What you pay, once one is needed, depends entirely on whether the child gets a berth of their own.

Age on the date of travel	Without a separate berth	With a separate berth
Under 5 years	Free — no ticket issued	Full adult fare, if you choose to book one
5 to under 12 years	Half fare, subject to the minimum fare for the class	Full adult fare
12 years and above	Not applicable — a berth is always allotted	Full adult fare

The change that catches people out came into force on 21 April 2016. Before it, a child aged 5 to 11 paid half fare and was still allotted a berth. Since then, half fare buys no berth — the child shares yours — and a berth of their own costs the same as an adult’s. Both options remain available at booking; it is a choice you make, not something the system decides for you.

Half fare is not half of what you would otherwise pay. It is subject to the minimum fare for the class, so on short journeys the two options can be much closer than you expect. On an overnight journey in Sleeper or 3A, the gap is usually large enough that sharing a single berth with a nine-year-old is a genuine decision rather than an obvious saving.

Practical notes on booking children

Age is reckoned as on the date of the journey. A child who turns 12 the week before travel is an adult for that ticket, even though they were 11 when you booked.
A child under 5 travelling free is still worth adding to the booking as a non-berth passenger where the form allows it. It puts them on the chart, which matters if anyone asks.
Carry age proof for a child near either boundary — Aadhaar, a birth certificate or a school ID. It is rarely asked for and awkward when it is.
Children do not get a separate luggage allowance. The free allowance for the class covers the whole booking.

Senior citizens: where the concession actually stands

Indian Railways defines a senior citizen as a man aged 60 or above or a woman aged 58 or above. Until March 2020 that status carried a fare concession of 40% for men and 50% for women across most classes.

That concession was withdrawn on 20 March 2020, alongside almost all other categories, and it has not been restored. The question has been raised in Parliament repeatedly since and the answer has not changed. If you are being told otherwise by a booking agent, or by a page that does not say when it was last updated, the claim is stale.

What did survive is the lower berth preference. Senior citizens, women aged 45 and above, and pregnant women continue to get priority in lower berth allotment, and there is a reserved allocation of lower berths for them in Sleeper and AC classes. This is an allocation rule, not a discount — it costs nothing and it is applied automatically when ages are entered correctly at booking, which is a good reason to enter them correctly.

The preference operates at berth allotment, so it works best when there is inventory left to allot from. Booking early matters more for it than any request made later — by the time you are looking at a waitlist number, berth preference is no longer the constraint.

Which concessions still exist

The March 2020 withdrawal covered most of the roughly fifty concession categories the railway used to operate. Three groups were subsequently restored and remain in force:

Category	What it covers
Divyangjan (persons with disabilities)	Four categories, including orthopaedic and mobility disabilities, blindness and hearing impairment. An escort travelling with the passenger is covered on the same basis.
Patients	Eleven specified conditions, including cancer, tuberculosis, thalassemia, heart disease, kidney disease and haemophilia, for journeys undertaken for treatment.
Students	For specified journeys, typically between home and place of study, on production of a certificate from the institution.

Concession rates vary by category and by class rather than being a single percentage, and they are not applied automatically. Each requires documentation held before you book — for Divyangjan travel, a photo identity card issued by the railways; for patients, a certificate from the treating hospital; for students, a certificate from the institution.

Concession tickets generally cannot be booked online without prior registration. The Divyangjan concession in particular requires the railway-issued ID card to be registered against your IRCTC account before the option appears at booking. That is a counter or divisional-office errand, and it is not something you can complete on the morning of travel.

The short version

Under 5: free, no berth. A berth for them costs full fare.
5 to under 12: half fare without a berth, full fare with one — since 21 April 2016.
Age counts on the date of travel.
The senior citizen fare concession has been withdrawn since 20 March 2020 and is not back.
Senior lower berth preference does continue, and costs nothing.
Divyangjan, specified patients and students are the categories that still hold a concession — each needs paperwork arranged in advance.

The pattern across all of it: the railway now discounts far less than it used to, but it still allocates by need. Entering ages and categories accurately at booking is what switches the allocation rules on, and it is free.