Professional Tax Calculator
Pick the state the employee works in and enter monthly gross salary. You get the slab that applies, the deduction per pay cycle, and what the year adds up to.
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Professional tax payable
| Slab applied | ₹25,000/month and above |
| Deduction in February | ₹300 |
| Spread across the year | ₹208/month |
| Annual professional tax | ₹2,500 |
Karnataka deducts ₹200 for eleven months and ₹300 in February, so the year lands exactly on ₹2,500. Payroll runs that deduct a flat amount every month will under-collect by ₹100 per employee.
Article 276 of the Constitution caps professional tax at ₹2,500 per person per year, whatever the salary. Slab table, due dates and registration for Karnataka.
What is professional tax?
Professional tax is a state levy on the income you earn from a job, a trade or a profession. Despite the name it has nothing to do with your profession in particular, and it is not a central tax. Each state writes its own Act, sets its own slabs and runs its own collection.
For salaried staff the employer deducts it at source every pay cycle and remits it to the state. The employee never files anything. That makes it a payroll problem rather than a personal tax problem, and it is the reason a company operating in four states has four different deduction rules to run.
The ₹2,500 ceiling, and why every state stops just below it
Article 276(2) of the Constitution caps professional tax at ₹2,500 per person per year. No state can charge more, whatever the salary. This is why professional tax looks trivial next to income tax: the maximum any employee pays is a little over ₹200 a month.
The cap explains most of the odd numbers in the slab tables. States that want to collect the full ₹2,500 cannot do it with a round monthly figure, because ₹2,500 does not divide by twelve. So they charge ₹200 for eleven months and ₹300 in February. States that would rather keep it simple charge ₹200 flat and settle for ₹2,400.
How much states differ
There is no national slab table. Monthly exemption thresholds run from ₹7,500 in Tripura up to ₹25,000 in Karnataka, several states assess on annual or half-yearly income instead, and three of the states below do not levy professional tax at all.
| State | Exempt up to | Top rate | Annual maximum |
|---|---|---|---|
| Karnataka | ₹25,000/month | ₹200/month (₹300 in February) | ₹2,500 |
| Maharashtra | ₹7,500 (men) / ₹25,000 (women) | ₹200/month (₹300 in February) | ₹2,500 |
| Telangana | ₹15,000/month | ₹200/month | ₹2,400 |
| Andhra Pradesh | ₹15,000/month | ₹200/month | ₹2,400 |
| Gujarat | ₹12,000/month | ₹200/month | ₹2,400 |
| West Bengal | ₹10,000/month | ₹200/month | ₹2,400 |
| Assam | ₹10,000/month | ₹208/month | ₹2,496 |
| Tripura | ₹7,500/month | ₹208/month | ₹2,496 |
| Punjab | ₹2,50,000/year | ₹200/month | ₹2,400 |
| Madhya Pradesh | ₹2,25,000/year | ₹208/month (₹212 in the final month) | ₹2,500 |
| Odisha | ₹1,60,000/year | ₹200/month (₹300 in the final month) | ₹2,500 |
| Bihar | ₹3,00,000/year | ₹2,500/year | ₹2,500 |
| Jharkhand | ₹3,00,000/year | ₹2,500/year | ₹2,500 |
| Manipur | ₹50,000/year | ₹2,500/year | ₹2,500 |
| Kerala | ₹11,999/half-year | ₹1,250/half-year | ₹2,500 |
| Tamil Nadu | ₹21,000/half-year | ₹1,095/half-year | ₹2,190 |
| Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana | Not levied | — | Nil |
The state that matters is where the employee actually works, not where the company is registered. A Bengaluru-registered firm with staff in Kolkata deducts West Bengal PT for those employees.
The February top-up that payroll runs get wrong
Karnataka and Maharashtra both deduct ₹200 a month for eleven months and ₹300 in February. It is not a penalty or an arrear, just arithmetic: eleven months at ₹200 plus one at ₹300 comes to exactly ₹2,500, which is the constitutional ceiling.
A payroll run that deducts a flat ₹200 every month collects ₹2,400 and under-remits by ₹100 per employee per year. Across a few hundred staff that is a reconciliation problem at year end, and it is one of the most common professional tax errors in Indian payroll.
Maharashtra taxes men and women differently
Maharashtra is the outlier here. Men start paying professional tax at ₹7,501 a month, while women are exempt until ₹25,000. Between those two figures, two employees on identical salaries in the same office pay different amounts.
At ₹9,000 a month a man pays ₹175 and a woman pays nothing. At ₹20,000 a man pays ₹200 a month and a woman still pays nothing. The two only converge above ₹25,000. Any payroll configuration for Maharashtra that ignores this field will be wrong for a large share of the workforce.
Tamil Nadu does not work like the others
Tamil Nadu assesses professional tax on six-month income rather than monthly salary, and collects it twice a year instead of twelve times. The slabs in the calculator are half-yearly figures, so a ₹40,000 monthly salary is assessed on ₹2,40,000 of half-yearly income.
It is also administered by local municipal corporations rather than a single state department. The Greater Chennai Corporation rates are the ones most commonly cited, but another municipality can notify slightly different figures, so confirm against the corporation the workplace actually falls under.
Who deducts it, and when it is due
The employer registers for a Professional Tax Registration Certificate, usually within 30 days of becoming liable, and deducts from every liable employee thereafter. Due dates are not aligned across states: Telangana wants payment by the 10th of the following month, Gujarat by the 15th, Karnataka by the 20th, West Bengal by the 21st.
Penalties are small in absolute terms but they accrue per day and per registration. Maharashtra charges ₹5 a day for late registration alone. What makes it worth getting right is rarely the money. It is that unpaid professional tax turns up in the statutory audit.
Claiming it back against income tax
Professional tax actually paid is deductible from salary income under section 16(iii) of the Income-tax Act, 1961, with no ceiling beyond what you paid. On a full ₹2,500 a year the saving is real but modest.
This deduction is only available under the old regime. If the employee has opted for the new regime, professional tax is still deducted from salary but cannot be claimed back against taxable income.
Sources
The ₹2,500 annual ceiling comes from Article 276(2) of the Constitution. Slabs, due dates and exemptions are set by each state's own professional tax Act and change independently of one another, so every state page cites the Act it draws from. Professional tax paid is deductible from salary income under section 16(iii) of the Income-tax Act, 1961.
- Legislative Department: Constitution of India, Article 276 (taxes on professions, trades, callings and employments)legislative.gov.in
- Central Board of Direct Taxes: Income-tax Act, bare text and section-wise searchincometaxindia.gov.in
- India Code: central labour legislationindiacode.nic.in
This calculator is an estimate, not tax or legal advice. Where a figure here and the statute disagree, the statute governs.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is professional tax calculated?
What is the maximum professional tax in India?
Why is professional tax ₹300 in February?
Which states do not have professional tax?
Is professional tax calculated on gross salary or basic salary?
Do men and women pay different professional tax?
Which state's professional tax applies if my company is registered elsewhere?
Can I claim professional tax as an income tax deduction?
What happens if an employer does not deduct professional tax?
Run professional tax across every state at once
Engage HRMS applies the right PT slab per work location, handles the February top-up in Karnataka and Maharashtra, and files the challans on each state's schedule, so nobody has to maintain a spreadsheet per state.
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