How to change the mobile number on an IRCTC login

The mobile number on an IRCTC account is not a contact detail. It is the thing that authorises bookings, cancellations and refunds — so changing it is deliberately a little harder than changing an address, and the process assumes you still control the account.

This guide covers the normal case first, then the one everybody actually arrives here for: you have lost access to the old number.

Change the number from inside your account

1. Sign in at irctc.co.in with your existing user ID and password. If the password is also lost, reset that first — it is a separate process and trying to do both at once is how people get locked out.
2. Open your profile. It sits under your user name once you are signed in, usually as My Profile or Update Profile.
3. Find the contact details section. Mobile number and email are held together here.
4. Enter the new mobile number. Check it twice. A digit wrong here sends the OTP somewhere you cannot reach, and you will have to start over.
5. Request the OTP. It goes to the new number, not the old one. This is the part that surprises people, and it is also what makes the process survivable when the old SIM is gone.
6. Enter the OTP and save. Codes expire. If more than a few minutes have passed, request a fresh one rather than typing in the old code.
7. Sign out and sign back in. Do not skip this. It confirms the change actually committed rather than appearing to.

When you no longer have the old number

This is the situation most people are in when they search for this, and the good news is that it is usually fine.

If you can still log in, you do not need the old number at all. The verification OTP is sent to the new number you are setting, so a dead SIM in a drawer is not an obstacle. Follow the steps above.

If you cannot log in either — no password and no old number — you have a different problem, and it is the harder one. Password recovery verifies against your registered email. So:

• Start with email-based password recovery, not the mobile number
• Once you are back in, change the mobile number using the steps above
• Do both in that order. Attempting the number change while locked out will not work

If the registered email is also gone, self-service will not reach you. That becomes an identity-verification case with IRCTC rather than a form you can fill in.

One number, one account

A mobile number can sit on exactly one IRCTC account. So can an email address.

This matters far beyond changing a number, because it is the single most common cause of a rejected agent registration. If your PAN, mobile or email is already attached to a personal IRCTC account, the agent application will not go through until that is resolved.

If you are planning to register as an agent, sort this out before you apply rather than after. We check it at the verification stage precisely because it is so common — see IRCTC agent registration.

After you change it — test something

Change the number, then make a small booking or at least start one far enough to trigger an OTP.

The reason is simple: a change that appears to save but has not committed looks identical to one that worked, right up until the moment you have a customer at the counter and no code arriving. Finding that out on a quiet afternoon is much better than finding it out at 10:29 on a Tatkal morning.

If the OTP never arrives

Work down these in order before assuming the account is at fault:

• Signal. Obvious, and still the answer more often than anything else.
• The number you typed. Re-read it. Digits transpose.
• DND settings. Aggressive Do Not Disturb settings can suppress service messages.
• Time. Codes expire. Request a new one rather than retyping an old one — an expired code fails with the same message as a wrong one, which sends people down the wrong path.
• Another agent. If colleagues are also not receiving codes, it is not your account.

Agent ID versus personal account

Worth being precise, because the two get conflated constantly.

Your personal IRCTC account is the one this guide covers. Your agent ID is a separate record issued through a Principal Service Provider, and if you sign in with OTP login the number attached to it is changed through a different route — covered here.

Changing one does not change the other. Agents who assume it does tend to discover the mistake during a booking.