How much is the EMI bounce charge?

Two charges apply: your bank's bounce fee for the failed auto-debit, under your bank's schedule, and the lender's penal charge, which must be stated on the Key Fact Statement. Together they are typically a few hundred to a couple of thousand rupees for one miss.

Will one missed EMI affect my CIBIL score?

If it is paid before the lender's monthly report to the bureaus, usually not. If it goes past 30 days it is reported as a missed payment and your score falls at every bureau the lender reports to.

Is a missed EMI a criminal offence?

No. A missed EMI is a civil matter between you and the lender. A bounced cheque is treated differently under Indian law, which is one reason auto-debit mandates replaced post-dated cheques.

Can I ask the lender to waive the penal charge?

You can ask, especially for a first miss with a clean history, and lenders sometimes do. The bank's bounce fee is harder to reverse.

Guides · Credit score

What happens if I miss an EMI, and what should I do?

In short

The same day your bank charges a bounce fee and the lender adds a penal charge, and once the EMI is 30 days late it is reported to the credit bureaus as a missed payment, which lowers your score for years. Pay before the lender's monthly report and the damage is a few hundred rupees in charges; let it cross 90 days and the loan becomes a non-performing asset, which every lender reads as a default.

Updated 7 September 2026 · by Finsa, a Lending Service Provider — not a lender.

The timeline

What happens is set by RBI's classification rules, not by the lender's mood.

From the due date onward
Day 0	Auto-debit fails. Your bank charges a bounce fee; the lender charges a penal charge. The loan is overdue from the end of that day.
Days 1–30	Special Mention Account 0 (SMA-0). Calls and messages from the lender. Usually not yet on your credit report, because lenders report monthly.
Days 31–60	SMA-1. The missed EMI is now on your report as 30 days past due. Your score falls.
Days 61–90	SMA-2. A second mark. Lenders you apply to will see a pattern, not an accident.
Day 91 onward	Non-performing asset. Recovery action can begin; the account is flagged in a way every lender reads as a default.

What the charges can and cannot be

Since RBI's 2023 circular on penal charges, a lender may charge a penal charge for a missed payment but may not charge penal interest — the charge cannot be added to the principal and interest cannot be charged on it. It must be reasonable, applied the same way to every borrower in the same situation, and disclosed up front in the Key Fact Statement. Your bank's bounce fee for the failed auto-debit is a separate charge under your bank's own schedule.

What to do today

In this order.

Pay the EMI now, with the charges, before the lender's monthly report to the bureaus. One EMI paid inside the month usually never reaches your file.
Fund the account before the next date and check the mandate; a second failure is a pattern.
If this month is not the problem but the next six are, call the lender before the next due date and ask for a restructuring or a tenure extension. Lenders would rather rework a loan than chase one.
Never let it cross 90 days. Everything before that is recoverable; after that the account is a default in the eyes of every lender for years.

What it does to your credit score

A 30-days-past-due mark on an otherwise clean file costs real points and fades over a couple of years of on-time payments. A 90-day mark, or a settled or written-off account, is what lenders screen for, and it stays visible on the report for years. Payment history is the single heaviest factor in every bureau's model, which is why one missed EMI matters more than a high balance ever will.

Where Finsa stands

Checking your report through Finsa is a soft enquiry, which only you can see and which does not affect your score. Finsa is not a lender: it reads your report with your consent and puts your profile in front of RBI-regulated banks and NBFCs, who decide eligibility, rate and approval. If the EMI is unaffordable rather than forgotten, the honest fix is a lower one: a transfer to a lower rate or one loan in place of several, and the guide on reducing an EMI walks through both.

Sources

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