PPF Calculator

Fifteen years, one deposit a year, no market risk at all

Put in the maximum ₹1,50,000 every year at the current 7.1% rate for the standard 15-year lock-in, and the Public Provident Fund hands back ₹40,68,209 — against ₹22,50,000 actually deposited. That means ₹18,18,209, nearly as much as everything you put in, arrived purely as government-guaranteed interest, with zero exposure to market swings along the way.

Why the timing of your deposit inside the year matters

Each year, this calculator adds your deposit to the running balance first, then compounds the whole thing once at the annual PPF rate — so every rupee you deposit starts earning interest from that same financial year onward. In practice, this is why depositing early in the financial year (April, rather than waiting until the March deadline) earns marginally more over 15 years than depositing at the last possible moment: an early deposit gets a full year's interest that a late one misses.

The triple-exempt status few other instruments match

PPF's real advantage isn't the rate — 7.1% is respectable but not exceptional — it's that almost nothing is taxed at any stage. Contributions qualify for deduction under Section 80C up to the annual limit, the interest earned is entirely tax-free, and so is the maturity payout: contribution, growth and withdrawal all exempt, a combination (EEE) that very few Indian savings instruments offer together. Add sovereign backing on top and you get one of the safest ways to build a long-horizon corpus available to an individual saver. The 15-year lock-in is a feature as much as a limitation — it enforces the patience many savers otherwise struggle with — and once it matures, the account can be extended in blocks of five years, with or without further deposits, letting the same tax-free compounding run straight through retirement.