How to Buy T-Bills in India: RBI Retail Direct Step-by-Step (2026)

Treasury bills are the cleanest fixed-income instrument in India. Sovereign credit, tenors of 91 to 364 days, weekly availability, and yields that track the RBI’s repo rate almost immediately. Since RBI Retail Direct opened to individuals you can buy them at auction with no fees and nobody in between. Here’s the process.

What you’re buying

A T-bill pays no coupon. You buy at a discount to ₹100 and receive exactly ₹100 at maturity, so the discount is your return. Price and yield convert like this:

Yield = (100 − price) ÷ price × 365 ÷ days

At ₹98.65 for a 91-day bill you earn about 5.5% annualised. Run any price or yield through the T-bill calculator, which also shows your post-tax return, since T-bill gains are taxed at your slab.

The RBI auctions three tenors every week, usually on Wednesday with results the same evening.

Tenor	Auction frequency	Good for
91-day	Weekly	Parking cash three months out
182-day	Weekly	Half-year goals, the middle of a ladder
364-day	Weekly	The one-year FD replacement

Step-by-step on RBI Retail Direct

1. Open the account. One-time, about 15 minutes. Register at RBI Retail Direct for a Retail Direct Gilt (RDG) account. You’ll need PAN, an Aadhaar-linked mobile for e-KYC, a bank account and an email address. No account charges.
2. Find the auction. Upcoming auctions sit under “Primary Market,” and T-bills appear every week. Note the bidding window, which usually closes the evening before auction day.
3. Bid non-competitively. Retail investors don’t guess prices. Enter an amount, minimum ₹10,000 in multiples of ₹10,000, and you’re allotted at the weighted average price discovered in the competitive auction. No skill required and no winner’s curse.
4. Fund the bid by UPI or net banking when you place it. If allotment comes in cheaper than the amount you blocked, the difference comes back.
5. Receive the bills. Securities credit to your RDG account on settlement day, T+1, and appear in your holdings with the maturity date attached.
6. Maturity handles itself. On the date, ₹100 per unit lands in your linked bank account.

Automating it: SIPs and auto-bidding

Since August 2025 you don’t have to do steps 2 to 4 every week. Retail Direct carries an auto-bid facility, announced by the RBI Governor at the August 2025 policy, that places auction bids for you on a rule you define: tenor, amount and frequency. Minimum ₹10,000, in multiples of ₹10,000, the same as bidding by hand. The rules can be edited or cancelled whenever you like.

It also handles reinvestment at maturity, which is the part that matters for a ladder. A 91-day rung can roll for years without you opening the app, which is the closest thing to a set-and-forget sovereign deposit that exists in India.

Two caveats worth holding onto. Auto-bidding places the bid; it doesn’t decide whether a T-bill is still the right home for that money, so the yield is worth a glance each quarter against the yields dashboard. And building the first cycle by hand teaches you what you own, which is worth the fifteen minutes before you automate it away.

The alternatives

Brokers. Some large brokers route G-sec and T-bill auction orders for a small fee or spread, with holdings sitting in your regular demat. Convenient if you’d rather not maintain another login, and slightly costlier.

OBPP platforms. Several list T-bills on the secondary market. Check the implied yield against the latest auction cut-off before paying a spread, and see how platforms price bonds.

Liquid and gilt mutual funds. Instant liquidity and no maturity management, in exchange for an expense ratio and a wobbling NAV. Different tool, different job.

Exit before maturity

T-bills are tradable and RBI Retail Direct connects to the NDS-OM secondary market, but retail-size liquidity is modest. The practical rule is to buy T-bills with money you can leave until maturity. If you might need cash within the week, a liquid fund suits better.

This is also why laddering 91-day bills, giving you a fresh maturity every few weeks, works better than one large 364-day position for emergency money. The ladder builder makes the design trivial.

Taxation, briefly

The maturity gain is a short-term capital gain taxed at your slab, since T-bills can’t be held beyond 12 months. There’s no TDS for resident individuals. High-slab investors comparing T-bills against FDs will find them close on post-tax yield, and the T-bill’s edge is sovereign safety, exact maturity dates, and rates that reprice upward faster when the RBI hikes. Full rules in the bond taxation guide.

FAQ

Is RBI Retail Direct really free? Yes. No account fee and no transaction fee. The RBI runs it to broaden the G-sec investor base.

What’s the minimum? ₹10,000 per auction bid, then multiples of ₹10,000.

Can NRIs invest? NRIs are eligible under FEMA rules, and account opening requires an NRO or NRE-linked setup. Check the portal’s current FAQ, since the details change.

91-day bill or savings account? The bill yields roughly twice a large bank’s savings rate with better credit behind it. The savings account wins on instant access and nothing else.

How do I build a rolling system? Split your cash into four to six slices, buy a 91-day bill with one slice each fortnight, and roll each at maturity. After the ramp-up you have money maturing every two weeks indefinitely, which is a self-managed liquid fund at sovereign credit with no expense ratio.

Educational content, not investment advice. Tax rules current for FY 2026-27 to the best of our knowledge, but verify with a professional before acting. See the full disclaimer.