Old or New regime — which one saves you more?

You type your gross salary, the TDS your employer deducted, and any deductions you claim (80C, 80D, home-loan interest, HRA rent). The same deterministic tax engine that powers our Form 16 upload flow computes both Old and New regime taxes, picks the better one, and shows whether you get a refund or owe more. The math matches what Form 16 upload would give you for the same inputs — the only difference is you fill the numbers in by hand instead of having AI extract them from a PDF.

For the numbers you enter, the math is exact — slabs, 87A rebate, marginal relief at the 12L cliff, surcharge at 50L / 1Cr / 2Cr / 5Cr, cess, age-aware Old regime, all FY 2025-26 / AY 2026-27 rules. Where the estimate may differ from your actual refund: (a) deductions you forgot to enter, (b) HRA exemption requires the basic-salary breakdown which we approximate as 50% of gross when you don't have it, (c) other-income / capital gains / TIS reconciliation aren't in this estimator. For the exact number, upload your Form 16 in the main calculator and our AI extracts everything.

It depends on your deductions, especially HRA. For a typical salaried filer paying rent in a metro and claiming the standard 80C + 80D + home-loan-interest stack, Old regime usually wins in FY 2025-26 — and the margin grows with income. At ₹25L gross, Old typically saves ₹40k+ per year; at ₹60L, ₹2L+; at ₹1.25Cr+, ₹5L+. New regime wins only at very low incomes (≤ ₹12L where the 87A rebate makes both regimes ₹0) or when the user has no significant deductions (no HRA, no home loan, no 80C, etc.). The estimator above runs both regimes side by side using the same deterministic engine as our paid Form 16 flow, so the recommendation is your exact answer for your numbers.

Because HRA exemption is one of the largest single deductions a salaried tenant can claim — typically ₹3–15 lakh per year — and it applies in Old regime only. The exemption is the minimum of three things: employer-paid HRA component, rent paid minus 10% of basic salary, and 50% of basic salary (metro) or 40% (non-metro). When you enter rent paid, we assume your employer's HRA component is at least the standard 50% of basic so the limiting factor becomes either rent or the 50%-of-basic cap — which is what a real Form 16 would show for a salaried tenant. Without HRA, Old regime often loses; with HRA at scale, Old regime wins comfortably.

Yes — three main cases. (1) Income ≤ ₹12L taxable, where both regimes hit a near-zero tax thanks to 87A rebate. (2) Users who don't pay rent (no HRA exemption) and don't have a home loan (no 24(b)) — the lost ₹4–17L deduction from those two alone often makes New win. (3) Lower-income earners with very few deductions whose 75k standard deduction in New + lower slabs beat what they'd save in Old. Try resetting HRA / 24(b) / 80C to zero in the calculator and watch the recommendation flip. The calculator handles all five common scenarios honestly.

As of the June 2026 update, the calculator now covers every salary-side exemption and Chapter VI-A deduction a typical Indian salaried filer can claim: HRA, standard deduction, 80C, 80D, 80CCD(1B), 80CCD(2) employer NPS (both regimes), 24(b), 80E, 80EE, 80EEA, 80EEB, 80G, 80GG, 80GGC, 80U, 80DD, 80DDB, 80TTA / 80TTB, LTA exemption, and professional tax. Plus previous-employer salary + TDS for mid-year job change roll-up, and a basic-salary override for accurate HRA + 80CCD(2) math. What is NOT covered: capital gains (LTCG/STCG/VDA — needs ITR-2 special-rate math), business income (needs ITR-3/4), rental income from house property (needs the loss-from-house-property treatment), dividends from listed equity, and lottery/horse-race income. If you have any of these, treat this estimator as a salary-side baseline and upload Form 16 in the main calculator for the AI-driven cross-check.

They cover the major Indian salaried brackets: ₹12L is where the 87A rebate cliff makes the regime choice most consequential (most users), ₹25L is the recently-promoted senior IC, ₹60L is just over the first 50L surcharge cliff, and ₹1.25Cr is over the 1Cr surcharge tier. Each preset loads a realistic salary + TDS + 80C cap + reasonable HRA so the result panel lights up immediately. You can edit any field after loading a preset.

The estimator is free, no signup. There is no paywall on this page. The only paid product is the Form 16 upload flow at /calculator — that gives you the EXACT refund based on your actual Form 16, plus an AI-found list of deductions you may have missed, plus a step-by-step filing guide for incometax.gov.in. That report is paid (from ₹199 + GST), but using this estimator is no-strings-attached.

Use this estimator when you don't have Form 16 yet (employers usually issue by mid-to-late June), or when you just want a rough sanity check on what your refund should look like. Upload Form 16 at /calculator when you want the exact refund, the missed-deductions audit, the filing guide, and the downloadable report. The numbers from this estimator will match the upload flow for the same inputs — but the upload flow finds deductions you forgot to enter.

Partially. The salary-side math is exact, but this estimator does not compute special-rate tax on capital gains (LTCG/STCG), business income, or rental income. If those apply to you, treat this estimate as a baseline and consult a CA — or upload your TIS in the main /calculator flow which surfaces those line items in the AIS Reconciliation card.

The estimator has dedicated fields under "Salary structure + employer details" for previous-employer gross salary and TDS deducted. Enter the values from your previous employer's Form 16 (or final-settlement payslip). The calculator folds them into the slab math so the tax bracket reflects your true annual salary — without this roll-up, two ₹40L employers would each look like a sub-50L user and silently dodge the surcharge cliff. Your basic salary in the structure section should still reflect your CURRENT employer (basic doesn't carry over jobs).

Basic salary determines two important things: your HRA exemption cap (50% of basic in a metro, 40% non-metro) and your 80CCD(2) employer-NPS cap (10% basic Old, 14% basic New). Indian CTC structures vary — IT services typically have basic at 30–40% of gross, banking/consulting 45–50%, govt jobs ~50%, and some startups stuff almost everything into basic to inflate PF contributions. Without your actual basic, we default to 50% of gross — usable but not exact. If you know your real basic from your CTC letter, enter it; the regime comparison will be more precise, especially if you live in a metro and rent.