Tool

What is your package actually worth in India?

Not what it converts to. What it buys. Those are different numbers, and the gap between them is the single most misunderstood thing about moving home.

Your situation

Base plus bonus. Equity is covered below.

Sets the market range below. It changes nothing else on this page.

Narrows the market range to the part of it you are most likely to sit in.

30% Everything taken off before it reaches your account. Your payslip will tell you.

1.30× against the Indian average. An assumption, not data, which is why you can move it.

Same purchasing power₹47.7 LGross annual salary in Bengaluru that buys roughly the same basket as $185,000 does today.
Take-home on that₹37.4 Lafter tax, an effective rate of 22%
Straight conversion₹1.77 crat today’s exchange rate, and the wrong number to plan on
What you could expect to be paid₹16.9 L to ₹30.1 LAt 3 to 5 years of experience.Across all experience levels, software engineer roles in India report ₹16.9 L to ₹49.2 L, median ₹30.1 L. Middle half of 23,767 submissions to Levels.fyi, as at 18 September 2026.

This is what the job pays, not what your money buys. When the two disagree, the lower one is usually what an offer looks like.

Self-reported and skewed towards large employers, so read it as a ceiling rather than a midpoint.

Levels.fyi publishes no India breakdown by level, so which quarter of that range your experience puts you in is our assumption rather than their data. The figures themselves are theirs.

Reading this properly

An offer of ₹47.7 L in Bengaluru is not a 73% pay cut, even though the currency conversion says it is. It is approximately the same standard of living. The cut is real in one specific sense: ₹1.24 cr is what you take home in hard currency today, and that is the number that matters for anything you buy or save internationally, such as an overseas mortgage, a foreign-currency portfolio, travel, or a child’s education abroad.

See how the tax is worked out
Tax breakdown on the purchasing-power-equivalent Indian salary
LineAmountNote
Gross annual salary₹47,71,520The figure above
Less standard deduction₹-75,000New regime, salaried, s.19
Taxable income₹46,96,520
Income tax₹9,88,956New regime slabs, after any rebate
Surcharge₹0None at this level
Health and education cess₹39,5584% of tax plus surcharge
Professional tax₹2,500State levy, capped at ₹2,500 a year
Take-home₹37,40,506₹3,11,709 a month

An estimate, not advice. It uses national-average purchasing power data and a city adjustment we set ourselves, so treat the output as a range to argue with rather than a figure to plan around.

The honest caveats

Five things this calculator does not know about your life.

A purchasing power comparison is the right starting point and a bad finishing point. Open any of these to see what it leaves out, roughly in order of how much it tends to matter.

Hard-currency savings

If you are saving in dollars to buy something priced in dollars (a property abroad, a foreign-currency portfolio, a degree for your children) then purchasing power parity is irrelevant to that portion. Rupees do not become dollars at the PPP rate. This is the one genuine, unavoidable loss in the move, and the reason people who keep an international financial life feel the cut far more than people who do not.

Equity

A US or UK package often carries a meaningful equity component in a liquid, listed company. The Indian equivalent may carry ESOPs in a private company with no clear path to liquidity. Those are not the same asset and should not be compared at face value. Ask specifically: what is the strike, what is the last valuation, is there a buyback history, and what happens if you leave.

Healthcare and schooling

Both are cheaper in India in absolute terms and both vary enormously in quality. Private international schooling in Bengaluru or Mumbai can take a genuinely large share of a senior package, and employer health cover is usually thinner than a US plan. If you have children, model these two lines specifically rather than trusting an index.

Provident fund and gratuity inside CTC

Indian offers are quoted as CTC, which bundles things that never reach your bank account monthly: the employer’s provident fund contribution, a gratuity provision, sometimes insurance premiums, and a variable bonus you may or may not receive in full. Gross salary is meaningfully lower than the CTC headline, and how much lower depends entirely on how the offer is structured. There is no reliable rule of thumb, which is exactly why you should ask for the line-by-line breakdown, and ask what share of last year’s variable actually paid out.

The tax residency year

Your first year back is a special case. Returning residents can qualify for RNOR status, which changes how foreign income is treated for a period, and the timing of your move can be worth a substantial amount. This is a real specialism and we are not it. Talk to someone who does this properly before you book flights. It is one of the few decisions here that is genuinely time-sensitive.

MethodEvery parameter, with its source.

How the number is built.

