CTC Calculator
Calculate your estimated salary breakup and in-hand salary.
Advanced Settings
Your salary report will appear here
Enter your CTC and click Generate Report to calculate your estimated in-hand salary.
Why your salary shrinks between the offer letter and your bank account
The first payslip is where most people find out what CTC really means. The offer said twelve lakh. The bank credit says something starting with eight. Nothing has gone wrong, and nobody has cheated you. The gap is built into how Indian salaries are structured, and once you see the three places the money goes, it stops being a surprise.
CTC is cost to company. It is what your employer spends on you in a year, not what they pay you. Some of that spend never passes through your hands at all.
The money that leaves before you ever see it
Three things usually sit inside CTC and never arrive as salary.
The employer’s PF contribution is the big one. Your employer puts 12% of your basic salary into your EPF account every month, and in almost every Indian offer letter that contribution is counted inside the CTC figure. On a twelve lakh package with basic at half, that is ₹72,000 a year that is genuinely yours, genuinely saved, and genuinely not spendable this month.
The gratuity provision is the second. Companies set aside roughly 4.81% of basic each year against the gratuity they will owe you eventually. The catch is that gratuity is only payable after five years of continuous service. Leave at three years and you get none of it, even though it was counted in your CTC the whole time. Our calculator carves it out by default. If your offer letter does not mention gratuity, switch it off and the in-hand figure rises.
ESI is the third, and it only applies if your monthly gross is ₹21,000 or below. Then the employer adds 3.25% and you contribute 0.75%. For anyone looking at an MTS, clerk or entry level private sector role, this is worth checking, because most salary calculators quietly ignore it.
Strip those out and you get gross salary, which is the number printed at the top of your payslip.
The money that leaves after that
From gross, three more deductions happen before the credit hits your account.
Your own PF contribution is another 12% of basic. Professional tax is a state levy, capped at around ₹2,500 a year in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Maharashtra and most states that charge it, and ₹0 in Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, which do not. Then income tax, deducted monthly as TDS.
What remains is in-hand. For most salaries it lands somewhere between 75% and 85% of CTC, with the proportion falling as your package rises and more of it is taxed at higher rates.
Which tax regime to pick
This is the question the calculator is really there to answer, which is why it shows both side by side rather than making you switch and compare from memory.
The new regime gives you a ₹75,000 standard deduction and, since the 2025 budget, no tax at all on taxable income up to ₹12,00,000. It allows almost no other deductions. The old regime gives you only a ₹50,000 standard deduction and taxes you from ₹2,50,000, but it lets you claim HRA exemption, 80C up to ₹1,50,000, NPS, health insurance under 80D and home loan interest.
For most salaried people below about fifteen lakh with nothing much to claim, the new regime wins and it is not close. The old regime only pulls ahead when you have real deductions stacked up: paying substantial rent, running a home loan, and using the full 80C limit.
One thing worth knowing if you are deciding: your own PF contribution already counts under 80C automatically. You do not have to invest anything extra to claim it. Our calculator includes it by default, which is why the old regime figure here is often friendlier than on tools that leave it out.
The twelve lakh cliff, and why a raise can briefly cost you
There is a strange band just above ₹12,00,000 of taxable income where a pay rise barely moves your take-home, and can even nudge it down by a couple of hundred rupees a month.
The reason is marginal relief. The rebate that makes ₹12,00,000 tax free does not vanish all at once above that line. Instead the law caps your tax so that it never exceeds the amount by which you crossed ₹12,00,000. Earn ₹20,000 over the line, pay at most ₹20,000 in tax. The effect is that every extra rupee in this band is taken almost entirely by tax, and because the 4% health and education cess sits on top of the capped figure, net pay can dip very slightly.
The band runs out at roughly ₹12,70,600 of taxable income, after which normal slab rates are lower than the cap and the relief stops mattering. If your result lands inside it, the calculator says so. It is not a bug in the tool, it is how the section works.
Two offers with the same CTC are not the same offer
This is the practical use of the salary structure settings.
Basic salary is the lever. PF and gratuity are both calculated from basic, so a company that sets basic at 50% of CTC puts more into your PF and shows you a lower in-hand than a company that sets basic at 40%, on identical CTC. The one with the lower in-hand is arguably paying you better, because the difference is sitting in your retirement account rather than evaporating.
The new labour codes require basic to be at least 50% of total pay, so the 50% default here reflects where most 2026 offers have landed. Check your own offer letter and change it if yours differs.
Variable pay is the other trap. A package quoted as twelve lakh with two lakh variable is a ten lakh fixed package with a bonus attached, and that bonus arrives annually, quarterly, or not at all depending on performance ratings you do not control. Enter it separately and the monthly figure corrects itself.
A note on what this tool cannot know
The calculator works from a standard private sector salary structure. It does not know your employer’s actual allowance split, whether they offer LTA or meal cards, what your appraisal cycle looks like, or whether you have income from somewhere else.
Treat the result as a close estimate, not a payslip. Before you accept an offer, ask HR for the detailed salary breakup rather than the CTC headline. Any employer who will not give you one is telling you something.
CTC Calculator FAQs
No. CTC represents the overall annual cost to the company, while in-hand salary is the amount you receive after applicable deductions such as employee PF, professional tax, and income tax.
It can. Many companies include the employer’s PF contribution as part of the total CTC. Check your salary breakup to see whether employer PF is included.
Some companies include a gratuity component in CTC. However, gratuity is generally not received as part of your regular monthly salary.
CTC may include employer contributions, gratuity, variable pay, and other benefits that are not paid as monthly cash. Employee PF, professional tax, income tax, and other applicable deductions can also reduce your take-home salary.
Not necessarily. Variable pay may be paid monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, or annually depending on the company’s compensation policy and applicable performance conditions.
Yes. Different salary structures, PF settings, tax situations, benefits, and deductions can result in different take-home salaries even when the total CTC is the same.