What is a salary Calculator?
Your CTC (Cost to Company) is almost never what lands in your account — it includes the employer’s PF contribution and a gratuity provision that you never see monthly, on top of your own PF deduction, professional tax and income tax. This gap is why a ₹12 lakh CTC offer can feel considerably smaller once the first payslip arrives.
Enter your annual CTC and how it’s structured (Basic as a % of CTC, HRA as a % of Basic) to see an estimated monthly in-hand salary.
How the breakup is estimated
Gross Salary is CTC minus the employer’s PF contribution (12% of Basic) and a standard gratuity provision (4.81% of Basic) — both are part of your CTC but never actually reach your bank account monthly. Income tax here is estimated under the new regime, since it’s the default and needs no extra deduction inputs.
Every company structures CTC slightly differently — bonus components, meal cards, and other perks can all change this breakup. Treat this as a reasonable estimate to sanity-check an offer, not an exact payslip replica.
Worked example: where a ₹12 lakh CTC actually goes
A ₹12,00,000 CTC, split as 40% Basic (₹4,80,000) with HRA at 50% of Basic (₹2,40,000), breaks down to a gross salary of roughly ₹11,19,312 — the difference from CTC being the employer’s PF contribution and gratuity provision, which are part of CTC but never reach a bank account monthly. From that gross, employee PF deduction (₹57,600) and professional tax (₹2,400) come out, and — since gross minus the ₹75,000 standard deduction lands under the ₹12 lakh new-regime rebate threshold — income tax works out to zero. Estimated in-hand: roughly ₹10,59,312 a year, or about ₹88,276 a month.
That’s about ₹11,724 a month less than the naive "CTC ÷ 12" figure of ₹1,00,000 — a meaningful gap that’s easy to overlook when comparing two job offers purely on their CTC headline number.
The gap grows at higher CTC, mostly because of tax
At a ₹25,00,000 CTC with the same structure, gross salary works out to roughly ₹23,31,900, and — now that income tax applies meaningfully, roughly ₹2,74,794 — the estimated monthly in-hand comes to roughly ₹1,61,226, against a naive CTC ÷ 12 of ₹2,08,333. The gap here (about ₹47,000 a month) is proportionally much larger than at ₹12 lakh CTC, almost entirely because income tax scales up with income while PF and professional tax stay roughly flat. This is worth keeping in mind when comparing a raise or new offer: a bigger CTC increase doesn’t translate to an equally big in-hand increase once you cross into higher tax slabs.
Frequently asked questions
Why is my in-hand salary lower than CTC ÷ 12?
Because CTC includes components you don’t receive monthly in cash — employer PF contribution and gratuity provision — plus your own PF deduction, professional tax and TDS come out of what remains.
What professional tax should I enter?
It varies by state — several states cap it around ₹2,400/year (roughly ₹200/month), while a few states don’t levy it at all. Check your specific state’s slab if you want an exact figure.
Does this account for bonus or variable pay?
No — this assumes your entire CTC is fixed pay. If a meaningful chunk of your CTC is bonus or variable pay, your actual fixed monthly in-hand will be lower than this estimate.
Why does the Basic percentage of CTC matter so much?
Basic drives several other components — HRA (as a percentage of Basic), employer and employee PF contributions (12% of Basic each), and gratuity provision (4.81% of Basic) all scale off it. A higher Basic percentage means higher PF deductions (lower in-hand now, more retirement savings) but also a higher HRA exemption ceiling if you pay rent.
Can I negotiate my CTC structure with an employer?
Sometimes, particularly at senior levels or smaller companies — asking for a higher Basic-to-special-allowance ratio, or restructuring around specific tax-efficient components, is a real (if often overlooked) negotiation lever, though many larger companies apply a fixed structure to all employees at a given level.
Does this include employer-provided perks like health insurance?
No — this models a cash-based CTC breakup only. Non-cash perks (group health insurance, meal cards, stock options) that some companies include in CTC aren’t part of this calculation and would need to be considered separately when comparing offers.
Should I use gross or CTC when comparing two job offers?
Neither alone — compare estimated in-hand salary (what this calculator outputs), since that’s what you can actually spend or save each month; CTC-to-CTC comparisons can be misleading if the two offers structure Basic, PF, and other components differently.