All Post Office Savings Schemes Compared 2026: The Full Picture

All Post Office Savings Schemes genuinely blur together for most people — someone tells you PPF is good, someone else swears by SCSS, a relative mentions KVP doubles your money, and none of it connects into an actual plan. We've now written individual deep-dives on several of these — Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana, Kisan Vikas Patra, NSC, and the Post Office Time Deposit vs Bank FD comparison — and this article is genuinely the one that pulls all of it together in one place, side by side, so you can see where each scheme actually fits rather than reading eight separate articles to figure that out yourself.

The Full Comparison Table

Before anything else, here's every scheme we've researched, side by side, with the current 2026 numbers in one place.

Eight schemes, four different jobs. That's genuinely the useful way to think about this table — not "which number is highest," but "which of these four categories actually matches what I'm trying to do with this money."

It's worth pausing on why the rates themselves differ as much as they do, since it isn't random. SCSS and SSY sit at the top of the table at 8.2% because both carry restrictions — age for SCSS, and a specific beneficiary type for SSY — that narrow who can actually access that rate. The schemes open to literally anyone, like the Recurring Deposit and Time Deposit, sit lower, because broader eligibility generally comes with a more modest rate. This is a pattern worth recognizing across government savings schemes generally, not just this particular table: the highest headline rates are almost always attached to some kind of eligibility gate.

The Only Two Schemes That Are Fully Tax-Free

Out of everything in that table, only PPF and SSY carry full EEE (Exempt-Exempt-Exempt) status — contribution, interest, and maturity all tax-free. Every other scheme on this list, including the ones that do offer an 80C deduction on the way in, taxes the interest you eventually earn.

PPF is the general-purpose version of this — anyone can open one, 15-year tenure, ₹1.5 lakh annual cap. SSY is the same tax treatment but restricted specifically to a girl child's account, opened before she turns 10. If tax-free growth is genuinely your top priority and you qualify for SSY, it currently pays a full percentage point more than PPF at 8.2% versus 7.1% — worth knowing if you're choosing where to direct money for a daughter versus a general family goal.

It's worth being clear about what "EEE" actually protects you from over a long tenure. Every other scheme on this list involves paying tax on the interest at your slab rate — for someone in the 30% bracket, that meaningfully erodes the effective return compared to the headline number. A 7.7% NSC rate for a high earner behaves closer to a 5.4% post-tax return once tax is accounted for, while PPF and SSY's 7.1% and 8.2% arrive completely intact. Over a 15 or 21-year tenure, that gap compounds into a genuinely large difference in final corpus, which is part of why we'd encourage prioritizing these two schemes first if you have room in your annual budget and qualify for either.

The Two Built for Regular Income, Not Growth

SCSS and POMIS solve a genuinely different problem — not "grow this money," but "turn this lump sum into a paycheck." Both pay out on a schedule rather than compounding silently until maturity.

The age restriction is really what separates these two. If you're eligible for SCSS, it beats POMIS on rate every time we've checked. If you're not yet 60 but want a monthly income stream from a lump sum — perhaps for a parent who isn't quite eligible for SCSS yet, or simply because you want cash flow now rather than at maturity — POMIS fills that gap. We've covered SCSS in full in our dedicated SCSS guide, including the joint account rules that let a couple effectively double their combined limit.

One genuine nuance worth flagging: both schemes tax the interest fully, so neither is truly delivering the headline rate to your bank account each month. A retiree relying on SCSS or POMIS as a primary income source should budget around the post-tax figure, not the advertised rate, especially if other income sources push them into a higher tax bracket. Section 80TTB does offer some relief here, allowing senior citizens a ₹50,000 deduction on interest income from banks and post offices, which softens this effect somewhat for those specifically eligible for that provision.

The Fixed-Return, No-Tax-Break Schemes

KVP, the 5-year Time Deposit, and NSC all sit in a similar bucket — fixed, government-guaranteed returns, but with genuinely different tax treatment from each other despite looking similar on the surface.

NSC genuinely has the edge here for anyone still building out their 80C allocation, precisely because of the reinvestment mechanism we detailed in our NSC deep-dive — interest earned in years one through four gets reinvested and claims a fresh deduction each time, something neither KVP nor the Time Deposit does. KVP's real advantage is the complete absence of any investment ceiling, useful if you have a genuinely large sum and have already exhausted your 80C room elsewhere.

