IAS salary

An IAS officer starts in the Junior Time Scale at Level 10 of the 7th CPC pay matrix, with an entry basic of Rs. 56,100 a month, and rises through eight grades to the apex Level 17 and, for the single post of Cabinet Secretary, Level 18. The Indian Administrative Service is entered through the UPSC Civil Services Examination , and at the current dearness allowance of 60 per cent the entry in-hand is about Rs. 1,01,000 a month in an X-class city.

This page sets out that pay in full: the entry basic and how the in-hand is built, the grade-and-pay ladder from Level 10 to Level 18, the two-increment edge the IAS carries over other services, the reported promotion timeline, and the postings at each grade. The exact take-home at entry is worked out by the salary by pay level calculator , set here to Level 10.

Pay at entry and in-hand

An IAS officer enters at the Junior Time Scale, Level 10, the same entry grade as the other directly recruited Group A services, including the Indian Revenue Service . The entry basic is Rs. 56,100 a month.

The in-hand of about Rs. 1,01,000 is for an X-class city. It is the figure once the officer is drawing full pay in a district or a secretariat posting; during the probation and training period at the academy, mess and hostel deductions bring the amount actually in hand down to a lower stipend, though the basic on which everything is reckoned stays Rs. 56,100. Income tax is not nil here, unlike the Level 7 and Level 8 posts below, because the annual taxable income crosses the Rs. 12 lakh rebate limit under the new regime, so a monthly tax of about Rs. 7,050 applies. The salary by pay level calculator recomputes the figure for a given city and scheme.

How the in-hand is built

The gross is the basic plus three allowances. Dearness allowance is 60 per cent of basic from 1 January 2026, revised every six months. House rent allowance is 30 per cent of basic in an X-class city, 20 in a Y, and 10 in a Z, computed on basic alone. Transport allowance for Level 9 and above is Rs. 7,200 a month in a higher-transport city, with dearness allowance added, which reads as Rs. 11,520 at the 60 per cent rate. Many IAS field postings come with an official vehicle and a government bungalow instead, in which case the officer draws the licence-fee rate rather than the full house rent allowance, so the cash in-hand and the value in kind differ from the table.

The deductions are the 10 per cent pension contribution to the National Pension System , the health-scheme and insurance subscriptions, and income tax. The take-home salary article works through the same build-up for any level, and the income tax for government employees article covers the two regimes at this income.

The grade and pay ladder

IAS pay is not one figure but a ladder of eight grades, each a level of the pay matrix , and the grade rather than the years of service fixes the pay. An officer moves up the ladder by promotion, and the postings that go with each grade run in parallel in the states and at the centre.

The IAS ladder uses Levels 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, and 18; it does not use Level 13A or Level 16, which belong to other services. The top two grades are fixed pay with no annual increment: Level 17 at Rs. 2,25,000 and Level 18 at Rs. 2,50,000, the highest cell of the civilian pay matrix, held only by the Cabinet Secretary. The Selection Grade cell of Rs. 1,23,100 is worth a note: the 7th CPC’s original Level 13 first cell was Rs. 1,18,500, and it was raised to Rs. 1,23,100 when the index of rationalisation for the level was revised from 2.57 to 2.67 by a resolution of May 2017 and the office memorandum of 28 September 2017. That revision applied to every Level 13 post across the services, not to the IAS alone, so the current cell for all of them is Rs. 1,23,100; the older Rs. 1,18,500 that some sources still quote is the superseded figure.

The two-increment edge

The IAS does carry a pay advantage over the other Group A services, but it is not at entry, where the pay is identical, and it is not a separate allowance. It is built into the promotion rule.

Under the Indian Administrative Service (Pay) Rules, 2016, an IAS officer gets two additional increments on promotion to the Junior Administrative Grade at Level 12 and again on promotion to the Selection Grade at Level 13. The effect is to place the officer two increment cells higher within the level than an officer of another service promoted to the same level at the same time. It does not change the entry cell of the level, and it does not add a cash allowance; it moves the officer up within the level, so the basic, and with it the dearness and house rent allowances that are percentages of basic, run a little ahead. This edge, along with faster access to the district and secretariat postings, is the pay difference between the IAS and, say, the Indian Revenue Service at the middle grades, rather than any gap at the starting cell.

