HRA exemption calculator
How much of my house rent allowance is exempt from tax?
Per month, from the payslip. Basic only — not the whole gross.
Per month. Zero for most private jobs.
Per month, as the payslip shows it.
Per month. Rent you actually pay — a landlord’s PAN is needed above ₹1 L a year.
₹2,28,000of your HRA is exempt this year
- HRA actually received
- ₹2,88,000
- 50% of Basic + DA
- ₹3,60,000
- Rent − 10% of Basic + DA
- ₹2,28,000
- Taxable HRA
- ₹60,000
- Tax saved at the 30% slab
- ₹71,136
Section 10(13A): the exemption is the LEAST of those three tests. For this rule a metro is only Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata or Chennai — Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune are not, whatever else they are. Old regime only; the new regime has no HRA exemption.
- Exempt₹2,28,000 · 79%
- Taxable₹60,000 · 21%
| Exempt | Taxable | HRA received | 50% of Basic + DA | Rent − 10% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ₹2,28,000 | ₹60,000 | ₹2,88,000 | ₹3,60,000 | ₹2,28,000 |
House rent allowance is not a deduction you claim in full — it is a cap, and the cap is the smallest of three numbers: the HRA your employer actually paid you, half your basic plus DA (40% outside the four metros), and your rent minus 10% of basic plus DA. Whichever of those three is lowest is the exempt part; the rest is salary, taxed at your slab. Put in your basic, your DA, the HRA line on the payslip, the rent you actually pay and whether the city is a metro, and this shows all three tests side by side so you can see which one is holding your exemption down.
A worked example
A software engineer in Bengaluru. Basic ₹75,000 a month, no DA, the payslip shows HRA of ₹30,000 a month, and the rent on the 2BHK is ₹32,000 a month. City: Non-metro — Bengaluru is not one of the four. Set those five fields above and the page returns:
- ₹2,94,000 exempt for the year, which is ₹24,500 a month
- ₹66,000 taxable — the ₹5,500 a month of HRA the tests would not cover
- ₹91,728 saved, if the top of your income sits in the 30% slab — that is 30% plus the 4% health and education cess
The three tests, annualised, are what decide it:
The exemption is the shortest bar, not the average and not the sum. Here the third test binds by ₹66,000.
- ₹2,94,000 Exempt under section 10(13A)
- ₹66,000 Taxable — added to salary at your slab
81.7% of the allowance escapes tax. The other 18.3% is salary like any other.
Switch the city to Metro and nothing changes: the second test rises to ₹4,50,000, but the third is still ₹2,94,000, so the answer is still ₹2,94,000. That is the useful thing about seeing all three — the metro rate only matters when it is the one doing the capping.
Rent is the lever, up to a point
Same salary, same HRA, three rents. The exemption climbs with rent, then stops dead once the other two tests take over.
Past ₹37,500 a month the exemption is frozen at the HRA received — extra rent buys no further relief.
What this number does not account for
It is not tax saved
The headline is the exempt amount. Your actual saving is that amount times your marginal slab, which is why the figures list shows the 30% case separately — if you are in the 20% or 5% band, or your income is low enough for the rebate, the same exemption is worth much less.
One set of figures × 12
The exemption is legally computed period by period. Change jobs, get a raise mid-year, move city, or spend three months in your parents’ house paying no rent, and the year has to be split into stretches and each worked out separately. This page does one stretch — run it once per stretch and add.
Rule 2A’s definition of salary
The 50/40% and the 10% run on basic plus DA that enters retirement benefits, plus commission fixed as a percentage of turnover. Bonus, LTA, special allowance and employer PF are all out. There is no commission field here, so a salesperson on a turnover commission will get an understated cap.
Your rent is not your rent
Only rent for accommodation counts. Maintenance to the society, brokerage, the security deposit, electricity and water billed separately, and parking are not rent, however the landlord words the receipt. Rent for a house you own is not rent either.
Two more that no calculator can see. Proof: the exemption is a claim, and a claim needs a rent agreement, receipts, and payments that show up in a bank statement. Receipts written by a cooperative relative against rent that never left your account are what a scrutiny notice is looking for. And the regime: if you file under section 115BAC, all of this is worth exactly nothing, so the comparison that actually decides your tax is old-versus-new, not metro-versus-non-metro.
Where to go next
The exempt figure here is an input elsewhere, so take it with you. Feed it into the income tax calculator — it has an HRA exemption field — and run the old regime against the new one, because that is the choice this number exists to inform. If your payslip does not break out basic and HRA cleanly, the salary calculator splits a CTC into its components so you know what to type in above. And if the rent itself is the question rather than the tax on it, rent vs buy puts the same monthly outgo against owning.
Can I claim HRA exemption under the new tax regime?
No. The HRA exemption lives in section 10(13A), and the new regime under section 115BAC withdraws it along with most other salary exemptions and Chapter VI-A deductions. It survives only if you file under the old regime. Since the new regime is now the default, a large HRA is one of the few things that can still make the old regime the cheaper of the two — so work out the exempt amount here, then run both regimes in the income tax calculator before you decide. Nothing on this page is a reason to stay in the old regime by itself.
Is Bengaluru a metro for HRA?
No. For this rule the metros are only Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai — that is Rule 2A of the Income-tax Rules, which pins the 50% rate to those four cities and leaves everywhere else on 40%. Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Gurugram and Noida are all non-metro here, whatever their rents look like. Pick Non-metro in the city field and the second test drops from 50% to 40% of basic plus DA. Often it changes nothing, because the third test — rent minus 10% of basic — is the one already binding.
Can I claim HRA if I pay rent to my parents?
Yes, if it is a real tenancy and not a paper one. You need to actually pay the rent, ideally by bank transfer rather than cash, the property must belong to the parent and not to you, and the parent must show that rent as income from house property in their own return. Keep a rent agreement and the receipts. Rent paid to a spouse is a far weaker position and has been disallowed, so do not treat the two as the same. What the calculator cannot tell you is whether your arrangement would survive scrutiny — it only does the arithmetic on the number you enter.
Do I need my landlord's PAN?
If your rent for the year crosses ₹1,00,000 you have to report the landlord's PAN to your employer in Form 12BB, the prescribed declaration under Rule 26C. If the landlord refuses to give it, the CBDT's own instruction is that you file a declaration with the landlord's name and address instead — but expect your employer to be reluctant, and expect the claim to be looked at. Separately, if you pay more than ₹50,000 a month, section 194-IB makes you, the tenant, deduct tax on the rent once a year — 2% since 1 October 2024 — even though you are an individual with no TAN.
Can I claim HRA and a home loan deduction at the same time?
Yes, they are different sections and nothing bars claiming both. The common case is a flat you own and let out in one city while you rent in another for work: the let-out property's interest goes under section 24(b), the rent you pay gets the 10(13A) exemption. The claim gets hard to defend when the owned house is in the same city and you are living in it, because then you are not paying rent for a home you need. Both only exist in the old regime anyway.
What if I get no HRA at all?
Then this calculator does not apply to you and section 80GG might. It is a deduction for rent paid by someone who receives no house rent allowance — the least of ₹5,000 a month, 25% of total income, and rent minus 10% of total income — and it needs Form 10BA. It is much smaller than a real HRA exemption, and like 10(13A) it is old-regime only.
This page starts from typical figures. In Hundo the same calculator opens on your own — the loan, the deposit, the salary already on the ledger — and says where each number came from.