SBI Cashback Card caps rewards at ₹4,000/cycle and cuts out gaming, tolls & govt spends
India's most-recommended cashback card gets a hard ₹4,000 per-cycle ceiling and new exclusions from April 2026. Here's what still earns and what to do about it.
In this article
The SBI Cashback Card (for years the default answer to "which flat cashback card should I get in India?") was quietly capped from 1 April 2026.
What changed
| Spend type | Rate | New cap |
|---|---|---|
| Online | 5% cashback | ₹2,000 / statement cycle |
| Offline (POS) | 1% cashback | ₹2,000 / statement cycle |
| Total | n/a | ₹4,000 / statement cycle |
On top of the cap, three categories now earn zero cashback:
- Digital gaming (MCC 7993, 7994, 5816)
- Tolls (MCC 4784)
- Government payments (MCC 9222, 9311, 9402)
Statement-credit redemption is also throttled to 60,000 points/month.
Who's hit
Anyone running heavy online spend through the card. At 5%, you now hit the ₹2,000 online cap at just ₹40,000 of online spend a month. Everything above that earns nothing. High spenders who treated this as an uncapped 5% card lose the most.
What to do
If your online spend runs well past ₹40,000/month, the SBI Cashback is no longer a "set and forget" card above that line. Run Polo Match to see whether a higher-cap or category card now beats it for your actual spending, or stack a second card to catch the overflow.
Cards affected
Card figures on CardPolo come from our catalog, each with an issuer source and a verified date where we have checked it. Spot something out of date? Tell us at [email protected].
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