Why is my take-home so much less than my CTC?

CTC includes the employer's PF contribution, gratuity accrual and insurance, none of which reaches your account, plus your own PF and tax deductions. A gap of 20–30% is normal.

Is the employer's PF contribution really mine?

Yes — it goes into your PF account and you receive it, with interest, on withdrawal. It is simply not available this month, which is why counting it as salary misleads.

What is professional tax?

A state-level tax on employment, deducted monthly. It exists in some states and not others, and is capped at ₹2,500 a year by the Constitution.

Should I pick the old or new tax regime?

It depends on your deductions. The new regime has lower rates and almost no exemptions; the old rewards HRA, 80C and home loan interest. Both regimes' slabs change in most Budgets, so the comparison is worth redoing each year.

Salary Calculator

Breaks a CTC into what actually reaches your bank account each month, separating the components you receive from the ones that go elsewhere on your behalf.

Runs in your browser — nothing is uploaded

Salary structure

Annual CTC

₹

Basic as % of CTC%

Most Indian structures sit between 35% and 50%

HRA as % of basic%

Cap PF at the ₹15,000 wage ceilingThe statutory minimum, not 12% of full basic

Professional taxper month

₹

₹200 in most states, nil in a few

Other monthly deductions

₹

Insurance, canteen, loan recovery

Monthly take-home

₹1,43,314

₹17,19,768 a year, before income tax

The PF ceiling is worth ₹10,800 a month

Capping provident fund at the ₹15,000 statutory wage puts ₹1,43,314 in your account each month; contributing 12% of full basic puts ₹1,32,514. Same CTC, same job — the difference is one line in the offer letter, and it is the usual reason a calculator disagrees with your payslip.

Component	Annual	Monthly
Basic	₹7,20,000	₹60,000
HRA	₹3,60,000	₹30,000
Special allowance	₹6,63,768	₹55,314
Gross salary	₹17,43,768	₹1,45,314
− Employee PF	₹21,600	₹1,800
− Professional tax	₹2,400	₹200
− Other deductions	₹0	₹0
Take-home	₹17,19,768	₹1,43,314

Income tax is not deducted above

This is take-home before TDS. Run the figure through the income tax calculator to see what lands after tax.

Need this as an API?

Why use it

Built to be genuinely useful

CTC is not salary

It includes the employer's PF contribution, gratuity accrual and often insurance premiums — none of which arrives in your account.

Component by component

Basic, HRA, allowances, both PF contributions and professional tax, so the gap between the offer letter and the payslip is explained rather than surprising.

Nothing is uploaded

The arithmetic runs in your browser. Salary, marks and tax figures are nobody else's business, and none of it is sent anywhere.

Free, no sign-up

No account, no limit on how many times you run it, and no result held back.

How it works

Three steps

1
Enter the CTC and the component split if you have it.
2
Add the deductions that apply to you.
3
Read the monthly take-home.

Where the difference goes

Cost to company is what employing you costs, which is a larger number than what you are paid. The employer's provident fund contribution — typically 12% of basic — is part of CTC and goes to your PF account. Gratuity accrues and is payable only after five years of service. Group insurance premiums are paid to an insurer.

None of that is dishonest, and all of it is genuinely yours or spent on you. But it means a ₹12 lakh CTC does not divide into ₹1 lakh a month, and someone budgeting on that assumption will be roughly 20–30% out.

Why the basic component matters

Basic salary is the anchor for several other figures. PF is calculated on it, gratuity is calculated on it, and the HRA exemption is capped by it. A structure with a low basic and large allowances raises take-home now and reduces retirement contributions and exemption headroom.

There is no single right answer — a higher basic is better for long-term saving and worse for monthly cash. What is worth avoiding is not knowing which structure you are on, since it changes the value of an offer by more than a few percent of the headline figure.

FAQ

Questions people ask

API access

Need Salary Calculation in Your App?

Add salary calculation to your website, application or back-office workflow through API access.

Tell us what you are building, how you plan to use it and the volume you expect. We will come back to you with availability, integration details and a quote for your usage.

Related tools

More india tools

Available tools are linked; the rest are in development.

GST Calculator Income Tax Calculator HRA Calculator EMI Calculator SIP Calculator AI Writer AI Summarizer AI Paraphraser AI Humanizer AI Grammar Checker AI Rewriter AI Translator

All India Tools

Need a tool like this for your business?

We build internal tools, dashboards and automation that fit how your team works.

See Our Services