A size reduced cladding layer of highly Birefringent photonic crystal fiber (PCF) that is suitable for fiber optic gyroscope application is proposed in this paper. A pair of minimized and enlarged air holes in the innermost layer of PCF is responsible for high birefringence and enlarged outer layer air holes are responsible for low confinement loss. The optimized geometrical parameters for this novel PCF are chosen so as to ensure high birefringence and low confinement loss. Fabrication of this proposed PCF is simplified by reducing the cladding layers. Obtained birefringence of this PCF is about 6.1 × 10-4 and the confinement loss is about 2.8 × 10-4 dB km-1. © 2021 Astro Ltd.