In-Hand Salary Calculator

How this is worked out

Two entire tax systems, and you choose one. Everything else follows from that.

Which regime. The new regime has wider slabs and almost no deductions. The old regime has narrow slabs and a long list of them — 80C, 80D, HRA, section 24(b). Neither is "the" Indian income tax. The new one has been the default since FY 2023-24, so it is the default here, but this page prices both and tells you which costs you less.

Slabs, then a rebate, then cess. Taxable income is gross salary less the ₹75,000 standard deduction. The new-regime slabs run nil to ₹4 lakh, then 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30% in ₹4 lakh steps to ₹24 lakh. The section 87A rebate — renumbered as Clause 156 by the Income Tax Act 2025, same amount, both names in circulation — then cancels up to ₹60,000 of that tax where taxable income is ₹12 lakh or less. Above the threshold the tax before cess is capped at the excess, which is marginal relief:

tax before cess = min(slab tax, taxable income − ₹12,00,000)

Then the cess, charged on the tax. The Health and Education Cess is 4% of income tax plus surcharge — not 4% of income. It cannot be written as a slab, and it multiplies every marginal rate on this page by 1.04.

EPF. Your own 12% is deducted from your pay. Your employer’s 12% is paid on top and never reduces your in-hand. The statutory obligation stops at a wage of ₹15,000 a month, so the default deduction is 12% of ₹1,80,000 — ₹21,600 a year, or ₹1,800 a month — however large your basic. Many employers contribute on the full basic instead; tick the box if yours does.

Professional tax is levied by your state at a few hundred rupees a month and capped at ₹2,500 a year by Article 276 of the Constitution. Eight-odd states and several union territories do not levy it at all, so "none" is a real answer rather than a placeholder.

Surcharge. Above ₹50 lakh of total income a further 10% of the tax is added, rising in tiers to 25%, before the cess. Its own marginal relief is not modelled here: the statute caps the surcharge just above each threshold so it cannot exceed the extra income that triggered it, and this page does not do that arithmetic. Within a narrow band above ₹50 lakh, ₹1 crore and ₹2 crore, the figure shown is too high.

A worked example

Nil tax to ₹12 lakh is a rebate, not a zero-rate band

The slabs do not stop at ₹12 lakh. On ₹12,00,000 of taxable income they charge ₹60,000, and the section 87A rebate then cancels exactly that ₹60,000. It is a credit against the tax, not a band of income taxed at nothing — which is why it vanishes in full the moment taxable income passes the threshold rather than tapering away. With the ₹75,000 standard deduction, ₹12 lakh of taxable income is a gross salary of ₹12,75,000: the worked example above, where the income tax is nil and the only thing deducted is your own EPF.

Without marginal relief, one rupee over would cost ₹60,000. The statute does not impose that cliff. Where taxable income just exceeds ₹12 lakh, the tax before cess is capped at the excess itself, so the bill climbs from zero instead of jumping. A gross of ₹12,76,000 pays ₹1,040 — ₹1,000 of excess plus 4% cess. A gross of ₹13,00,000 pays ₹26,000. Every rupee in that band is taken in full and then charged cess on top: an effective marginal rate of 104%.

So in-hand pay falls as gross pay rises. ₹12,75,000 of gross leaves ₹12,53,400; a raise to ₹13,00,000 leaves ₹12,52,400. Relief runs out just under ₹13,46,000 of gross, where the slab tax stops exceeding the excess, and you do not get back above ₹12,53,400 in hand until roughly ₹13,49,000. A raise that lands inside that band is worse for you than no raise at all, and it is worth saying so to whoever is offering it.

Two regimes, and the default is not automatically the cheaper one

The old regime charges nil to ₹2.5 lakh, 5% to ₹5 lakh, 20% to ₹10 lakh and 30% above, with a ₹50,000 standard deduction — but it allows 80C, 80D, NPS under 80CCD(1B), section 24(b) home-loan interest and the HRA exemption. The new regime allows the ₹75,000 standard deduction and essentially nothing else. Which one wins depends entirely on what you actually claim, not on what you could claim, and the break-even moves every year.

With nothing claimed the new regime wins at every salary. At ₹12,75,000 of gross and no deductions the old regime charges ₹1,80,461 and the new charges nothing. Claim the lot — the full ₹1.5 lakh under 80C, ₹50,000 of 80D, ₹50,000 into NPS, ₹2 lakh of home-loan interest, and ₹3,00,000 of metro rent against ₹3,00,000 of HRA — and the old regime comes down to ₹21,060; push the rent to ₹3,60,000 and it reaches nil too. But nil is where the new regime already was, so at or below ₹12,75,000 of gross the old regime cannot win. It can only draw, and only by spending real money to get there.

Higher up it can. On ₹20,00,000 of gross in Maharashtra, paying ₹4,80,000 of metro rent against ₹4,00,000 of HRA with the full ₹1.5 lakh of 80C, ₹50,000 of 80D, ₹50,000 of NPS and ₹2 lakh of home-loan interest claimed, the old regime costs ₹1,53,660 against ₹1,92,400 — cheaper by ₹38,740. One trap when you add it up: your own EPF is itself an 80C investment and shares the ₹1.5 lakh cap. On the default ₹21,600 of EPF, only ₹1,28,400 of the cap is left for PPF, ELSS or an insurance premium, so the last ₹21,600 you invest saves you nothing.

