Take-home salary calculator
What actually lands in my account each month, and which tax regime is better?
The offer figure — bonus included, employer PF included.
% of CTC. PF, gratuity and HRA are all computed off it, so it moves more than it looks.
% of basic. 50% is the usual metro split.
Per month. Only exempts tax under the old regime.
Metro = Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata or Chennai for HRA purposes.
ELSS, PPF, LIC, tuition. Your own PF already counts towards the ₹1.5L cap.
Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and 17 others levy it; Delhi, Haryana and UP do not.
₹92,274a month, on the new regime
- Gross salary
- ₹11,67,390
- Tax — new regime
- ₹0
- Tax — old regime
- ₹60,297
- Your EPF
- ₹57,600
- Employer PF
- ₹32,610
FY 2025-26 slabs, regular age, private employment. Both regimes are computed and the better one is shown; the other is beside it. Professional tax is taken at the ₹2,500 statutory ceiling; your state may levy less, so treat take-home as a floor.
- Take-home₹11,07,290 · 95%
- Income tax₹0 · 0%
- Your EPF₹57,600 · 5%
- PT & ESI₹2,500 · <1%
| Gross | Income tax | Your EPF | PT & ESI | Take-home | Per month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ₹11,67,390 | ₹0 | ₹57,600 | ₹2,500 | ₹11,07,290 | ₹92,274 |
An offer is quoted as CTC — the cost of you to the company for a year. What arrives in your bank is that number minus the employer's provident fund (which never passes through your account), minus your own 12% PF, minus professional tax, and minus income tax. This works the whole chain in one pass: it splits the CTC into basic, HRA and special allowance, computes your tax under the old regime and the new one, picks the cheaper of the two, and shows the monthly figure that is left. The regime comparison is the part most offer letters leave you to guess at.
A worked example
An ₹18,00,000 offer in Bengaluru. Set the seven fields above to CTC ₹18,00,000, basic 40%, HRA 50% of basic, rent ₹30,000 a month, city Metro, 80C ₹1,50,000, professional tax Levied. The page returns:
- ₹1,27,291 a month, on the new regime
- gross salary ₹17,58,582 — the CTC less ₹41,418 of employer PF
- tax of ₹1,42,185 on the new regime, against ₹2,01,421 on the old one: the new regime is cheaper by ₹59,236
- ₹86,400 of your own EPF, deducted but still yours
- annual take-home ₹15,27,497
The CTC splits into ₹7,20,000 of basic, ₹3,60,000 of HRA and ₹6,78,582 of special allowance — the special allowance is simply whatever the named components did not consume. Note that the ₹41,418 gap between CTC and gross is exactly the employer’s PF: ₹26,424 into EPF at 3.67% of basic, plus ₹14,994 into the pension scheme, where the 8.33% is computed on a wage ceiling of ₹15,000 a month and so stops growing once basic passes ₹1,80,000 a year.
- ₹15,27,497 Take-home — what reaches the bank
- ₹1,42,185 Income tax, on the new regime
- ₹86,400 Your EPF — deducted, but still your money
- ₹2,500 Professional tax
The four parts sum to the gross exactly. Only the first one is spendable this year.
The basic is the lever, not the CTC
Nothing above changes except the basic percentage. The CTC is identical in all four columns.
| Basic 30% | Basic 40% | Basic 50% | Basic 60% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Take-home per month | ₹1,29,528 | ₹1,27,291 | ₹1,25,055 | ₹1,22,819 |
| Your EPF for the year | ₹64,800 | ₹86,400 | ₹1,08,000 | ₹1,29,600 |
| Employer's PF for the year | ₹34,812 | ₹41,418 | ₹48,024 | ₹54,630 |
| Cheaper regime | New | New | New | New |
₹6,709 a month separates the first column from the last. It is not a saving — it is the same money, sitting in a different account.
When the old regime still wins
Change the shape and the answer flips. CTC ₹15,00,000, basic 60%, HRA 50%, rent ₹60,000, Metro, 80C ₹1,50,000, PT Levied — and the page names the old regime, at ₹1,05,472 a month. Old-regime tax is ₹75,811 against ₹90,008 on the new one, because a ₹9,00,000 basic and ₹7,20,000 of annual rent make the whole ₹4,50,000 of HRA exempt under section 10(13A), and that plus 80C pulls taxable income down to ₹8,01,976 where the new regime is taxing ₹13,76,976. High basic, high rent, and a full 80C is the combination that keeps the old regime alive.
