IRCTC 60 days calculator

IRCTC opens reserved booking for a journey date 60 days before that date, not counting the journey date itself, at 08:00 IST. Count back 60 calendar days from the date the train leaves its first station; that morning is your booking day.

Take a train leaving Mumbai on Thursday 24 December 2026. Sixty days before 24 December is 25 October. Booking opens on Sunday 25 October at 08:00. The calculator at the top does this subtraction for you and also tells you whether that morning has already passed.

The count is in calendar days, so months of 30 and 31 days shift the answer. A journey on 1 March 2027 opens on 31 December 2026, because January has 31 days and February 2027 has 28. People who count "two months back" land on 1 January and arrive a day late.

Two things the count does not depend on: the class you want, and whether you book online or at a counter. Sleeper and First AC open on the same morning. The only quota with a different window is Tatkal, which opens one day before the journey, covered on the Tatkal booking time page. The advance reservation period page has the rule's history, and the booking calendar lists every journey date with its opening day.

Counting from the boarding date instead of the train's start date. A train that leaves Delhi at 22:00 on Monday reaches Patna on Tuesday morning. If you board at Patna, the journey date on your ticket is Tuesday, but the advance reservation period runs from Monday, the day the train left Delhi. Booking opened a day earlier than Tuesday minus 60. The "Your train left its first station" switch on the calculator handles this; set it to 1 day earlier for an overnight train.

Logging in at 08:00 instead of 07:55. IRCTC's login page is slow in the minute before a popular date opens. Log in by 07:50, open the train search, fill the passenger list from your master list, and have the payment app unlocked. The reminder service sends a message 20 minutes before for exactly this reason.

Forgetting the Aadhaar rule. Since 12 January 2026 only Aadhaar-verified IRCTC accounts can book general quota tickets online on the opening day, until midnight. An unverified account sees the date but cannot complete the booking until the next day, by which time a popular train is waitlisted. Link Aadhaar in the IRCTC profile a week before, not the morning of; the Aadhaar rule page walks through it, and the rule changes page lists every change since 2024.

The booking itself takes under 2 minutes if nothing has to be typed. The list below is what regular travellers prepare the night before, in the order it is needed.

Train number and class. Search the route a day early and note the train number, the class code and the quota. On the morning, type the number into the search box rather than scrolling the list.

Master list. IRCTC lets you save passengers (name, age, gender, berth preference, ID) under My Profile. On the booking form the list fills with two taps. Typing four names by hand costs 40 seconds, which is the difference between confirmed and waitlisted on a Rajdhani in December.

Payment. UPI through the IRCTC app is the fastest route; net banking adds a redirect and an OTP. Keep the bank's app open on the phone. If a payment fails, the berths are released and the next person in the queue gets them.

A fallback date or train. If the first choice shows WL 40 at 08:01, the multiple date calculator shows which neighbouring dates are also open today so you can switch without recalculating.

The 60 day window and the 08:00 opening apply to the IRCTC website, the Rail Connect app and the computerised reservation counters at stations. The Ministry's Aadhaar rule for opening day applies online only; counter booking procedures did not change.

Counters open at 08:00 too, but the queue forms earlier. For a date where the online quota sells out in minutes, a counter ticket is the same quota, booked by a clerk who is typing while you are still logging in. Agents are a different case: authorised agents cannot book Tatkal in the first 30 minutes of the window, and on the general quota the Ministry has extended the Aadhaar-only period across the whole opening day.

One more detail that trips people up: the window is 60 days for most trains, but a few daytime intercity expresses, the Taj Express and the Gomti Express among them, keep shorter periods set by their zonal railway. Check the train's page on IRCTC if the date shows as outside the advance reservation period while the calculator says it should be open; the date outside ARP page explains that message, and the IRCTC booking timings page puts all the clock times in one table. For a festival week start from the festival booking dates; for a station's code and its trains' opening days, the station codes pages.