How IRCTC Makes Money: Tickets, Catering, Rail Neer, Tourism
Updated: 8 hours ago
The short answer
IRCTC (Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation) makes money from four segments: internet ticketing, catering, Rail Neer packaged water, and tourism. It is a listed central public-sector company. In FY2025–26, revenue from operations reached ₹5,215 crore (+11.55% YoY), PAT ₹1,393 crore (+5.99%), and EBITDA was ₹1,926 crore (margin 35.18%), per the company's 2025–26 annual report.
Internet ticketing brought in ₹1,536 crore of revenue and ₹1,268 crore of segment profit (about 83%) — the profit engine. Catering is the largest revenue segment (about 46% of revenue, ₹2,399 crore) but at much thinner margins. Tourism made ₹890 crore; Rail Neer ₹391 crore.
Key number | What it shows |
₹5,215 Cr | FY26 revenue |
₹1,393 Cr | FY26 PAT |
₹1,536 Cr | ticketing revenue |
~83% | ticketing segment margin |
Sources: IRCTC Annual Report 2025–26 (NSE archive PDF; standalone figures, MD&A segment table). FY25 comparisons are from the same report. Not investment advice. Updated 10 November 2026.
IRCTC revenue and profit: FY2025–26 vs FY2024–25
₹ crore (standalone) | FY2025–26 | FY2024–25 | Change |
Revenue from operations | 5,214.86 | 4,674.77 | +11.55% |
Total income | 5,474.97 | 4,903.45 | +11.66% |
EBITDA (incl. other income) | 1,926.12 | 1,778.54 | +8.30% |
Profit before tax | 1,875.08 | 1,756.95 | +6.72% |
Profit after tax | 1,393.37 | 1,314.66 | +5.99% |
EPS (₹) | 17.42 | 16.43 | +6.03% |
Net worth | 4,308.38 | 3,663.30 | +17.61% |
Source: IRCTC Annual Report 2025–26, financial highlights and key ratios. Revenue grew faster than profit: catering's segment profit fell even as its revenue rose, while ticketing, tourism and Rail Neer profits grew.
What IRCTC is (and is not)
IRCTC does not run Indian Railways' trains or own the track. The Ministry of Railways / Indian Railways runs the network. IRCTC is the commercial layer that:
Sells e-tickets and related digital travel products
Operates and licenses catering (onboard and station)
Manufactures and sells Rail Neer water
Packages tourism (tours, special trains, luxury/religious circuits)
That split is why ticketing margins look like a software company and catering margins look like a hospitality company.
Segment 1: internet ticketing — the cash machine
FY26 ticketing revenue: ₹1,536 crore (+7.66%). The 2025–26 annual report says 53.05 crore tickets were booked in the year and 93.08 crore passengers booked e-tickets; online bookings were 88.74% of reserved tickets on Indian Railways. Segment profit: ₹1,268 crore, a margin of about 82.6%.
How ticketing earns
Convenience fee on reserved e-tickets (the famous small fee that becomes large at national scale).
Non-convenience income: travel insurance, hotels, air/bus adjacencies, and other platform services sold around the ticket.
On the annual report's FY26 segment table, ticketing is about 29% of revenue (₹1,536 crore of ₹5,215 crore) but about 75% of segment profit (₹1,268 crore of ₹1,701 crore) — the classic high-margin digital wedge on a physical monopoly network.
Risk to watch: policy. Convenience fees are politically sensitive. Any sustained cut without an offsetting volume or non-fee boom would hit the jewel segment first.
Segment 2: catering — biggest sales, thinner profits
Catering was about 46% of FY26 revenue (₹2,399 crore, +12.88%). IRCTC says it serves 63 crore+ meals a year across 1,450+ trains, with 800+ kitchens connected through AI-enabled quality monitoring. E-catering hit an all-time high of 1,20,456 meals booked per day on average in FY26, about 32% more than the year before, across 420+ stations.
Margins are thin: catering's FY26 segment profit was ₹250 crore (down 8.04%), roughly 10% of its revenue, because food is labour-, vendor- and logistics-heavy. E-catering and premium menus are the company's levers to improve mix without owning every kitchen.
Segment 3: Rail Neer — bottled water on rails
Rail Neer revenue: ₹391 crore in FY26 (+3.15% YoY), with segment profit up 20.66% to ₹56 crore. IRCTC runs 20 Rail Neer plants with capacity of 18.40 lakh bottles a day. Plants use multi-stage purification and temperature-controlled bottling. It is a manufacturing business inside a travel company: lower margin than ticketing, steadier than tourism, branded inside stations and trains.
Segment 4: tourism — packages and special trains
Tourism revenue: ₹890 crore in FY26 (+19.49%), the fastest-growing segment, with segment profit up 35.90% to ₹128 crore. Products include domestic and international packages, luxury trains such as the Maharajas' Express, Bharat Gaurav circuits (including the North East Discovery train), Buddhist Circuit, Char Dham, and large event support such as Mahakumbh Mela 2025. This segment can scale with India's domestic tourism boom but will not match ticketing margins.
Why the mix matters for investors
Segment | FY26 revenue (₹ Cr) | FY25 revenue (₹ Cr) | FY26 segment profit (₹ Cr) | Role |
Catering | 2,398.75 | 2,125.06 | 249.90 | Volume |
Internet ticketing | 1,535.51 | 1,426.22 | 1,267.92 | Profit |
Tourism | 890.08 | 744.91 | 127.50 | Growth optionality |
Rail Neer | 390.52 | 378.59 | 55.66 | Ancillary manufacturing |
Total | 5,214.86 | 4,674.77 | 1,700.98 |
Source: segment information in the IRCTC Annual Report 2025–26. Segment profit is before unallocated items, interest and tax.
If you only watch IRCTC's quarterly sales, catering can dominate the headline. If you watch profits, watch ticket volumes, convenience-fee policy, and e-catering mix.
Net worth rose to ₹4,308 crore at 31 March 2026 (from ₹3,663 crore). Total dividend for FY26 was ₹9 per share (two interims plus a recommended final), about ₹720 crore vs ₹640 crore for FY25.
Related explainers
More from our series on how companies make money:
FAQ
Does IRCTC own Indian Railways?
No. Indian Railways / the Ministry of Railways own and run the network. IRCTC is a separate listed PSU for catering, tourism, ticketing and Rail Neer.
Which segment is most profitable?
Internet ticketing: ₹1,268 crore of segment profit on ₹1,536 crore of revenue in FY26, a margin of about 83%.
How big is e-ticketing?
The FY26 annual report says 53.05 crore tickets were booked on the platform in the year, and online booking made up 88.74% of reserved tickets on Indian Railways.
What were IRCTC's FY26 revenue and profit?
Revenue from operations was ₹5,214.86 crore (+11.55%) and profit after tax ₹1,393.37 crore (+5.99%), per the 2025–26 annual report.
Sources
IRCTC Annual Report 2025–26 (NSE India archives PDF): FY26 financial highlights, segment table, operating data
IRCTC Annual Report 2024–25 (NSE India archives PDF, "Connecting Horizons")
Indian Express Smart Stocks segment table and margin discussion (citing FY25 results)
IRCTC corporate site annual-report index
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