Airtel & Jio Recharge Price Hike Soon! Complete Details

You might need to pay more for your next mobile recharge, thanks to the supposed & expected tariff hike on Airtel and Jio recharges. Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio tariff hike in 2026 is expected to take place in the next 3 to 4 months. While we have already seen a price hike on Airtel recharge and Jio mobile recharges in the past, the mobile recharge prices of Jio & Airtel are again expected to be hiked by upto 15%. Here’s everything we know so far about the supposed, upcoming Airtel and Jio recharge price hike in 2026.

Get ready for the next Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel tariff hike in 2026, likely in Q3 of FY27 between October to December as per the Centrum Institutional Research Q1FY27 telecom and internet sector preview report.

Earlier this year in April 2026, Airtel hiked the price of its Rs.859 prepaid plan to Rs.899 and silently removed cheaper plans like Rs.799, Rs.249 and others. Reliance Jio on the other hand also started the year by increasing JioHotstar plans prices in January of 2026. 

While Jio has not majorly hiked existing mobile recharge prices yet in 2026, the telco has been introducing newer plans to target a higher ARPU. Be it the Jio OTT Pack worth ₹200 or the ₹459 plan with 2gb per day data + 5gb extra data and 28 days validity or the Jio ₹500 Mega Content Plan or the ₹103 Flexi OTT plan.

Here are the complete details we know so far about Airtel recharge price hike and Jio recharge hike in 2026:

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Credits: Reliance Jio 

Reliance Jio hiked recharge plan prices by 12% to 25% in early July 2024 (Q2 of FY25) and in last year, the telco was rumoured to hike recharge prices by 15% by December 2025. However, that didn’t happen. This further hint towards a possible price hike soon in 2026.

While Reliance Jio in its Q2 FY26 call stated “no immediate plans” for a formal price hike, the telco did admit to nudging existing Jio subscribers to higher plans or bundled plans in an effort to boost the ARPU.

As of July 2026, Reliance Jio has not officially announced a price hike on Jio recharges. But the likelihood of it is quite evident. Centrum said in its report “with only 3+1 players, the environment for price hikes has improved, and we expect another 12-15% tariff hike in the next three to four month”

Currently, Reliance Jio is preparing itself for its upcoming Reliance Jio IPO and while the telco did not disclose the size of the issue, reports claim that the company plans to use Rs.27,500 crore of the total net proceeds to prepay, either fully or partially, debt taken by its subsidiary Reliance Jio Infocomm.

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Credits: Meta Design 

Similar to Reliance Jio, the global telco company Bharti Airtel is expected to bring a price hike in Q3 FY27. We have already seen Airtel hike the price of select recharge plan(s) and remove certain cheaper recharge packs. As per reports, Airtel plans to add 5 million subscribers QOQ and is planning to increase its ARPU ₹257 per month to ₹300 per month approximately. Moreover, we have seen it time and again that when one giant telco introduces a price hike, the other follows the same. Thus, it’s highly likely that Airtel recharge price hike will take place around the same time as the Jio tariff hike.

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As of July 2026, the cheapest 28-days Jio recharge plan is the Rs.189 pack which offers 2gb total data, 28-days validity and unlimited voice. Airtel offers the same benefits at slightly more price of Rs.199.

Jio customers can find the Rs.189 plan in the Value Plans section. This could be a good option for those who need unlimited voice calling but do not have high data usage requirements. After the Jio or Airtel recharge price hike, there’s a good chance the Rs.189 Jio plan and Rs.199 Airtel plan prices might be hiked to Rs.249 or around that price.

So make sure you get your Jio or Airtel recharge done before the price hike. Many customers might not know but you can do advance recharge for Jio and Airtel and Vi

As per the Centrum report, all of the three major telcos are expected to report a 1% to 1.5% QOQ increase in ARPU in the June quarter mainly from 2G subscribers migrating to 4G and 5G networks, gaining postpaid customers and a higher number of days in the quarter. Centrum said Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio are expected to continue gaining subscriber market share at the expense of Vodafone Idea.

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