A vote on account is a grant in advance for the government to meet short-term expenditure needs from the Consolidated Fund of India. It is a way for the government to obtain an advance on the money they need for the next financial year. The vote-on-account is passed through the interim budget. It is a special provision by which the government obtains Parliament’s approval for funds sufficient to incur expenditure for a part of the year (till the formation of a new government) . The vote on account is different from a regular government budget, which deals with both expenditure and revenue side, but vote-on-account deals only with the expenditure side of the governments budget.

The vote on account enables the government to fund its expenses for a short period of time or until a full-budget is passed. It represents grants sanctioned by the Parliament in advance for the short period. The amounts in the vote on account are generally 45% of amounts already voted for corresponding services in the current year, both resource and cash. Passing a vote-on-account is treated as a formal matter and passed by Lok Sabha without discussion.

In India, the vote on account is introduced by the union government instead of the usual budget when elections are approaching, and it is impractical to present a full budget. The vote on account is not usually used as part of the government budgeting process since 2017, unless in special cases like an election year.