Salary Calculator India 2026

A salary calculator is an online tool that converts your Cost to Company (CTC) into the actual amount that arrives in your bank account every month - your in-hand or take-home salary. In India, the gap between CTC and in-hand can easily be 25% to 30% because of statutory deductions like Provident Fund and Professional Tax, plus components like gratuity and employer insurance that never leave the company’s books to land in your account.

Our Salary Calculator India is built specifically for the Indian payroll system. Enter your annual CTC, configure bonus, PF, and city type - and instantly see a transparent month-by-month breakdown of where each rupee goes. It is updated for FY 2026-27 and respects the latest EPFO and state-level professional tax rules.

CTC, short for Cost to Company, is the total annual expense an employer bears for an employee. It is the headline figure mentioned in your offer letter and it is rarely the same as your monthly bank credit. CTC bundles together your fixed cash salary, performance bonuses, employer contributions to retirement schemes (EPF, gratuity, NPS), insurance premiums paid on your behalf, meal vouchers, mobile reimbursements, and even subsidised cafeteria costs in some companies.

A typical CTC structure in India splits into three buckets: (1) Fixed pay - basic, HRA, special allowance, LTA; (2) Variable pay - annual bonus, performance incentives; (3) Retirals & benefits - employer PF, gratuity provision, group health insurance premium. Only the first bucket gets paid monthly. The second is paid quarterly or annually. The third never reaches your account during employment.

CTC is what the company spends on you; in-hand salary is what you can spend. Imagine you receive an offer of ₹12,00,000 CTC. Out of this, roughly ₹57,600 may go to employer PF, ₹57,600 to employee PF, ₹2,400 to professional tax, around ₹5,800 to gratuity provision, and ₹18,000 to group insurance. Add a ₹50,000 annual bonus that gets paid in March, and your true monthly in-hand drops to about ₹75,000 - not the ₹1,00,000 you might have expected.

The gap widens further once income tax (TDS) is applied. A new employee opting for the new tax regime will lose another ₹5,000 to ₹7,000 per month at this CTC, depending on declared investments and HRA exemption. Understanding this gap before accepting an offer is critical - negotiating a higher fixed component or a lower employer-PF cap can put materially more cash in your pocket each month.

An Indian payslip generally has six core components: Basic Salary, House Rent Allowance (HRA), Conveyance/Transport Allowance, Special Allowance, Leave Travel Allowance (LTA), and Variable Pay. On the deductions side, you will see Employee Provident Fund (EPF), Professional Tax (PT), Income Tax (TDS), Voluntary Provident Fund (VPF) if opted, and any company-specific deductions like canteen or transport.

Each component carries a tax treatment. Basic and Special Allowance are fully taxable. HRA is partially exempt under Section 10(13A) if you live in rented accommodation. LTA can be tax-free twice in a block of four years against actual travel bills. EPF qualifies for Section 80C deduction up to ₹1.5 lakh. Optimising the mix of these components within your CTC is one of the easiest ways to legally increase your take-home.

Basic salary is the foundation component on which most other allowances, deductions, and retirement benefits are computed. Indian companies typically set basic at 40% to 50% of CTC. Higher basic means higher EPF (12% of basic), higher gratuity, and higher HRA - but lower in-hand because more cash flows to retirement instead of your bank account.

Basic salary is fully taxable as “Income from Salary”. It also forms the denominator for HRA exemption and for retirement benefit calculations. Companies regulated by industry minimum wages (manufacturing, BFSI) must keep basic at or above the prescribed minimum wage in each state.

HRA is paid to employees as compensation for housing costs. It is one of the most powerful tax-saving components in the Indian salary structure. The tax-exempt portion of HRA is the minimum of: (a) actual HRA received, (b) 50% of basic for metro cities or 40% for non-metro cities, and (c) actual rent paid minus 10% of basic.

Only Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Chennai qualify as metros for HRA purposes under the Income Tax Act - Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Pune do not, despite their cost of living. To claim HRA exemption, you need a valid rent receipt and, if annual rent exceeds ₹1 lakh, the landlord’s PAN.

