Which Deductions Survive Under the New Tax Regime? (Full Comparison Table)

Most people describe the new tax regime in one blunt sentence: no deductions. That is close enough to be useful as a warning, but not accurate enough to plan around. The new regime, now the default regime for every taxpayer in India unless they actively opt out of it, does remove the large majority of the exemptions and deductions that shaped Indian salary structures and tax-saving habits for decades. But three specific items survive intact in both regimes, and understanding exactly which three — and why those three and not the others — is what actually lets you compare the two regimes correctly instead of guessing.

This guide lays out all 15 major deductions and exemptions that a typical salaried taxpayer in India might claim, states plainly whether each is available under the old regime, the new regime, or both, and then explains the underlying logic that separates the three survivors from everything else. If you have already read about individual deductions like Section 80C or HRA elsewhere on this site, treat this page as the master reference that ties all of them together in one place.

The table below covers every major deduction and exemption a salaried individual is likely to encounter, tested against the FY 2026-27 (AY 2027-28) rules under the Income-tax Act, 2025.

Look down the "Not available" column and a clear pattern emerges. Twelve of the fifteen items disappear under the new regime, and every one of them falls into one of a small number of buckets: investment-linked incentives (Section 80C covering PPF, ELSS, EPF, and life insurance premiums, plus the additional NPS self-contribution under 80CCD(1B)), insurance-linked incentives (health insurance premiums under 80D), housing-related breaks tied to your own residence (HRA exemption under 10(13A), self-occupied home loan interest under 24(b), and the ability to set off a housing loss against your salary income under Section 71), borrowing-cost incentives (education loan interest under 80E), giving incentives (donations under 80G), small-savings interest exemptions (80TTA for savings accounts, 80TTB for senior citizen deposits), a travel allowance (LTA under 10(5)), and disability-related deductions (80DD and 80U).

Every item on that list shares one trait: each is a deliberate, opt-in incentive the government created to nudge a specific behaviour — save in PPF, buy health cover, take a home loan, give to charity, save more for retirement. The new regime is built on the opposite philosophy: lower slab rates for everyone, with the trade-off that none of these behavioural nudges apply. You do not lose them because you did something wrong; you lose them because the new regime is designed as a flat, incentive-free structure in exchange for lower rates across the board.

The three deductions that survive in both regimes are not exceptions to the rule above — they follow a different rule entirely. The standard deduction (Sec 16(ia), ₹50,000 in the old regime and ₹75,000 in the new regime) is not something you claim by investing or spending; every salaried person and pensioner gets it automatically, without proof, without a choice to opt in or out. It functions less like a tax-saving incentive and more like a flat adjustment built into how salary income is taxed at all.

The employer's contribution to your NPS account (Sec 80CCD(2), up to 14% of Basic+DA for government employees and 10% for private-sector employees) survives for a similar reason: it is not your money and not your decision. It is a component of your compensation structure that your employer contributes on your behalf, and the tax rules simply do not tax it as your income in the way they would tax an equivalent cash payout. It has nothing to do with whether you personally choose to save more for retirement — that is the additional, self-contributed NPS deduction under 80CCD(1B), which is exactly the one that does disappear under the new regime.

Home loan interest on a let-out (rented-out) property (Sec 24(b)) survives because it is not really a tax-saving deduction in the way the others are — it is a basic cost-of-earning-income adjustment. If you earn rental income, the interest you pay to finance the property that generates that income is a legitimate business-like expense against that income, similar to how any expense incurred to earn income is normally allowed to be netted off before the income is taxed. Contrast this with interest on a self-occupied home, where there is no rental income being earned at all — that deduction is a pure incentive to own a home, which is exactly the kind of behavioural nudge the new regime removes.

So the underlying distinction is this: the three survivors are either automatic and formulaic (standard deduction), a non-discretionary part of your compensation structure (employer NPS), or a genuine cost incurred to earn taxable income (let-out property interest). Everything else on the list of 15 is a deliberate, opt-in tax-planning choice you make — invest here, insure there, donate this much — and it is precisely that category of choice-driven incentive that the new regime, in exchange for its lower slab rates, does away with.

Each row in the table above has its own dedicated, detailed guide elsewhere on SmartDaddy covering eligibility, limits, and how to actually claim it: Section 80C tax-saving investments, Section 80D health insurance deduction, Section 80G donations deduction, HRA exemption explained, home loan interest tax deduction, NPS tax benefits under 80CCD, and the standard deduction, 87A rebate, and marginal relief guide. If a specific line in the table above is relevant to your situation, read the linked guide for that item before deciding how much of it to actually claim.

Knowing which deductions survive is only half the picture — the number that actually matters is how much tax you pay in total, and that depends on your income level, your actual eligible claims, and how the slab rates and rebates interact, not just on a yes/no list. Use the Income Tax Calculator to run your own numbers under both regimes, and the Deduction Planner to see exactly how much of your eligible old-regime deductions you are sitting on. For a full walkthrough of how the two regimes compare in principle, see the Old vs New Tax Regime guide, and for exact worked-out numbers across five income levels and four deduction scenarios, look for the site's worked-examples comparison article.