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Current CTC and expected CTC: what to enter

CTC, cost to company, is the total an employer spends on you in a year: fixed salary, variable pay, and benefits such as the employer's provident fund contribution, gratuity accrual and insurance. It is not your take-home pay, and it is usually higher than your in-hand salary by a noticeable margin. Indian application forms ask for it in lakhs per annum, written LPA, and sometimes per annum in rupees or per month.

Enter your components and the tool gives the figure in every unit a form might use. Freshers: choose fresher and get the standard answers.

Your details
Basic, HRA and allowances paid regardless of performance.
Bonus or performance pay at target.
Employer PF contribution, gratuity, insurance premiums.
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What to enter
Fill in the details on the left and the exact text to enter appears here.

Current CTC versus in-hand salary

Forms ask for CTC, not take-home. If your offer letter says 7.5 LPA, your current CTC is 7.5 LPA even if your monthly credit is around 50,000 rupees after PF, tax and professional tax. Giving your in-hand figure understates your CTC and lowers every offer that follows.

Where a form asks for fixed and variable separately, give fixed as the guaranteed part and variable at target. If you have never received the variable in full, you may say so in an interview, but the form wants the contractual figure.

Expected CTC

The common ask on a move is a 20 to 30 percent rise over current CTC, more for a change of city to Bangalore, Mumbai or Gurgaon, or for a hard-to-fill skill. Give expected CTC in the same units as current CTC; mixing LPA and per annum on one form is the most frequent error and makes the application look careless.

Match the posting if it shows a band. An expected CTC above the posted maximum is usually filtered automatically.

Freshers and gaps

Current CTC for a fresher is Not applicable in a text field and 0 in a numeric one. Internship stipends are not CTC; mention them in the interview if useful. If you have been out of work, give your last CTC and say last drawn in a text box.

How FastApply answers this for you

FastApply answers expected salary and CTC questions from the salary you set in your profile, converting to the units the form asks for. Freshers mark their experience level and the AI answers current CTC as not applicable rather than inventing a figure.

Current CTC: common questions

Cost to company: the total your employer spends on you in a year, including fixed salary, variable pay and benefits like the employer's provident fund contribution. It is higher than your in-hand pay. Forms usually ask for it in lakhs per annum.
Not applicable in a text field, 0 in a number field. Never enter your expected salary in the current CTC field.
7.5 lakhs per annum, which is 7,50,000 rupees a year of total cost to company, about 62,500 rupees a month before deductions. Take-home is lower after PF and tax.
A 20 to 30 percent rise over your current CTC is the usual ask for a move, adjusted for the role, city and how in-demand your skills are. Stay inside the posting's band if it shows one, and use the same units as the current CTC field.
Yes, at target. CTC means the whole package. If the form asks for fixed and variable separately, split them; otherwise give the total.

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