Cancellation of Waitlisted e-ticket

The process of cancellation of  Waitlisted e-ticket is extremely simple. If you have an e-ticket, it means you have booked it via the server of IRCTC, by creating & then logging onto your account, and then have booked the ticket. At the time of booking the pop-up window does inform you that you do not have confirmed berth / seat and do you want to book it under Wait listed category.

If you have a waitlisted e-ticket, you sure have gone through this process. Coming to cancellation of waitlisted e-ticket, you just have to log onto your account in the IRCTC Portal, click the booked tickets history, and it would show your waitlisted ticket too.

Just select the option to cancel the Waitlisted e-ticket and the system will generate a transaction ID for the same, and send a mail to your registered e-mail ID for the Cancelled Waitlisted e-ticket.

Normally within two days time – after the cancellation process has been completed by you, IRCTC would send full refund of the ticket amount to your designated bank account, through which you originally made the payment at the time of booking of the ticket.

However IRCTC will deduct the e-booking charge which has been collected from you when you booked the ticket. This amount depends on the class of ticket. The lowest amount is Rs 20/-. This amount is basically the cost of the transaction incurred by Indian Railways in terms of creating and maintaining the infrastructure for you to book from the comfort of your home PC or Cyber café PC, without travelling all the way to the Indian Railway’s ticket booking counter, and sweating it out there in a long queue.

Note

Cancellation of waitlisted e-ticket through IRCTC Portal is possible only up to 4 hours before the departure of the train. In other words, before preparation of the reservation of chart. If you miss this time frame, then you will have to go to the nearest railway reservation counter and cancel it there. The refund will be automatically remitted to your bank account through which you made the payment while booking the ticket.

Content updated in January 2023
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