How we calculate

Our sources

Every rate on this site comes from a primary legal source:

• Income Tax Ordinance 2001, as amended (we use FBR's consolidated text, currently amended up to 30 June 2026)
• Finance Acts, which set each year's rates, as published in the Gazette of Pakistan
• FBR Withholding Income Tax Rate Cards for each tax year

Salary tax rates by year, and what we checked them against:

How salary tax is worked out

We use the rates for salaried individuals in the First Schedule, Part I, Division I of the Ordinance. They apply when salary is more than 75% of your taxable income. The steps are:

1. Take your annual taxable salary (monthly salary × 12).
2. Find the slab it falls in.
3. Tax = the slab's fixed amount + the slab rate × the amount above the slab's lower limit.
4. Add any surcharge for that year. A surcharge on salaried income above Rs 10,000,000 applied in 2025-26 and 2024-25 (9% and 10% of the tax). There is none in 2026-27.

The slab rate applies only to the part of your salary inside that slab. Your effective rate is total tax ÷ annual salary, which is always lower than the slab rate (4% in the example).

Monthly tax and your payslip

We show monthly tax as the yearly tax ÷ 12. Your employer deducts tax under section 149 at your average rate on your estimated salary for the year, after adjusting for tax withheld from you on other income and for donation and pension fund credits. If your salary changes during the year, or you get a bonus, your employer recalculates, so a single month on your payslip can differ from our figure while the yearly total matches.

We calculate to the paisa and round only the figures we show, to the nearest rupee.

Gross salary, raises and job offers

Gross salary from take-home

There is no simple reverse formula, because the tax rate changes from slab to slab. The gross salary calculator searches for the lowest gross salary whose take-home pay, after tax, reaches the amount you entered, to the nearest rupee. For example, Rs 200,000 take-home in 2026-27 needs Rs 216,250 gross a month.

In years with a surcharge, take-home pay falls slightly just above Rs 10,000,000 a year, because the surcharge applies to the whole tax. The calculator handles this and always returns the lowest salary that reaches your target.

Increments and job offers

The increment calculator works out the tax before and after the raise and compares take-home pay. A 15% raise on Rs 150,000 adds Rs 22,500 gross and Rs 20,025 take-home in 2026-27. The job offer comparison adds any yearly bonus to each offer's salary and taxes the full year, because bonuses are taxed as salary.

Deductions and tax credits

A deduction such as Zakat (section 60) is taken off taxable income before the slabs apply. A tax credit (sections 61, 63 and 63A) is worked out with the Ordinance's formula:

So a credit saves tax at your average rate. On Rs 200,000 a month, Rs 100,000 of approved donations saves Rs 6,500 in 2026-27. Details are in our exemptions, deductions and credits guide.

What the calculators leave out

• Exempt allowances: enter your taxable salary. We don't remove exempt items, such as part of a medical allowance, unless a tool asks for them.
• Other income: business, property, investment and foreign income have their own rules and are not included in the salary calculators.
• Other deductions from pay: provident fund, EOBI and loan repayments reduce what reaches your bank, but not your income tax.
• Non-salaried individuals: if salary is 75% or less of your taxable income, different rates apply.

How we check and update

• All rates live in one place in our code, so every page and calculator uses the same figures.
• Automated tests recalculate known results, such as each year's slab amounts and our worked examples, every time the site is built.
• Each page shows when it was last reviewed against the law.
• We review the whole site after every federal budget (usually June) and whenever the law changes during the year.

Found a figure that looks wrong? Please tell us. Our editorial policy explains how we handle corrections.