Tax-free Leave Travel Allowance for a trip in India under rule 278, block 2026-2029
Estimates only, not financial advice. What you type stays on your device. Checked against sources on 30 Oct 2026.LTA is tax free for two journeys in India in each block of four calendar years, now 2026 to 2029, and only up to the fare for the shortest route by the mode used or what was actually spent, whichever is lower. The new regime allows no LTA exemption at all.
FY 2026-27 · Rates and rules read from the sources listed on this page (the earliest on 30 Oct 2026); they may have changed since.
Choose your Tax regime; LTA is tax-free only in the old regime.
Enter the LTA received for this journey and the calendar year of the journey.
Choose how many journeys were already exempted in this block.
For each part of the trip, choose How you travelled and enter what you actually spent and the fare cap.
Read the Tax-free LTA and Taxable LTA; the rules are from Rule 278, listed under Sources.
Leave Travel Allowance, which the Income-tax Act, 2025 calls travel concession or assistance, is exempt under Schedule III, Table Sl. No. 8 (section 10(5) in the 1961 Act). The conditions are in rule 278 of the Income-tax Rules, 2026. This calculator applies them to one journey and shows the exempt and taxable parts of what your employer paid.
The fare limits, by mode. The exempt amount is what the travel actually cost, but for each part of the trip no more than:
Fares change daily, so you enter the capped fare yourself. Only the ₹30 per km figure is fixed by the rule, and the calculator applies it to the distance.
How many journeys. Two journeys in each block of four calendar years counted from 2022, so the current block is 2026 to 2029. A journey not used in 2022-2025 can be carried over, but only to the first calendar year of the next block, 2026, and it does not use up one of the new block's two.
Regime. Section 202(2) of the Act leaves this exemption out of the new regime, so under it the whole LTA is taxable.
What it does not check. Travel must be within India; hotels, food and sightseeing are outside the fare limits. The exemption covers you and your family, but not more than two surviving children, except children born before 1 October 1998 and multiple births after one child. Journeys before 1 April 2026 were governed by the 1961 rules and are not covered here.
For each part of the journey, take the lower of what you spent and the fare rule 278 allows for that mode by the shortest route. Add those up. The exemption is the lower of that total and the LTA your employer paid; the rest of the LTA is taxable as salary.
Rule 278(2) counts blocks of four calendar years from 2022, so the current block runs from 1 January 2026 to 31 December 2029. Two journeys in that block can be exempt. The previous block ran from 2022 to 2025, and the next begins in 2030.
No. Section 202(2)(a)(i) of the Income-tax Act, 2025 computes new-regime income without the exemption in Schedule III, Table Sl. No. 8, which is the LTA exemption. Under the new regime every rupee of LTA is taxed as salary, however the trip was made.
Under rule 278(1)(i), a journey by air is exempt up to the fare admissible for the class of travel your employer entitles you to, by the shortest route to the destination. Ask your employer which class applies, and use the fare for that class on the shortest route as the cap.
Yes, once. Rule 278(3) lets a journey not availed of in one block be claimed in the first calendar year of the next block, and rule 278(4) says it does not count towards that block's two. For the 2022-2025 block, the carried-over journey must be made in calendar 2026.
No. Rule 278 limits the exemption to the fare for the journey by the shortest route, and Schedule III caps it at what was actually spent on the travel. Hotels, meals and local sightseeing fall outside those limits, so an LTA payment covering them is taxable.
Rates and rules change; check the source before you rely on a figure.
Still stuck? Ask about LTA Exemption Calculator and anybody who knows can answer. No account needed.
Also works as: LTA Calculator.
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