Certain aspects of the present disclosure generally relate to wireless communications and, more particularly, to methods and apparatus for rate-matching a stream of bits encoded using polar codes. An exemplary method generally includes determining a mother code size (N) for transmitting an encoded stream of bits based, at least in part, on a minimum supported code rate for transmitting the encoded stream of bits (Rmin), a control information size of the encoded stream of bits (K), a number of coded bits for transmission (E), and a maximum mother code size (Nmax), encoding a stream of bits using a polar code of size (N, K) and storing the encoded stream of bits in a circular buffer, and performing rate-matching on the stored encoded stream of bits based, at least in part, on a comparison among the mother code size (N), the control information size of the encoded stream of bits (K), and the number of coded bits for transmission (E).