Professional Tax by State in India

Read the table below with that cap in mind. The slabs look like an income tax. They are not. They are a flat levy that tops out almost immediately, so the effective rate falls as your salary rises.

What are the professional tax slabs in each state?

Professional tax is a state levy. So there is no national slab table. Below are the two state schedules we could open and verify. Each comes from the state’s own published Act or rate schedule. Checked on 7 September 2026.

Maharashtra

Source: the rate schedule under the Maharashtra Profession Tax Act, 1975. Published by the Maharashtra Department of Goods and Services Tax. Updated to 31 March 2025. The rates below apply from 1 April 2023.

Karnataka

Source: the Schedule to the Karnataka Tax on Professions, Trades, Callings and Employments Act, 1976. As amended by Act 14 of 2023, with effect from 1 April 2023. Published by the Karnataka Department of Parliamentary Affairs and Legislation.

We stopped there deliberately. Several other state tax portals did not respond. Others publish their schedules only inside PDFs we could not open. Reproducing a rate chart we have not read would be guessing. This is a deduction that hits your payslip every month. Look up your own state’s department of commercial taxes or GST for the current schedule.

How do I read these tables without misreading them?

Three misreadings are common.

First, people treat the monthly figure as a rate. It is not. Maharashtra collects ₹200 a month for eleven months and ₹300 in February. That is ₹2,500 a year exactly, which is the constitutional ceiling. The February bump exists only to make the annual total land on the cap.

Second, people expect the tax to rise with income. It does not. In Karnataka, ₹25,000 a month and ₹25,00,000 a month both attract ₹200. The levy is regressive by design. Parliament said so in 1988. The Statement of Objects and Reasons to the Sixtieth Amendment recorded that the tax had become “almost regressive because of the ceiling”.

Third, exemption thresholds differ by state. In Maharashtra they also differ by gender. Maharashtra exempts men up to ₹7,500 a month. It exempts women up to ₹25,000 a month. Karnataka exempts everyone below ₹25,000, with no gender distinction. Two people on identical salaries can pay very different amounts. Or nothing at all.

Why is nothing deducted from my salary in Delhi or Uttar Pradesh?

Because the state has to levy it, and not every state does. There is no central professional tax. Your state may never have enacted a Professions Tax Act. If so, your payslip shows nothing. That is correct, not an error.

The place of work decides, not your home state. The deduction follows the state where the employment is exercised. That is not always where you live, and not always where the head office sits. It catches people who move jobs across state lines. Our job switch money checklist covers what else changes on the payslip.

Who pays it, and how?

For a salaried employee, the employer deducts and deposits it. You do nothing. The employer holds two certificates. One covers its own liability. The other covers deduction on employees’ behalf. It also files returns under state rules. Late deposit attracts interest and penalty on the employer, not on you.

The self-employed pay it themselves, under an enrolment certificate. In Karnataka the rate is a flat ₹2,500 a year. It applies to listed professionals with more than two years standing. It also applies to anyone registered or liable to be registered under GST. So freelancers pick up the liability the moment they cross the GST threshold. See freelancer finance and GST registration.

Is professional tax deductible from taxable income?

Professional tax paid is deductible from salary income. The provision is section 16(iii) of the Income-tax Act, 1961. The catch is the regime. The concessional regime under section 115BAC withdraws most section 16 deductions. So the position is not the same in both regimes.

We will not state which deductions survive from memory. The incometaxindia.gov.in text was not reachable when we checked. Confirm the position from the Act, or from your own Form 16. Form 16 shows exactly what your employer allowed. Our pages on the old versus new tax regime and Form 16 and 26AS explain how to read it.