Indian Railways Fare Hike: Who Pays Extra And Who Gets Relief

The Indian Railways has announced a revision in train fares starting from Dec. 26, 2025. Under the rationalised fare structure, long-distance travellers will be required to pay more, while ticket prices for suburban services as well as short-distance travel continues to remain the same.

It must be noted that a few passenger categories will remain unaffected.

Railway Fair Hike: Who pays more?

The latest fare hike by Indian Railways applies to longer journeys and higher classes. 

There is no increase in Ordinary Class for up to 215 kms. But they will be required to pay 1 paise per kilometre beyond 215 km.

Moreover, ticket prices for Mail and Express trains (non-AC) have been hiked by 2 paise per kilometre.

For AC classes, the fare has been increased by 2 paise per kilometre.

Under the revised structure, a passenger will be required to pay Rs 10 extra per ticket for both AC and non-AC coaches for a 500-kilometre journey.

The ticket prices will remain unchanged to benefit a large section of daily and short-distance travellers.

This means that there is no hike in ticket prices for a journey up to 215 kms in the Ordinary Class.

Further, suburban train fares will continue to remain the same, including the price for the monthly season ticket.

Why does it matter?

According to Indian Railways, the latest fare rationalisation aims to partly offset rising operating costs as its network and workforce have expanded significantly in recent times. 

In the last decade, Railways has increased train services across multiple regions and strengthened safety systems.

As per the official data, the manpower cost for the Railways has increased to Rs 1.15 lakh crore and pension expenses stand at Rs 60,000 crore. Overall, the operational expenditure has jumped to Rs 2.63 lakh crore in Financial Year 2024-25.

In order to meet the high costs, Railways said it is focusing on higher cargo loading as well as the small amount of passenger fare rationalisation.

This is not the first time that Railways has increased ticket prices this year. In July, it announced a 1 paisa per km hike for non-air-conditioned class in Mail and Express trains, while travelling in air-conditioned classes became dearer by 2 paise per km.

Prior to that, train ticket prices were hiked on Jan. 1, 2020. At that time, second-class fare for ordinary and mail/express trains was hiked by 1 paisa per km and 2 paise per km. Besides that, fares for sleeper classes and AC classes were increased by 2 paise per km and 4 paise per km, respectively.