The Employees’ Provident Fund is a mandatory retirement savings scheme managed by EPFO. Both employee and employer contribute 12% of basic salary every month. The employee’s 12% goes entirely to EPF, while the employer’s 12% is split - 8.33% to the Employee Pension Scheme (EPS, capped at ₹1,250/month) and 3.67% to EPF.

EPF earns a government-declared interest rate (8.25% for FY 2024-25) and qualifies for Section 80C deduction. The entire balance is tax-free on withdrawal after 5 years of continuous service. Employees with basic above ₹15,000 can opt to cap their contribution to 12% of ₹15,000 (₹1,800/month) instead of actual basic.

Professional Tax (PT) is a state-level levy on salaried employees and professionals. It is capped at ₹2,500 per year per Article 276 of the Constitution. Each state has its own slab. Maharashtra, for example, charges ₹200 per month (₹300 in February) for salaries above ₹10,000. Karnataka charges ₹200/month above ₹15,000. West Bengal, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Gujarat each have their own slabs.

Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, and most union territories do not levy professional tax. Your employer deducts PT before TDS and remits it to the state government.

Bonuses in Indian salary structures come in three forms: (1) Statutory bonus under the Payment of Bonus Act, applicable for employees earning up to ₹21,000 basic, paid at 8.33% to 20% of ₹7,000 cap; (2) Performance bonus, paid at the company’s discretion based on individual and company performance; (3) Joining/retention bonus, paid upfront with a clawback clause if the employee leaves within a defined period.

All bonuses are fully taxable in the year of receipt. Because they are paid annually or quarterly rather than monthly, they should be excluded when computing monthly in-hand. Our calculator does this automatically when you specify the bonus component.

The step-by-step formula our calculator follows is: (1) Subtract annual bonus from CTC to get fixed annual pay; (2) Compute basic as a percentage of CTC; (3) Compute HRA (50% metro / 40% non-metro of basic); (4) Compute employee PF (12% of basic, monthly); (5) Compute employer PF and treat as CTC component not reaching the bank; (6) Subtract professional tax (₹2,400/year typical); (7) Subtract any additional deductions; (8) Divide remaining by 12 to get monthly in-hand.

Note that this gives you pre-tax in-hand. To reach the final post-tax figure that hits your bank account, subtract estimated TDS based on your declared investments and chosen tax regime. For most salaried employees, the new tax regime (default from FY 2023-24) results in higher in-hand if 80C, HRA, and home-loan interest combined are below ₹4 lakh.

Let us walk through a realistic ₹12,00,000 CTC offer for a software engineer in Bengaluru (non-metro for HRA purposes). Assume 10% bonus, 40% basic, no extra deductions. Annual bonus = ₹1,20,000. CTC excluding bonus = ₹10,80,000. Basic = 40% × 12,00,000 = ₹4,80,000. HRA (non-metro) = 40% × 4,80,000 = ₹1,92,000. Employee PF = 12% × 4,80,000 = ₹57,600 per year. Employer PF (same) = ₹57,600, also reduces monthly in-hand. Professional Tax (Karnataka) = ₹2,400/year.

Total annual deductions from monthly pay = 57,600 + 57,600 + 2,400 = ₹1,17,600. Monthly gross = 10,80,000 / 12 = ₹90,000. Monthly deductions = 1,17,600 / 12 = ₹9,800. Monthly in-hand (pre-tax) = 90,000 − 9,800 = ₹80,200. After estimated TDS of about ₹5,000 under the new regime, the actual bank credit will be roughly ₹75,000 - with an additional ₹1,20,000 bonus arriving once a year.

Different CTCs yield different in-hand patterns because PF and PT are largely fixed in absolute terms while bonus and special allowance scale with CTC. A ₹5 LPA salary in Hyderabad typically yields around ₹37,000 monthly in-hand. ₹8 LPA gives roughly ₹58,000. ₹10 LPA gives ₹69,000. ₹15 LPA gives ₹1,02,000. ₹20 LPA gives ₹1,32,000. These are pre-tax figures - once TDS kicks in, the ₹15 LPA and ₹20 LPA examples will see meaningful drops of ₹10,000 to ₹18,000 per month.

Use the dedicated pages linked under “In-Hand Salary by CTC” to see detailed breakdowns for each common offer slab - with full deduction tables and the optimal tax regime recommendation for each.