The Union Budget will be presented on a Sunday, with the Budget for the 2026–27 financial year scheduled for February 1. The calendar for the Budget Session was approved by the Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs, chaired by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.
This will be the ninth consecutive Budget presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, setting a new record in India’s parliamentary history.
The Budget Session will begin on January 28 with the President’s address to both Houses of Parliament. The Economic Survey will be tabled on January 29. The first phase of the session will run from January 28 to February 13, while the second phase is scheduled from March 9 to April 2.
The upcoming Budget will be India’s 88th Union Budget. With this, Nirmala Sitharaman will become the first Finance Minister to present nine consecutive Budgets. She was appointed India’s first full-time woman Finance Minister in 2019.
Former Prime Minister Morarji Desai had presented ten Budgets, while former Finance Ministers P. Chidambaram and Pranab Mukherjee presented nine and eight Budgets respectively, though none of these were consecutive.
The 2026 Budget comes amid positive signals for India’s economic growth. Despite global challenges, India’s real GDP is projected to grow at 7.4 percent in the 2025–26 financial year, higher than the previous year’s 6.5 percent. These advance estimates, released on January 7, form the basis for the Budget preparations, which are already underway.
While presenting the Union Budget on a Sunday is unusual, weekend Budget presentations are not unprecedented. The 2025 Budget was presented on a Saturday, and former Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had presented the 2015 and 2016 Budgets on February 28, a Saturday. Since 2017, the Budget date was advanced from February 28 to February 1 to ensure faster implementation of Budget proposals.