Your package is converted to US dollars at the market exchange rate, then those dollars are converted to rupees using the World Bank's purchasing power parity factor for private consumption in India. That gives the rupee amount with approximately the same buying power. A city adjustment is then applied, because the World Bank factor is a national average and Bengaluru is not the national average.

Indian income tax is then computed on the resulting figure under the new regime: slabs, the standard deduction, the section 156 rebate with marginal relief, surcharge with marginal relief at each threshold, and cess. Not an approximation.

Every parameter, with its source
ParameterValue in useSource
Market exchange rate95.55 INR per USDUS Federal Reserve H.10, observations for 11 September 2026
Purchasing power parity factor19.84 INR per international dollarWorld Bank PA.NUS.PRVT.PP, private consumption, 2025
City adjustmentEditable, aboveOur assumption, not data. Exposed as a slider for that reason.
Software engineer band₹16.9 L to ₹49.2 L, median ₹30.1 LLevels.fyi, India, 23,767 self-reported submissions, as at 18 September 2026
Engineering manager band₹58.6 L to ₹1.32 cr, median ₹89.5 LLevels.fyi, India, 1,125 self-reported submissions, published to three significant figures, as at 18 September 2026
Technical program manager band₹33.6 L to ₹76.8 L, median ₹51.4 LLevels.fyi, India, 250 self-reported submissions, as at 18 September 2026
Solution architect band₹32.5 L to ₹63.3 L, median ₹45.7 LLevels.fyi, India, 399 self-reported submissions, as at 18 September 2026
Hardware engineer band₹28.8 L to ₹68.3 L, median ₹44.6 LLevels.fyi, India, 895 self-reported submissions, as at 18 September 2026
Product manager band₹29.4 L to ₹68.8 L, median ₹44.8 LLevels.fyi, India, 1,663 self-reported submissions, as at 18 September 2026
Data scientist band₹18.6 L to ₹45.4 L, median ₹30 LLevels.fyi, India, 1,174 self-reported submissions, as at 18 September 2026
Product designer band₹11.4 L to ₹37.4 L, median ₹21.1 LLevels.fyi, India, 446 self-reported submissions, as at 18 September 2026
Business analyst band₹10.7 L to ₹27.7 L, median ₹17.6 LLevels.fyi, India, 413 self-reported submissions, as at 18 September 2026
Recruiter band₹11.1 L to ₹35.9 L, median ₹20.6 LLevels.fyi, India, 109 self-reported submissions, as at 18 September 2026
Human resources band₹9.8 L to ₹34.4 L, median ₹18.8 LLevels.fyi, India, 162 self-reported submissions, as at 18 September 2026
Marketing band₹8.9 L to ₹26.6 L, median ₹16 LLevels.fyi, India, 135 self-reported submissions, as at 18 September 2026
Sales band₹6.7 L to ₹37.3 L, median ₹13.8 LLevels.fyi, India, 224 self-reported submissions, as at 18 September 2026
Mechanical engineer band₹7.2 L to ₹19.9 L, median ₹11.7 LLevels.fyi, India, 181 self-reported submissions, as at 18 September 2026
Civil engineer band₹5.5 L to ₹11 L, median ₹7.4 LLevels.fyi, India, 30 self-reported submissions, as at 18 September 2026
Accountant band₹4.5 L to ₹16 L, median ₹9.8 LLevels.fyi, India, 97 self-reported submissions, as at 18 September 2026
Customer service band₹3.5 L to ₹11.1 L, median ₹6.2 LLevels.fyi, India, 49 self-reported submissions, published to three significant figures, as at 18 September 2026
Income tax slabsNew regime, unchanged for FY2026-27Income Tax Department; Income-tax Act 2025 s.202
Standard deduction₹75,000Income-tax Act 2025, s.19, salaried
Rebate₹60,000, up to ₹12,00,000 total incomeIncome-tax Act 2025, s.156, with marginal relief
Health and education cess4%Finance Act 2026
Professional taxKarnataka and Maharashtra onlyState advisories. Other states are treated as zero rather than guessed at. The constitutional cap is ₹2,500 a year either way.

Help us make this better than an index

The genuinely useful version of this page is not built on a national average. It is built on what returnees actually get offered. If you have moved back and are willing to tell us your before and after anonymously, it goes straight into what we can tell the next person. Send us your numbers

The number that matters is the one on your offer.

This page gives you a defensible range. What it cannot tell you is what a specific role pays, what that company has paid before, or what to say when the number comes up. That is the conversation worth having, and it starts with the form.