If you frequently travel by train within a month and book tickets not only for yourself but also for family members, you may encounter a limit exhaustion message when booking on IRCTC. This raises the question of what the monthly booking limit is and whether it is the same for all passengers.
Your monthly ticket booking limit depends on whether your IRCTC user ID has been verified through an Aadhaar Card. Millions of passengers use rail transport in India daily, and a large number of people book tickets online via the IRCTC app or website.
The railway company has set a restriction on the number of tickets that can be booked from a single user ID. The purpose of this restriction is to prevent fraudulent bookings and ticket speculation. According to current rules, a standard user ID allows booking 12 tickets per month, while an ID verified through Aadhaar allows booking up to 24 tickets.
If you created an account on IRCTC using the standard method and your user ID is not verified through Aadhaar, you can book a maximum of 12 tickets per month. This limit was not always the case; in June 2022, Indian Railways increased the monthly booking limit for standard user IDs from 6 to 12 tickets. It is important to understand that a standard account does not require linking any government identification.
If you need to book more than 12 tickets per month, you should link and verify your IRCTC user ID through Aadhaar. After verification through Aadhaar, the monthly booking limit increases to 24 tickets. However, there is another important condition. To book more than 12 tickets, it is sufficient for only your user ID to be verified through Aadhaar. At least one of the passengers traveling on the train must have a verified Aadhaar number in the IRCTC system. Simply put, two conditions are required to receive the 24-ticket benefit: verification of your user ID's Aadhaar and the verification of at least one passenger's Aadhaar when booking more than 12 tickets.
For those booking Tatkal tickets, the railway has set separate and stricter restrictions. A maximum of 2 Tatkal tickets can be booked per day from one user ID between 10:00 AM and 12:00 PM. Furthermore, only one Tatkal booking form is allowed from one IP address or one login session. Therefore, if you are booking Tatkal tickets, you must adhere to these separate rules in addition to the general monthly limit.
A personal IRCTC user ID must be used to book tickets for your own travel or the travel of family members. Commercial booking of tickets for money for others using a personal ID violates the rules. If a person is caught using their personal ID to sell tickets, their IRCTC ID may be permanently blocked. Additionally, legal action may follow under the Railways Act.