When your balance expires
Two things bring a balance to zero, and expiry is the rarer of them.
- The monthly minimum draws it down every month, whether or not you send anything. This is what empties most balances. See the monthly minimum.
- Expiry is the backstop: 12 months after your last top-up, anything still sitting there is forfeited.
Which clock reaches zero first depends on how much you hold. The minimum draws down about twelve times its own figure in a year, so a balance at or under that is emptied by the minimum long before expiry — that covers most accounts. Hold appreciably more than a year of minimums and the 12-month clock is the one that ends it, and the remainder is forfeited. On an Indian account the crossover is around ₹1,200.
The rest of this page is about that second clock.
How the clock works
There is one clock, and only one thing resets it.
- Adding funds resets it. Every top-up sets a fresh 12 months from that day, covering your whole balance — the new money and whatever was already there.
- Spending does not. Sending messages, however many, does not extend validity.
Using the account is not enough
This catches people out. An account that sends messages every day but has not been topped up for eleven months is eleven months into its clock. Only a top-up moves it.
The current expiry date is shown on Wallet.
An example
| Date | What happened | Valid until |
|---|---|---|
| 5 March 2026 | Added ₹2,000 | 5 March 2027 |
| April – June | Spent it down on messages | 5 March 2027 — unchanged |
| 20 November 2026 | Added ₹1,000 | 20 November 2027 |
The clock tracks the date, not the amount: a top-up resets it whether the balance was empty beforehand or not, and the new date covers everything in the account.
The reminders
You get emailed twice before anything is lost:
- 30 days before, with the amount and the date.
- 7 days before, as a final notice.
They go to your account email address. If you have people who watch billing, make sure that address reaches them.
Keeping a balance from lapsing
- Add funds before the date, even a small amount. Any top-up resets the whole balance for another 12 months.
- Do not over-fund far ahead. A large balance is drawn down by the monthly minimum whether you use it or not, and a single payment starts one 12-month clock over all of it. Topping up as you go costs the same and keeps both clocks short.
- Watch the date on Wallet if you send seasonally and can go months between top-ups.
What forfeiture looks like
On the expiry date the balance goes to zero and a expired credits entry appears in your ledger recording the amount. Your account stays open, your data is untouched, and adding funds brings it straight back to life.
Expired credit cannot be reinstated.
If something goes wrong
- The balance fell and you did not send anything. That is the monthly minimum, not expiry — it appears in your ledger as a minimum-spend adjustment, and it is capped at whatever balance you had. See the monthly minimum.
- Your balance expired and you did not see the emails. Check spam, and check the email on Update Profile is one you read.
- The expiry date is sooner than expected. It is 12 months from your last top-up, not from your last activity. That is usually the surprise.
- You topped up and the date did not change. Refresh Wallet. If it is genuinely unchanged, open a ticket with the order number.
- You want your expired balance back. Please open a ticket — we cannot promise anything, but we would rather hear about it than not.