CTC Breakdown Calculator
What the offer letter says, and what actually reaches your account.
| Component | Annual | Monthly |
|---|---|---|
| Basic salary | ₹10,00,000.00 | ₹83,333.33 |
| House rent allowance | ₹5,00,000.00 | ₹41,666.67 |
| Special allowance | ₹3,06,900.00 | ₹25,575.00 |
| Employer provident fund | ₹1,20,000.00 | ₹10,000.00 |
| Gratuity provision | ₹48,100.00 | ₹4,008.33 |
| Health insurance premium | ₹25,000.00 | ₹2,083.33 |
| Less: employee provident fund | ₹1,20,000.00 | ₹10,000.00 |
| Less: professional tax | ₹2,400.00 | ₹200.00 |
| Less: income tax | ₹1,52,235.20 | ₹12,686.27 |
| Take-home | ₹15,32,264.80 | ₹1,27,688.73 |
- Take-home
- ₹15,32,264.80
- Income tax
- ₹1,52,235.20
- Employee PF
- ₹1,20,000.00
- Employer retirals and variable
- ₹1,93,100.00
CTC is what you cost the employer, not what you are paid. The employer’s own provident fund contribution, the gratuity provision at 4.81% of basic and any health premium are all inside the number on the offer letter and none of them reach your account this month — which is most of the gap between the figure you were quoted and the one that lands. Gratuity in particular is only payable after five years of continuous service, so for many people it is a line in the CTC they never collect. The special allowance is calculated as the balance, so the components always sum back to the CTC and can be checked against a real offer letter. HRA exemption applies under the old regime only. Structures vary by employer — treat this as a close estimate, not your payslip.
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Independent · No commissions · No fund-house data — how the numbers are computed
How it works
Cost to company is what you cost your employer, not what you are paid. The gap between the number on the offer letter and the number that reaches your bank is made up of things you never see: the employer's own provident fund contribution, a gratuity provision at 4.81% of basic, and often a health insurance premium and an employer NPS contribution on top.
This calculator lays out every component annually and monthly, in the order an offer letter lists them. The special allowance is computed as the balance, so the components always sum back to the CTC — which means you can hold the table next to a real offer and check it line by line rather than trusting a single take-home figure.
Two components are worth understanding before you negotiate. The gratuity provision is only payable after five continuous years of service, so for anyone who leaves earlier it is a line in the CTC they never collect. And a higher basic raises both provident fund contributions, which lowers take-home today while raising retirement savings — the reason a low-basic structure looks more generous month to month and is not.
The salary calculator answers the same question in three lines. This one exists because the parts people are surprised by are exactly the ones a three-line waterfall hides.
Gross salary = CTC - employer PF - employer NPS - gratuity - insurance - variable payTake-home is then gross salary and any variable pay, less employee provident fund, professional tax and income tax. Only the last group is deducted from you; the first group was never yours to begin with.
Frequently asked questions
Why is my in-hand salary so much lower than my CTC?
Because CTC includes money that never passes through your account. The employer's provident fund contribution, the gratuity provision and any insurance premium are employer costs booked against you, and they are typically 15 to 18 per cent of the total on their own. Your own provident fund contribution, professional tax and income tax then come out of what is left. On a twenty lakh CTC it is common for take-home to be around sixty to seventy per cent of the headline figure.
What percentage of CTC should basic salary be?
Most employers set basic at 40 to 50 per cent of CTC. It is not a neutral choice: provident fund, gratuity and HRA exemption are all computed on basic, so a higher basic increases forced retirement saving and reduces take-home now, while a lower basic does the reverse and shrinks the HRA exemption you can claim under the old regime. Neither is universally better, but the structure is worth reading before you compare two offers on take-home alone.
Is gratuity really part of my CTC?
Most employers include a gratuity provision, conventionally 4.81 per cent of basic, in the CTC they quote. It becomes payable only after five years of continuous service under the Payment of Gratuity Act, so anyone who leaves before that never receives it despite having been charged for it in every annual figure. When comparing offers, it is reasonable to mentally deduct gratuity from both unless you expect to stay five years.
Does the new tax regime change my take-home from the same CTC?
Usually yes. The new regime has wider slabs and a larger standard deduction but disallows the HRA exemption, section 80C, and most other deductions. Someone paying substantial rent in a metro and already using their 80C limit often does better under the old regime; someone with few deductions almost always does better under the new one. Switch the toggle to see both against the same structure.