Tatkal Booking Help
Tatkal Booking Timings
Online booking of Tatkal Tickets on IRCTC for General Public is allowed from 10:00 AM in morning for AC Classes and from 11:00 AM in morning for NON AC Classes (Link).
Note: IRCTC Agents or RTSA’s are not allowed booking for first half hour. Therefore they can only start booking for AC Class from 10:30 and for NON AC from 11:30 AM only.
Tatkal Advance Booking Days:
Tatkal tickets can only be booked for 1 advance day of Train origin station only. In simple terms it means If Train starts from Mumbai on 3rd April then Tatkal Ticket can only be booked from 2nd of April till chart is prepared.
Tatkal Booking Priority
General Waiting List (GNWL) is given priority over Tatkal Waiting List (CKWL) at the time of chart preparation as per Indian Railways (Link).
Passengers should therefore book only if confirmed Tatkal Ticket is available. Otherwise normal Waitlisted Ticket (GNWL) will be confirmed first and then only their Tatkal Waitlisted Ticket (CKWL) will be cleared. In simple terms when there is waiting in both General and Tatkal then general ticket should be booked.
Tatkal Charges
Tatkal tickets are now issued for actual distance of travel subject to the distance restriction applicable to the train. Extra Tatkal Charges are fixed as a percentage of fare at the rate of 10% of basic fare for second class and 30% of basic fare for all other classes subject to minimum and maximum as given in the table below.
| Class of Travel | Minimum | Maximum | Minimum |
| Reserve Second Sitting (2S) | 10.00 | 15.00 | 100.00 |
| Sleeper (SL) | 100.00 | 200.00 | 500.00 |
| AC Chair Car (CC) | 125.00 | 225.00 | 250.00 |
| AC 3 Tier (3A) | 300.00 | 400.00 | 500.00 |
| AC 2 Tier (2A) | 400.00 | 500.00 | 500.00 |
| Executive (1A / FC) | 400.00 | 500.00 | 250.00 |
Tatkal Booking Proof of Identity
Any one of below Proof of Identity are allowed
- Voter Photo identity card issued by Election Commission of India.
- Passport
- PAN Card issued by Income Tax Department.
- Driving Licence issued by RTO.
- Photo identity card having serial number issued by Central/State Government.
- Student Identity Card with photograph issued by recognized School/College for their students.
- Nationalized Bank Passbook with photograph.
- Credit Card issued by Bank with laminated photograph.
- Aadhaar Unique Identification Card.
- Photo identity cards having serial number issued by Public Sector Undertaking of State/Central Government, District Administration, Municipal bodies and Penchant Administration
In case of Online / IRCTC Tatkal booking passenger is required to fill ID Card Type & Number
In case of Railway Station Over the Counter Tatkal Booking no ID is required to be shown.
Important: Passenger is required to show proof of identity for any one passenger in original during the journey whether ticket is booked Online or Over the Counter.
Duplicate Tatkal Ticket:
No duplicate Tatkal tickets shall be issued. Duplicate Tatkal tickets shall be issued only in exceptional cases on payment of full fare including Tatkal charges.
Online / IRCTC Tatkal Booking Checklist:
Since Tatkal tickets are sold in first few minutes of opening, therefore passenger should be well averse with the booking procedure else time would be wasted and Seat Quota would be filled by that time.
Some tips to save time while doing Tatkal Booking are :
- Make sure that your desired train origin station date is 1 day advance. Tatkal Quota might open two or more days in advance, if the train reaches your boarding station on second or more days of its running. For example, if you book Tatkal Ticket from Nagpur to Chennai in Grand Trunk Express (12615), the Tatkal booking opens 2 days in advance from your journey date as the train reaches Nagpur on 2nd day of running
- Keep ID cards like Driving Licence, Aadhaar Card etc handy. This will save time to search for ID cards. Passengers should try to avoid using the PAN Card in booking tickets as this data is available easily for misuse
- Enter Passenger Details in IRCTC website before start time. If you have pre filled the details, then you just have to submit them. Way to do this is as follows:
- Login into the IRCTC website 5-10 minutes before 10:00 AM for AC Classes and 11 AM for NON-AC Classes.
- Select Origin, Destination, Choose Today’s Date, Enter ticket type and click on ‘Find Trains’.
- Now select quota as TATKAL and click on BOOK NOW for Today’s date for any train.
- Enter Complete Passenger Details including ID Card Details and Mobile Number.
- Very important: click only on ‘Replan’ not “Next” which takes to back to the ‘Plan My Journey’ page. Don’t click on ‘Next’ as it will take you to payment page.
- Exactly at 10:00 AM (11:00 AM for NON AC Classes) put your correct Journey Date and try booking.
- When you come on Passenger Details page, you will see that all the details which you entered before are still there.
- Just fill the ‘Captcha and click on ‘Next’ for payment.
- Create more than one credentials. Creating multiple login credentials for logging on to IRCTC website helps a lot. Trying to book ticket using multiple browsers / multiple computers with different login id always increases chances of getting a Tatkal ticket. DO NOT use same IRCTC login details on same browser as IRCTC will detect it and log you out from all sessions.
- For AC Class try booking in 2A (Second AC). For most of the routes, 2A gets filled less quickly than 3A in spite of lesser berths.
- Try to use payment using Netbanking (preferably by ICICI or HDFC Bank). This will take least amount of time. If you pay by Debit or Credit Card, you have to enter card numbers and other details like Cardholders Name, CVV, and Expiry Date etc which will take lot of time
- Keep your Mobile Phone Handy. IRCTC has made Mobile Phone OTP (One Time Password) verification mandatory. Passenger who is booking Tatkal Ticket should keep his Mobile Phone nearby to submit OTP details from OTP SMS received on Mobile phone.
- Try at 11:AM for NON AC Class. If you are not able to book Tatkal Ticket for AC Class, Try NON-AC Class at 11:00 AM again.