If you are a salaried employee on the new tax regime and feel you have lost every deduction, here is the one big exception. Under Section 80CCD(2) of the Income Tax Act, the amount your employer puts into your NPS account is deductible from your income, and it survives in the new regime when almost nothing else does. For private-sector staff taxed under the new regime, the cap is now 14 percent of your basic salary plus dearness allowance, with no upper rupee ceiling.
Most people think the new tax regime (Section 115BAC) kills all deductions. It removes most Chapter VI-A deductions, but the Income Tax Department's own FAQ confirms three named survivors: 80CCD(2), 80CCH and 80JJAA. NPS has three separate sections, and only one works in the new regime. Get this wrong and you either miss a saving or claim something the system rejects.
| NPS deduction | Whose money | Old regime | New regime (115BAC) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 80CCD(1) | Your own contribution | Allowed (within Rs 1.5 lakh 80C cap) | NOT allowed |
| 80CCD(1B) | Your extra Rs 50,000 | Allowed (extra Rs 50,000) | NOT allowed |
| 80CCD(2) | Employer's contribution | Allowed | Allowed |
The single point to remember: 80CCD(1) and 80CCD(1B) are your own contributions and are OLD-regime only. 80CCD(2) is your employer's contribution and is allowed under BOTH regimes. If you are on the new regime, 80CCD(2) is effectively the only meaningful tax break left for routing salary into retirement savings.
This is why financial planners now push salaried employees to ask their employer to start a corporate NPS contribution. In the old regime you had several levers; in the new regime, 80CCD(2) is the lever.
The deduction equals the employer's actual NPS contribution, capped as a percentage of your “salary.” Here, salary means basic pay plus dearness allowance only, not HRA, bonus, perquisites or other allowances.
The cap depends on who you are and which regime you are in:
The 14 percent figure for private-sector staff on the new regime is the important recent change. The Finance (No. 2) Act, 2024 added a proviso to Section 80CCD: where your total income is chargeable to tax under Section 115BAC(1A) (the new regime), the words “ten per cent” in clause (b) are read as “fourteen per cent.” This took effect from 1 April 2025 and applies from Assessment Year 2025-26 onwards. In plain terms, a private employee who opts for the new regime now gets the same 14 percent cap that government employees always had.
Two more points that make this section attractive:
One rule not to confuse with this: under Section 17(2), if total employer contributions to NPS, EPF and an approved superannuation fund in a year exceed Rs 7.5 lakh, the excess is taxed as a perquisite. That caps tax-free employer contribution, not your 80CCD(2) deduction. For most employees the percentage cap binds first, so this rarely bites.
The catch with 80CCD(2) is that you cannot claim it unless your employer actually contributes to your NPS account. Your own NPS deposits go under 80CCD(1)/(1B) (old regime only). So the deduction depends on a payroll change. Here is the practical route:
If your employer is a government department or a public authority and you are unsure of their NPS policy, contribution circular, or the percentage they actually deposit, you can ask for that information formally. A simple RTI request to the establishment or accounts section of a government employer for “the NPS employer contribution rate applied and the relevant office order” is squarely within the RTI Act, 2005. Our AI RTI Drafter can frame that request in seconds, and the Timeline Tracker tells you when the 30-day reply is due.
Worked example: Priya, software engineer, new regime
Priya earns a basic + DA of Rs 10,00,000 a year and is taxed under the new regime. She asks HR to enable a corporate NPS contribution of 14 percent of her basic + DA.
Her own 80CCD(1) / 80CCD(1B) deposits would have given her nothing in the new regime. The employer route gave her a real Rs 43,000-odd saving while building her retirement corpus.
For the full citizen-friendly playbook on using RTI to extract documents from a government employer, see The RTI Playbook.
Yes. The Income Tax Department's official FAQ states that under the new regime no Chapter VI-A deductions are allowed except 80CCD(2), 80CCH and 80JJAA. The employer's NPS contribution under 80CCD(2) is specifically preserved under Section 115BAC.
80CCD(1) is your own NPS contribution within the Rs 1.5 lakh limit. 80CCD(1B) is an extra Rs 50,000 of your own money. Both are old-regime only. 80CCD(2) is your employer's contribution and is allowed in both regimes.
Government employees get 14 percent of basic + DA. Private-sector employees get 10 percent under the old regime, but 14 percent if they are taxed under the new regime, following the Finance (No. 2) Act 2024 change effective from Assessment Year 2025-26.
No. For Section 80CCD(2), salary means basic pay plus dearness allowance only. HRA, bonus, perquisites and special allowances are excluded when working out the 10 or 14 percent cap.
No fixed rupee cap applies to 80CCD(2) itself; it is limited only by the percentage of your basic + DA. Separately, total employer contributions to NPS, EPF and superannuation above Rs 7.5 lakh in a year are taxed as a perquisite under Section 17(2), but that is a different rule.
No. 80CCD(2) only covers money your employer actually deposits into your NPS account. Without an employer contribution there is nothing to deduct. Ask HR to register for Corporate NPS and route part of your CTC as an employer NPS contribution.
No. In the new regime only the employer's 80CCD(2) contribution is deductible. Your own deposits under 80CCD(1) and 80CCD(1B) give no deduction in the new regime; they help only if you are in the old regime.