CTC is not gross salary, and gross salary is not in-hand

Three different numbers, and the confusion between them wrecks more Indian salary conversations than anything else on this page. CTC is a recruitment figure: it includes your employer’s EPF contribution, the gratuity provision, insurance premiums and sometimes a notional performance bonus — money spent on you that never appears on a payslip. Gross salary is what survives once the employer-side costs come out. In-hand is gross less income tax, your own 12% EPF and professional tax. Enter gross here; feeding a CTC figure in overstates your in-hand by roughly the employer contribution.

This calculator will not compute a CTC for you, deliberately. There is no standard definition of what belongs in one, so two employers can quote ₹18 lakh and pay visibly different amounts in hand. The only reliable translation is the salary structure in your offer letter, line by line — and if the offer quotes only a single CTC number, that is a reasonable thing to ask about before you sign.

The employer’s EPF is worth understanding rather than ignoring. On the default, your ₹21,600 comes out of your pay and the employer’s ₹21,600 goes in on top. But of that second ₹21,600, ₹14,994 is diverted to the Employees’ Pension Scheme and only ₹6,606 reaches your provident fund balance — the pension slice is 8.33% of wages restricted to the ceiling and capped at ₹1,250 a month. There is another ₹900 of employer-paid EDLI insurance, which is not a deduction from your pay either.

Cess, surcharge and professional tax: three levies that are not slabs

The 4% Health and Education Cess is charged on your tax, not on your income, and it has been since FY 2018-19. That sounds like a footnote and is not: it means no rate on any published slab table is the rate you pay. A 30% slab is 31.2% in practice. Inside the marginal relief band above ₹12 lakh the 100% becomes 104%. Any calculator that treats cess as a band of income is wrong by construction.

Surcharge is a tax on the tax, in tiers: 10% of the tax once total income passes ₹50 lakh, 15% above ₹1 crore, 25% above ₹2 crore, capped at 25% under the new regime, with the old regime keeping a 37% tier above ₹5 crore. It is applied before the cess, so the cess compounds it — at ₹60,00,000 of gross the marginal rate here is 34.32%, which is 30% times 1.10 times 1.04.

Marginal relief on surcharge is modelled here, and it matters. Without it, crossing ₹50 lakh of taxable income by a single rupee would add 10% of the entire tax bill — about ₹1.4 lakh of extra tax for ₹1 of extra income. The statute does not impose that: it limits the tax and surcharge together to what they would have been at the threshold, plus the income earned above it. At ₹51 lakh of taxable income the unrelieved figure is ₹12,21,000 before cess against ₹10,80,000 at ₹50 lakh, so ₹41,000 of relief is granted and the extra tax comes to exactly the extra ₹1,00,000 of income.

Inside that band the effective marginal rate is therefore 100% plus cess, and the page says so when you are in it. The relief applies at every threshold, not only the first, and the same principle governs the 87A band just above ₹12 lakh.

Professional tax is a state levy and Article 276 of the Constitution caps it at ₹2,500 a year for any individual, which is why the amounts are flat rupees rather than percentages. Maharashtra reaches the cap exactly — ₹200 a month with ₹300 in February. Karnataka, West Bengal and Telangana top out at ₹2,400. Tamil Nadu assesses half-yearly, so the monthly figures here are the statutory half-yearly ones divided by six. Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and several north-eastern states and union territories do not levy it at all. Under the old regime it is itself deductible from your salary income; under the new regime it is not.

Assumptions and sources

New regime slabs and standard deduction

Nil to ₹4 lakh, then 5/10/15/20/25/30% in ₹4 lakh steps to ₹24 lakh, with a ₹75,000 standard deduction against salary. Cross-checked against three independent published tables; all three agree, and all three state the slabs are unchanged from FY 2025-26. checked 2026-09

Section 87A rebate and its marginal relief

Rebate of up to ₹60,000, giving nil tax to ₹12 lakh of taxable income; above the threshold the tax before cess is capped at the excess. Renumbered as Clause 156 by the Income Tax Act 2025, in force from 1 April 2026 — the amount is unchanged and most published tables still call it 87A. checked 2026-09

Health and Education Cess

4% of income tax plus surcharge, charged on the tax rather than on income. Unchanged since FY 2018-19. checked 2026-09

Surcharge tiers

10% of the tax above ₹50 lakh, 15% above ₹1 crore, 25% above ₹2 crore, capped at 25% under the new regime; the old regime retains a 37% tier above ₹5 crore. Marginal relief on surcharge is a known omission here, not an approximation. checked 2026-09

Old regime slabs and deduction limits

Nil to ₹2.5 lakh, 5% to ₹5 lakh, 20% to ₹10 lakh, 30% above; standard deduction ₹50,000; 80C ₹1,50,000; 80D ₹25,000 for yourself plus ₹25,000 for parents; 80CCD(1B) ₹50,000; section 24(b) ₹2,00,000; HRA exemption at 50% of basic in metro cities and 40% elsewhere. checked 2026-09

EPF rates and the statutory wage ceiling

Employee 12% of wages; employer 12%, of which 8.33% goes to the Employees’ Pension Scheme restricted to the wage ceiling — ₹1,250 a month — with the balance to EPF. The ceiling is ₹15,000 a month. checked 2026-09

EPF ceiling of ₹25,000: reported, not in force

A rise from ₹15,000 to ₹25,000 has been widely reported and is not in effect. No gazette notification has issued and Cabinet approval is pending; reports of a 1 April 2027 start are journalistic expectation rather than policy. One secondary source asserts a notification dated 20 May 2026 making it effective from 1 July 2026; three others contradict it and no primary notification supports it, so this calculator uses ₹15,000. checked 2026-09

Professional tax

Levied by state and capped at ₹2,500 a year by Article 276 of the Constitution. Slabs here cover the five states with the largest salaried populations that levy it. checked 2026-09