Overview
Salaried employees in India deal with one of the more complicated income tax systems around: two parallel regimes, dozens of deduction categories, employer-deducted TDS, and an annual regime choice that can swing your tax liability by ₹50,000 or more. Getting it right doesn't need a chartered accountant on speed dial. It needs the right tools.
These six free calculators cover the full toolkit a salaried employee in India actually needs: working out liability, planning deductions, calculating exemptions, and comparing regimes. All are current for FY 2026-27 slabs, require no registration, and produce shareable results instantly.
What to Look For
Updated for FY 2026-27 slabs. Tax slabs, the standard deduction amount, surcharge thresholds, and the Section 87A rebate limit all shift year to year. A calculator stuck on last year's slabs can be off by ₹10,000 to ₹30,000 depending on your income bracket, so check that it states its applicable year explicitly.
Both old and new tax regime support. India has run dual tax regimes since FY 2020-21. A calculator covering only one regime misses the point entirely, since the whole reason for two regimes is picking the cheaper one, which means running both.
Full coverage of salary components. Basic, DA, HRA, LTA, special allowance, bonus, reimbursements. A useful salary tax calculator handles the entire payslip rather than a single gross income field, since HRA exemption, LTA, and reimbursements shift effective taxable income substantially.
Shareable results. Working through a scenario with HR or a financial adviser goes faster when you can send a URL encoding your exact inputs instead of re-explaining numbers over email.
Our Picks
Income Tax Calculator
The Income Tax Calculator anchors any tax planning exercise. Enter gross income, regime choice, and deductions, and it computes tax liability including basic tax, surcharge above ₹50 lakh, health and education cess at 4%, and the Section 87A rebate where it applies.
It covers both regimes under FY 2026-27 slabs. Under the new regime: nil up to ₹3 lakh, 5% from ₹3 to 7 lakh (effectively nil up to ₹7 lakh thanks to the 87A rebate), 10% from ₹7 to 10 lakh, 15% from ₹10 to 12 lakh, 20% from ₹12 to 15 lakh, and 30% above that. Under the old regime, slabs start nil up to ₹2.5 lakh and step through 5%, 20%, and 30% tiers.
Start here to see your baseline liability before any deductions, then layer deductions in one at a time to see what each actually saves.
80C Deduction Calculator
The 80C Deduction Calculator helps allocate your ₹1.5 lakh annual Section 80C limit across eligible instruments. Most salaried employees already have EPF eating into that limit, often ₹50,000 to ₹80,000 worth, leaving only ₹70,000 to ₹1,00,000 to allocate voluntarily.
Enter your EPF contribution (auto-deducted by your employer), then plan the rest across PPF, ELSS, life insurance premiums, NPS, NSC, home loan principal, and children's tuition fees. It shows exactly how much of the ₹1.5 lakh limit is already used up and how much is left to deploy.
This matters most for employees trying to maximize 80C without overcommitting to illiquid instruments. ELSS has the shortest lock-in among 80C options at 3 years, while PPF has the longest at 15 years but the best guaranteed tax-free return. The calculator helps weigh that trade-off against your actual numbers.
HRA Calculator
The HRA Calculator computes House Rent Allowance exemption, often the second-largest tax benefit available to salaried employees after 80C. It reduces gross taxable income by the exempt portion of HRA, provided you're paying rent and HRA is built into your CTC.
The exempt amount is always the smallest of three values: actual HRA received, actual annual rent paid minus 10% of annual basic salary, and 50% of annual basic in a metro or 40% elsewhere. The calculator asks for all three and shows exactly which one is the binding constraint, so you know whether paying more rent would actually generate more tax savings or whether you're already capped elsewhere.
For metro employees paying market rents, HRA exemption often runs ₹1.5 to ₹2.5 lakh a year, worth ₹45,000 to ₹75,000 in tax savings at the 30% bracket.
Old vs New Tax Regime Calculator
The Old vs New Tax Regime Calculator is arguably the single most consequential tax decision tool a salaried employee has. You choose which regime to file under every year, and getting it wrong costs real money.
Enter salary income and every deduction applicable under the old regime: standard deduction (₹75,000), 80C (up to ₹1.5 lakh), 80D health insurance premiums (up to ₹25,000, or ₹50,000 with senior citizen parents), HRA exemption, home loan interest (up to ₹2 lakh under Section 24(b)), NPS under 80CCD(1B) (up to ₹50,000), and anything else that applies. It shows tax liability under each regime side by side, the savings from picking the better one, and the break-even deduction amount.
Rough rule of thumb: above ₹3.5 to 4 lakh in total deductions, the old regime usually wins. Below that, the new regime's flatter slabs come out ahead. The only way to know for sure is to run your specific numbers.
TDS Calculator
The TDS Calculator helps verify the Tax Deducted at Source your employer withholds monthly under Section 192. Employers are supposed to estimate your full-year income, compute the tax, and divide by 12 for the monthly deduction.
TDS errors happen more often than you'd think. Employers might miss a declared deduction, skip accounting for a mid-year salary increment, or fail to switch you to the correct regime after a late Form 12BB submission. This calculator computes what your monthly TDS should be based on income and declarations, compares it against what's actually being deducted, and flags whether a tax demand or refund is likely at ITR time.
It's especially worth running in the second half of the financial year, October through March, when reconciling Form 26AS credits against actual liability starts to matter.
Salary Calculator
The Salary Calculator bridges the gap between CTC and take-home, which are often quite different. A ₹15 lakh CTC might translate to only ₹10.5 to ₹11 lakh in hand after EPF contributions, professional tax, and TDS.
Enter your CTC and salary structure (basic, HRA, special allowance, LTA, reimbursements), and it shows gross salary, every deduction (employee EPF at 12% of basic, professional tax at ₹2,400 to ₹2,500/year depending on state), a TDS estimate, and final monthly in-hand. It also separates taxable from non-taxable components, so you can see exactly which part of your CTC is generating tax liability and which isn't.
This is particularly useful when comparing job offers. A ₹15 lakh CTC from one company structured differently from a ₹14.5 lakh CTC at another can flip which offer actually pays more in hand, once HRA structure and reimbursements are accounted for.
How We Evaluated
These six tools were checked against four criteria.
FY 2026-27 accuracy: each calculator was verified against the current year's slabs, the ₹75,000 standard deduction, the ₹7 lakh Section 87A rebate limit under the new regime, and surcharge thresholds. Anything running outdated slabs got excluded.
No sign-up, always free: every calculation runs in the browser with no account, no trial period, no per-calculation charge, and no data submission requirement.
Both regime support: since regime choice is the most consequential annual tax decision most salaried employees make, any calculator modelling only one regime was disqualified.
Edge case handling: surcharge for high earners, marginal relief that limits the tax jump when income crosses a slab threshold, how the 87A rebate interacts with surcharge, and professional tax variation by state all got checked across every calculator on this list.