The Time Deposit occupies an interesting middle position in this group — it's genuinely the only one of the three offered across four different tenure lengths rather than a single fixed term, which gives it a flexibility the other two don't share. Someone wanting a shorter, one or two-year commitment with an 80C-adjacent structure can look at the shorter Time Deposit tenures, though only the full 5-year version actually carries the tax deduction. Rate notifications for all three are published quarterly through India Post's official channels.

The Discipline-Building, Small-Ticket Schemes

The Recurring Deposit is genuinely the odd one out on this list, and deliberately so — it's not designed to compete on rate. At 6.7%, it's the lowest number in the entire table. What it does instead is let someone start with as little as ₹100 a month and build a habit, with no lump sum required at all.

We'd genuinely place RD as the entry point for someone who doesn't yet have a lump sum to put into PPF, NSC, or KVP, but wants to start somewhere small and consistent. It's less about the destination and more about building the muscle of monthly saving before graduating to the higher-rate, lump-sum schemes once there's an actual corpus to work with.

There's also a practical progression worth naming explicitly here, since we get this question often from younger readers or those just starting their financial planning journey. Someone with no meaningful savings yet genuinely benefits more from six months of a disciplined ₹500 RD than from staring at PPF's 15-year commitment and doing nothing because the number feels too large or the tenure too long. Once that RD matures, or once genuine savings capacity builds up, that same money can move into PPF, NSC, or whichever scheme actually matches the longer-term goal — the RD's job is simply proving to yourself that consistent saving is achievable in the first place.

Choosing by What You Actually Need

Building a tax-free fund for a daughter — SSY, without much competition, given the combination of the highest current rate and full tax exemption.

General long-term, tax-free wealth building — PPF, the broadest-eligibility option with full EEE status.

Regular income after 60 — SCSS first, POMIS if you're not yet eligible for SCSS or want monthly rather than quarterly payouts.

Maximizing 80C with a large lump sum — NSC for the reinvestment benefit, or the 5-year Time Deposit for a shorter commitment, or KVP if you've already used up your 80C room elsewhere and just want a safe, no-ceiling parking spot.

Starting from nothing, building a savings habit — Recurring Deposit, specifically because of its ₹100 minimum and monthly structure.

What All of These Genuinely Share

Regardless of which scheme or combination you land on, a few things hold true across the entire post office lineup. Every one of these carries a sovereign government guarantee — meaningfully different from a bank FD's DICGC coverage capped at ₹5 lakh, a distinction we unpacked fully in our Post Office Time Deposit vs Bank FD comparison. Every one of them is available through India Post's nationwide branch network, which remains the most accessible financial institution in large parts of the country, including areas with limited bank branch coverage.

And every rate in that opening table is reviewed quarterly by the Ministry of Finance — none of these are permanently fixed forever, even though individual certificates or accounts often lock in the rate that applied on their specific opening date for their full tenure. Checking the National Savings Institute's quarterly notification before a large deposit is genuinely worth the two minutes it takes, since a rate revision at the start of a new quarter can change the numbers meaningfully for anyone opening a fresh account.

One more thread worth naming: nearly every scheme in this table restricts eligibility to resident Indians, with NRIs generally excluded from opening fresh accounts across the board. If you're planning finances for a family that includes both resident and non-resident members, that exclusion applies consistently enough across PPF, NSC, KVP, SCSS, and the rest that it's worth treating as a general rule rather than checking scheme by scheme. The specific exceptions and grandfather clauses for existing NRI account holders vary, so anyone in that situation should confirm directly with India Post rather than assume based on this general pattern.

Frequently Asked Questions

Our Bottom Line

The real value of seeing all eight schemes in one table isn't finding a single "winner" — it's recognizing that they're not actually competing with each other. A tax-free daughter's fund, a retiree's monthly income, a lump-sum tax deduction, and a first-time saver's ₹100-a-month habit are four completely different problems, and the post office happens to have a purpose-built answer for each one. Pick based on the job the money needs to do, and the rate comparison becomes a lot less confusing.

For the full detail behind any single scheme mentioned here, our dedicated guides on SSY, KVP, NSC, SCSS, and Time Deposits go significantly deeper than this comparison could.