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In a significant move to enhance the performance and reliability of India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) system, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has announced a series of rule changes that will come into effect from August 1, 2025. The revised framework aims to minimise system overload, curb transaction delays, and ensure smoother digital payment experiences, particularly during high-traffic periods.
Restrictions rolled out to tackle overuse
With over 6 billion UPI transactions recorded monthly in India, the NPCI is introducing usage limits for 10 key Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) — the building blocks that power UPI functions like balance checks, transaction status verifications and autopay executions.
These changes will affect everyday users of apps such as Google Pay, PhonePe, Paytm and others.
- Users can now view linked bank accounts tied to their mobile number a maximum of 25 times per day.
- Balance inquiries will be limited to 50 times per user, per app, each day.
- Payment status of a transaction can only be checked three times, with a mandatory 90-second interval between each attempt.
- Autopay transactions will only be processed during designated non-peak hours.
Autopay and system-level restrictions
Autopay transactions will also be subjected to stricter time windows. From August 1, all recurring payments will be processed outside peak periods, specifically avoiding the slots from 10 am to 1 pm and 5 pm to 9:30 pm. Each mandate will be processed once, with up to three retries permitted under regulated transaction speeds.
Non-customer-initiated API requests, system-generated actions that are not directly triggered by users, will also be blocked during these peak hours to avoid unnecessary load on servers.
The NPCI’s official circular, dated May 21, 2025, clearly states, “Banks and Payment Service Providers must make sure they watch and control all API requests (in terms of speed and transactions per second limits) sent to UPI for proper usage (both customer-started and system-started requests).”
Enforcement, audits and penalties
To ensure full compliance, banks and payment service providers must submit undertakings by August 31, 2025, confirming that API requests are being appropriately queued and throttled. Additionally, acquiring banks will be required to conduct annual system audits, certified by CERT-In empanelled auditors, starting from the same date.
The NPCI has also warned of penalties for non-compliance. These may include API restrictions, suspension of new customer onboarding, or other corrective actions as deemed necessary.
Why the changes were introduced
The updated rules are a response to rising incidents of outages and delayed transactions, especially between April and May 2025. NPCI has observed that the surge in complaints was often linked to users repeatedly checking balances or transaction statuses, thereby overwhelming the system.
By limiting such repetitive actions, NPCI aims to streamline usage, reduce strain, and improve transaction speeds across the board. The limits, according to the regulator, have been designed to be “lenient” for general users while targeting overuse by heavy users.
Transaction caps remain unchanged
Importantly, these new API usage limits will not affect UPI’s existing transaction value caps. The maximum limit continues to be Rs 1 lakh per transaction in most scenarios, with higher limits of up to Rs 5 lakh reserved for specific categories such as healthcare and education.
With these changes, NPCI seeks to strike a balance between user convenience and operational stability, ensuring that India’s digital payments infrastructure remains robust and future-ready.
