HRA Exemption Calculator

House Rent Allowance (HRA) is a common salary component. Under Section 10(13A) of the Income-tax Act, read with Rule 2A, a portion of HRA received can be exempt from tax — but only for a salaried employee under the old tax regime who actually pays rent for accommodation they live in. This calculator computes that exemption for FY 2025-26 (AY 2026-27).

1. Enter your annual basic salary.
2. Enter DA only if it forms part of retirement benefits; otherwise leave it at 0.
3. Enter the total HRA you received and the total rent you paid for the year.
4. Select whether you live in a metro or non-metro city.
5. Select Calculate to see all three limits, which one is binding, and your exempt and taxable HRA.

The calculator computes three separate amounts: the actual HRA you received, rent paid minus 10% of salary (floored at zero), and 50% of salary for a metro city or 40% for a non-metro city. Whichever of the three is smallest becomes your exempt HRA — this is the statutory 'least of the three' rule, not an average or a sum.

Taxable HRA is simply HRA received minus the exempt amount, and is added to your other taxable salary income.

The result card shows all three limits individually, not just the smallest. The binding-limit explanation below it names which one applied and why, so you can see what would need to change (rent, salary, or HRA itself) to increase your exemption.

• Uses the FY 2025-26 metro city list (Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai). A later financial year's list can differ — see lib/hra/rules/README.md in the codebase for the current known change.
• Commission that is a fixed percentage of turnover is part of the statutory salary definition but is not collected as a separate input here.
• Whole-year figures only — no support for a mid-year city change, rent change, or salary revision.

• Entering gross salary instead of basic salary (plus qualifying DA) — the calculation uses only basic salary and qualifying DA, not your full CTC.
• Assuming the exemption applies under the new tax regime — it does not.
• Forgetting that the rent-based limit is floored at zero, not negative, when rent paid is low relative to salary.

• See exactly which of the three statutory limits is holding your exemption back, instead of guessing a single figure.
• Feed a verified, correctly-derived exemption straight into the income tax calculator's old-regime HRA field instead of estimating it by hand.
• Understand how a rent increase or a salary revision would change your exemption before it happens, not after filing.

• Recalculate whenever your rent, basic salary, or city of residence changes during the year, since this calculator only handles a single whole-year figure.
• If the percentage-of-salary limit is binding, a change in rent alone will not increase your exemption — only a change in salary or city classification will.
• Keep rent receipts and, where required, a rent agreement or landlord PAN on hand — this calculator estimates the exemption but does not replace the documentation your employer or assessing officer may require.