What this take-home does not account for
Deductions this page has no field for
Only 80C and HRA are asked for. An extra ₹50,000 of NPS under 80CCD(1B), health premiums under 80D, home-loan interest under section 24(b), employer NPS under 80CCD(2), LTA — every one of them is an old-regime deduction this page sets to zero, and any of them can flip the verdict towards the old regime.
Variable pay treated as paid
The whole CTC is treated as salary earned across twelve months. A performance bonus, a retention payment or an annual variable component is usually paid in one month, taxed in that month, and absent from the other eleven — so the real monthly credit is lower for most of the year and much higher once.
Professional tax at the ceiling
Professional tax is a state levy and each state has its own slabs, so the page takes the ₹2,500 national ceiling set by Article 276(2) of the Constitution. Your state may charge a little less, and Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh do not levy it at all — set the field to None there. Treat the take-home as a floor.
Everything that is not monthly cash
Gratuity, the leave you encash on the way out, notice-period recovery, a joining bonus with a clawback, ESOPs, the insurance premium the company pays for you and the EPF interest your balance earns are all outside this figure — some of them inside your CTC, none of them in your account this month.
Three more that are worth reading twice. Age: the figures assume the regular-age old regime, so a senior citizen’s higher basic exemption is not applied. ESI applies only where the monthly wage is at or below the ₹21,000 ceiling ESIC sets, so at any salary in the examples above it is nil. And the regime is a filing choice, not a calculation — the page tells you which is cheaper, but you have to elect it, with your employer at the start of the year for TDS and again in your return.
Where to go next
The income tax calculator is the one to open if you want the slab-by-slab working behind the two tax figures, and it takes the deductions this page has no field for. If your rent is doing real work, the HRA exemption calculator computes the least of the three amounts under section 10(13A) on its own, so you can see how much of your HRA is actually exempt. And the EPF calculator takes the deduction you just watched leave your salary and projects what it is worth by the time you retire.
Why is my in-hand salary so much lower than my CTC?
Four separate subtractions, in this order. First, the employer's PF contribution is inside the CTC but is paid into your EPF account, not to you — ₹41,418 on the ₹18,00,000 offer worked below, or 2.3% of it. That share falls as the CTC rises, because the pension half of it is frozen at a ₹15,000 monthly wage: the same 40% basic gives up 2.7% of a ₹12,00,000 CTC and 1.8% of a ₹50,00,000 one. What remains is gross salary. Second, your own EPF at 12% of basic is deducted from that gross. Third, professional tax, where your state levies it, capped at ₹2,500 a year by Article 276 of the Constitution. Fourth, income tax, deducted monthly by your employer as TDS under section 192. On a ₹18,00,000 CTC with a 40% basic, those four take ₹2,72,503 and leave ₹15,27,497 — about 85% of the offer.
Is the new tax regime better than the old one for me?
For most salaried people with ordinary deductions, yes — the new regime's wider slabs and its ₹75,000 standard deduction beat the old regime's ₹50,000 plus ₹1.5 lakh of 80C. The old regime wins when your exemptions are unusually large, and the biggest of those is HRA: a high basic combined with high rent produces a big section 10(13A) exemption that the new regime does not allow at all. This page computes both and tells you which one is cheaper for your numbers, so you do not have to guess — change the rent and the basic and watch the two tax figures cross.
What percentage of CTC is take-home in India?
There is no fixed percentage, which is why a rule of thumb is a bad way to compare two offers. It depends on how much of the CTC is basic (PF and gratuity are computed off basic, so a higher basic means less cash now), on your rent and city if you are on the old regime, and on which tax slab the total lands in. The same ₹18,00,000 CTC returns ₹1,29,528 a month at a 30% basic and ₹1,22,819 at a 60% basic — a ₹6,709 monthly spread on an identical offer.
Will my employer deduct exactly this much tax each month?
Not necessarily. This is the annual tax for a full year of this salary, divided by twelve. Your employer estimates your annual tax at the start of the year and spreads the TDS across the remaining months under section 192, then trues it up in the last quarter. So a mid-year joiner, a late investment declaration, a bonus paid in one month, or a regime you elected with your employer that differs from the cheaper one will all make an individual payslip differ from this. The annual figure is what your return settles against.
Should I ask for a lower basic salary to take home more money?
It does raise the monthly figure, because 12% of a smaller basic is a smaller PF deduction — but the money is not saved, it is redirected. A lower basic also shrinks the employer's matching PF, your HRA (usually a percentage of basic) and your gratuity, all of which are computed off basic. Run the same CTC at both and read the EPF line beside the take-home line: what the monthly figure gains, the retirement column loses.
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.