Income Tax Calculator (Old vs New Regime)

About the Income Tax Calculator (Old vs New Regime)

This calculator works out the income tax of a resident individual for Tax Year 2026-27 (1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027, under the new Income-tax Act, 2025) or for FY 2025-26 (assessment year 2026-27, under the Income-tax Act, 1961), and shows the new regime and the old regime side by side.

Enter what applies to you — salary with HRA, a home loan or a let-out house, interest and dividends, presumptive business or professional income, and capital gains — and the old-regime deductions you can claim. You get the taxable income, the tax slab by slab, the special-rate tax on capital gains, the rebate, the surcharge with marginal relief, the 4% cess and the rounded tax for each regime, plus how much more you would need to deduct for the old regime to win. Everything is calculated in your browser.

Common uses

• Choosing between the old and new regime before you tell your employer or file your return.
• Checking the tax on a year with capital gains, rental income or presumptive business income on top of salary.
• Seeing how much tax-saving investment or insurance would actually change your tax.
• Working out the tax for FY 2025-26 returns and for the first year under the Income-tax Act, 2025.

How the tax is worked out

1. Income under each head. Salary minus the standard deduction (₹75,000 new regime, ₹50,000 old regime — section 19 of the 2025 Act, section 16(ia) of the 1961 Act) and, in the old regime, the HRA exemption, LTA and professional tax. House property: let-out rent minus municipal tax, minus 30% of that, minus home-loan interest; in the old regime also interest on the home you live in, up to ₹2,00,000. Interest, dividends and other income. Presumptive business income: 6% of turnover received by bank or online and 8% of the rest; professions 50% of gross receipts (section 58; sections 44AD and 44ADA).
2. Gross total income, after setting off a house-property loss — up to ₹2,00,000 in the old regime, not at all in the new regime.
3. Deductions (old regime, plus employer NPS in both), within their limits, and only from income taxed at slab rates.
4. Total income, rounded to the nearest ₹10 (section 516).
5. Tax: slab rates on the slab-rate income; capital gains at their special rates; then the rebate, the surcharge with marginal relief, and 4% Health and Education Cess. The result is rounded to the nearest ₹10.

The two regimes in Tax Year 2026-27

New regime (the default, section 202): up to ₹4 lakh nil, 5% to ₹8 lakh, 10% to ₹12 lakh, 15% to ₹16 lakh, 20% to ₹20 lakh, 25% to ₹24 lakh and 30% above, at any age. A rebate of up to ₹60,000 (section 156) makes the tax nil when total income is ₹12 lakh or less, with marginal relief just above. Most exemptions and deductions are not allowed: no HRA, LTA or professional tax, no deduction for interest on the home you live in, and almost none of the Chapter VIII deductions — the employer’s NPS contribution (up to 14% of basic + DA) is the one most salaried people can still claim (section 202(2)).

Old regime (you opt out of the default): nil up to ₹2.5 lakh (₹3 lakh at 60–79, ₹5 lakh at 80+), 5% to ₹5 lakh, 20% to ₹10 lakh, 30% above, a rebate of up to ₹12,500 when total income is ₹5 lakh or less, and the deductions: ₹1,50,000 for investments and payments such as PF, PPF, life insurance, ELSS and tuition fees (section 123); ₹50,000 more for your own NPS (section 124(3)); health insurance up to ₹25,000, or ₹50,000 for senior citizens, for yourself and again for parents (section 126); education-loan interest (section 129); donations (section 133); interest on savings accounts up to ₹10,000, or on all deposits up to ₹50,000 for senior citizens (section 153); and rent without HRA (section 134). FY 2025-26 has the same numbers under sections 115BAC, 87A, 80C, 80CCD(1B), 80D, 80E, 80G, 80TTA/80TTB and 80GG.

Capital gains, the rebate and the surcharge

Short-term gains on listed shares and equity funds (STT paid) are taxed at 20% (section 196; 111A); long-term gains on them at 12.5% above ₹1.25 lakh a year (section 198; 112A); other long-term gains at 12.5% (section 197; 112) — or, for land or buildings bought before 23 July 2024, the lower of that and 20% with indexation. Debt funds bought from 1 April 2023 and other short-term gains are taxed at slab rates. If your other income is below the basic exemption limit, the unused part is set off against these gains first.

The new-regime rebate covers only tax at the slab rates, so tax on special-rate gains is payable even when total income is under ₹12 lakh; in the old regime the rebate does not cover tax on gains under section 198. The surcharge on the tax on capital gains and dividends never exceeds 15%. Sources: Income-tax Act, 2025, Finance Act, 2026, e-filing portal, AY 2026-27.

Which year should I pick?

Tax Year 2026-27 is the first year under the Income-tax Act, 2025, which came into force on 1 April 2026 and replaced “previous year” and “assessment year” with a single “tax year”. Use it to plan this year’s tax and your employer’s TDS.

FY 2025-26 is the year you file a return for in 2026 (assessment year 2026-27), still under the Income-tax Act, 1961. The rates are the same; the HRA city list differs: for FY 2025-26 only Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai get the 50% limit, while from Tax Year 2026-27 rule 279 of the Income-tax Rules, 2026 adds Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune and Ahmedabad.

Limitations

• For resident individuals only — not for non-residents, HUFs or firms. Agricultural income, which affects the rate on other income, is not included.
• Business income is presumptive only (sections 58 / 44AD / 44ADA). If you keep books, enter your profit under “Any other income”.
• Capital gains are entered as net gains for the year; losses, set-off between assets and reinvestment exemptions (such as buying another house) must be worked out first.
• Self-occupied home-loan interest uses the ₹2,00,000 limit, which needs the house to be bought or built within five years from the end of the tax year the loan was taken; otherwise the limit is ₹30,000.
• The let-out property’s annual value is taken as the rent received; a higher fair rent or vacancy is not modelled.
• Surcharge marginal relief with capital gains: the Finance Act does not say how the income at the threshold is made up, so the calculator tries taking the excess out of slab-rate income and out of each kind of gain, and uses the one that gives you the most relief. Check the figure in your return software if you are close to ₹50 lakh, ₹1 crore, ₹2 crore or ₹5 crore.
• The 25% (and, in the old regime, 37%) surcharge depends on income other than capital gains and dividends crossing ₹2 crore (₹5 crore), but marginal relief is tied to total income. When gains already take your total well above ₹2 crore, a small rise in other income across that line can cost more than the rise itself — this follows the Act as written.
• Family pension, perquisite valuation, relief for arrears (section 157 / 89) and foreign tax credit are not covered.
• Allowances for official duties, such as for travel on tour or on transfer, which can be exempt in the new regime too (rule 280 of the Income-tax Rules, 2026), are not modelled: leave them out of the gross salary.

Privacy

Everything happens in your browser. What you enter or open here is not uploaded or stored by MySmartCoPilot.