Every candidate in an Indian election works to a legal ceiling on what they may spend. The limits are set under Rule 90 of the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961, and were last raised by notification in January 2022.
The current ceilings
| Election | Most States | Smaller States and UTs |
|---|---|---|
| Lok Sabha | ₹95 lakh | ₹75 lakh |
| Legislative Assembly | ₹40 lakh | ₹28 lakh |
The lower slab covers Arunachal Pradesh, Goa and Sikkim, and most Union Territories. Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir take the higher figure.
For comparison, the Lok Sabha ceiling was ₹70 lakh under the 2014 notification. The Commission’s review cited the growth in the electorate from about 834 million in 2014 to about 936 million in 2021, inflation, and the shift toward digital campaigning.
The limit is per candidate, not per party
This is the point that surprises people, and it is the reason the ceilings look low against what a national campaign visibly costs.
There is no ceiling on what a political party may spend. A party can run national advertising, hire aircraft and hold rallies without any statutory cap. Only the individual candidate’s constituency spending is limited.
Party expenditure on general propaganda is not charged to the candidate. Spending that promotes a named candidate in their constituency generally is. The boundary between the two is where most of the argument about election finance actually happens.
What counts, and from when
The accounting window runs from the date of nomination to the date the result is declared. Spending before nomination falls outside it, which is one reason campaigning often begins long before papers are filed.
Within the window, counted items include public meetings and rallies, posters, banners and hoardings, vehicles and fuel, campaign workers, advertising in print, broadcast and online, and the candidate’s own travel.
The Election Commission publishes standard rates for common items, so a candidate cannot declare a rally at an implausibly low figure.
How it is policed
- Every candidate must open a separate bank account for election expenditure and route spending through it.
- A register of day-to-day expenses is maintained and produced for inspection during the campaign.
- Expenditure Observers are deployed to constituencies.
- A full account must be lodged with the District Election Officer within 30 days of the result.
If the Election Commission finds that a candidate failed, without good reason, to lodge the account in the time and manner the law requires, it must disqualify them for three years from the date of its order under Section 10A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951. The Supreme Court held in 2014 that an untrue account is not lodged in the manner the law requires, so a false account can also lead to disqualification. That penalty attaches to the account, which in practice is easier to establish than proving a ceiling was breached.
Reading a candidate’s numbers
Filed accounts are public, alongside the Form 26 affidavit submitted with the nomination. Between them they are the most useful public record of who is funding a campaign and what it cost.
Treat declared totals as a floor rather than a measure of a campaign’s real scale, given the party-spending gap above.
Limits are revised periodically. Confirm the figure in force for your election at the Election Commission’s expenditure monitoring pages.
Correction, 24 September 2026: This article previously said that failing to lodge an expenses account could lead to disqualification for up to three years. Under Section 10A the disqualification runs for three years from the Commission’s order, which the Commission can later reduce or remove.
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