Missed a personal loan EMI? What happens and what to do

• Bounce charge — if your auto-debit (NACH or e-mandate) fails, the lender and sometimes your bank may each charge a fee.
• Penal charges — under RBI’s rules, in force for new loans since April 2024, a lender can levy a penal charge for late payment, not penal interest added to your rate, and it cannot charge interest on that charge. The amount and the reason must be stated in your loan agreement and Key Fact Statement.
• Interest on the overdue EMI — normal interest keeps running on the amount you owe.

The lender’s charges are listed in your Key Fact Statement; a charge that is not there needs your explicit consent. Your own bank’s fee for a returned debit is in the bank’s schedule of charges.

Lenders report your repayments to the credit bureaus every fortnight (since January 2025), so even a short delay can appear as “days past due” (DPD). The longer the delay, the more weight it carries:

Check your report for free: how to check your credit score.

1. Pay everything overdue as soon as you can — the missed EMI, and any later EMI that has also fallen due. The days-past-due count stops once all of it is cleared, though the late payment stays in your repayment history and the update can take a reporting cycle to show.
2. If you know a payment will fail, contact the lender before the due date; ask what it can offer for a short delay.
3. Keep enough in the account for the next auto-debit, so one bounce does not become two.
4. Get a receipt or statement showing the payment, and check your credit report a few weeks later.

If collection calls turn into threats or calls to your family, you have rights: see loan recovery harassment.