Government refutes rumors UPI transactions will be charged

Some people heard that paying with UPI — a way to send money from your phone — would start costing extra money.

The Indian government says those stories are not true.

The government called the rumors 'completely false and misleading.'

When you pay a shop or send money to a friend using UPI, it stays free.

Most shops don't pay any fee either when you pay them with UPI.

The government wants to change an old law to make UPI stronger, safer, and better at stopping fraud.

The new law will let a special committee, led by the National Payments Corporation of India, decide if large shops should ever pay a very small fee.

That fee would only apply to big merchant payments above a certain amount, and would be much smaller than fees for credit or debit cards.

The government says everyone should only trust official messages from the Finance Ministry, the Reserve Bank of India, and the NPCI.

UPI is very popular — in July 2026 alone, people used it for over 2,366 crore payments.