Calculate your Dearness Allowance (DA) on basic salary instantly — for Central Govt, State Govt employees, pensioners, and Army personnel.
A DA calculator is a free online tool that helps Central Government employees, State Government employees, pensioners and Army personnel find out exactly how much Dearness Allowance they are entitled to on their basic pay. Instead of manually working out the percentage on paper, you simply enter your basic pay, select the relevant period and get an instant, accurate figure along with a complete monthly and annual breakdown.
Dearness Allowance is paid to government employees and pensioners to help them cope with the rising cost of living. Since the rate is revised twice a year, keeping track of the correct figure for each period can get confusing. That is exactly why this tool also works as a DA arrear calculator, letting you work out how much extra you are owed whenever a new rate is announced with retrospective effect.
The official formula used under the 7th Pay Commission is based on the All India Consumer Price Index for Industrial Workers (AICPI IW):
Once this percentage is announced by the government, working out the actual DA amount on your salary becomes much simpler:
Wondering how DA in salary is calculated without doing the AICPI maths yourself? You do not need to. The government already publishes the applicable DA percentage twice a year, and all you have to do is apply it to your basic pay. This is essentially how DA is worked out for every serving employee: take your basic pay, multiply it by the current DA percentage and divide by 100.
This also explains how DA is calculated from basic salary in the simplest possible way, since DA is always computed as a percentage of basic pay alone, and never on allowances such as HRA or Transport Allowance.
Here is a quick example so the logic is easy to follow:
The same logic applies across every pay level. Only the basic pay figure changes from person to person, while the DA percentage stays identical for everyone under the same pay commission and revision period.
If you are looking for a quick reference to compare DA rates across different periods, useful for arrears, appraisals or simply tracking how DA has grown over time, here is a table covering recent revisions:
| Period | DA Rate |
|---|---|
| January 2026 | 60% |
| July 2025 | 55% |
| January 2025 | 50% |
| July 2023 | 42% |
| January 2023 | 38% |
| July 2022 | 34% |
| January 2022 | 31% |
| July 2021 | 28% |
| January 2021 | 17% |
Notice the big jump between January 2021 and July 2021. This happened because three DA installments were frozen during the COVID 19 pandemic and later restored together in July 2021. For quick reference, the rate for July 2023 was 42%, the current confirmed rate for January 2026 is 60%, July 2022 stood at 34%, January 2021 was 17% and January 2023 was 38%, all shown in the table above.
Since DA hikes are usually announced a few months after their effective date, employees are typically paid the difference as a lump sum, commonly called DA arrears. The arrear calculator tab in the tool above works out exactly how much this comes to.
This is especially useful for state government employees, since state DA arrears are often released separately from Central Government orders and can cover different time periods depending on the state.
Pensioners receive an equivalent benefit called Dearness Relief (DR), calculated using the same formula and percentage as DA for serving employees. Army and defence personnel also follow the same Central Government DA structure, applied to their respective basic pay scales. The calculator above lets you select your employee category so the breakdown reflects your specific situation.
Multiply your basic pay by the current DA percentage and divide by 100. For example, a basic pay of ₹50,000 at 60% DA gives you ₹30,000 as your monthly DA amount.
DA is calculated as a fixed percentage of your basic pay, with the percentage derived from the 12 month average of the AICPI IW index using the official 7th Pay Commission formula, and revised twice a year in January and July.
Take your basic salary figure only, excluding HRA, TA or other allowances, multiply it by the applicable DA rate and divide by 100 to get your DA amount.
For a basic pay of ₹40,000 at a 60% DA rate: (40,000 × 60) / 100 = ₹24,000 per month as your DA amount, added on top of your basic pay.
DA is applied only to the basic salary component of your pay, never to allowances, using the current government notified percentage for that revision period.
Your total salary combines Basic Pay, DA, HRA, Transport Allowance and other benefits. DA itself is simply basic pay multiplied by the current DA rate, forming one part of that overall total.
Pensioners receive Dearness Relief (DR) on their basic pension, calculated the same way as DA, basic pension multiplied by the current rate and divided by 100.
Army and defence personnel use the same Central Government DA formula and current rate, applied to their basic pay as per their respective rank and pay level.
Find the difference between the old and new DA rate, multiply it by your basic pay, divide by 100, then multiply by the number of months the arrear covers. State government DA arrears often follow separate timelines from Central Government orders, so always confirm the effective date from your state's official notification.
Handy tools to help you plan and calculate with confidence