The promotion timeline

The pay rises two ways: the annual increment of 3 per cent within a grade on 1 July each year, and promotion up the ladder. The promotion timeline is the larger lever, and it is reported rather than fixed, because it turns on the vacancies in the officer’s state cadre.

The commonly reported timeline runs to the Senior Time Scale in about four to five years, the Junior Administrative Grade, the District Magistrate grade, around nine years, the Selection Grade around thirteen, the Super Time Scale around sixteen, and the Above Super Time Scale after roughly twenty-four to twenty-five. The apex scale at Level 17 comes after about thirty years for those who reach it, with a Chief Secretary typically at around thirty-seven years of service. These figures vary by cadre and by the empanelment at the centre, so they are a guide, not a schedule; there is no official single timetable that fixes the years to each grade.

Postings at each grade

The grade and the posting move together, and the IAS officer holds line authority at each stage that other services do not. In the Junior Time Scale the officer is a Sub-Divisional Magistrate, running a sub-division of a district. In the Senior Time Scale the officer becomes an Additional District Magistrate in the state or an Under Secretary at the centre. The Junior Administrative Grade and the Selection Grade are the District Magistrate and Collector years, the officer heading a district, alongside Deputy Secretary and Director postings at the centre.

Above them the postings shift from the district to policy and supervision: a Divisional Commissioner or a Joint Secretary to the Government of India in the Super Time Scale, a Principal Secretary of a state department or an Additional Secretary at the centre above that, and at the apex a Chief Secretary heading a state administration or a Secretary heading a Union ministry. The single post of Cabinet Secretary, the senior-most civil servant, sits at Level 18. Movement between the state cadre and the centre runs on the deputation and empanelment system, under which an officer is empanelled for central postings at the Joint Secretary grade and above.

Entry, selection, and training

The route into the IAS is the Civil Services Examination conducted by the Union Public Service Commission , the three-stage examination, the preliminary test, the main examination, and the interview, that also recruits the Indian Police Service and the Indian Revenue Service . The IAS is allotted to the top rankers who prefer it, so it is the most competitive of the service allocations.

A selected officer trains before taking charge. After a Foundation Course of about fifteen weeks with the other services, an IAS probationer trains at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration in Mussoorie, in a professional course split around a year of district field training, and is awarded a postgraduate degree on completion. Only after the probation and the departmental examinations is the officer confirmed in the Junior Time Scale.

An All India Service

The Indian Administrative Service is one of the three All India Services, with the Indian Police Service and the Indian Forest Service, and this shapes the pay as much as the pay matrix does. An All India Service officer is recruited by the Union but allotted to a state cadre, and serves both the state and the centre over a career.

The Department of Personnel and Training is the cadre-controlling authority for the IAS, managing the recruitment intake, the cadre allotment, and the empanelment for central postings. The pay is fixed by the Union under the pay matrix and the IAS (Pay) Rules, but when the officer serves a state, the salary is paid from the state’s funds. This is why the pay is uniform across the country, an IAS officer at a given grade draws the same basic in any state, while the posting and the paying government change with the cadre and the deputation.

Allowances and pension

Beyond the three core allowances, an IAS officer draws the standard central-government entitlements as they apply, and field postings carry the official residence and vehicle noted above rather than a distinct IAS allowance; there is no general IAS-specific pay premium beyond the two-increment edge. Post-specific special pay may attach to certain deputation posts, but it is tied to the post, not to the service.

Pension follows the post-2004 rule. An IAS officer who joined after 1 January 2004 is covered by the National Pension System , contributing 10 per cent of basic plus dearness allowance against the government’s 14 per cent, or by the Unified Pension Scheme if opted from 1 April 2025, which assures 50 per cent of the average of the last 12 months’ basic pay after 25 years of service. The Old Pension Scheme is closed to post-2004 entrants, so serving officers at the junior and middle grades are on the contributory schemes.

How IAS pay compares

Against the posts filled through the SSC Combined Graduate Level examination, the IAS starts two levels and about Rs. 18,000 of in-hand above the Income Tax Inspector , at the same Level 10 as an Income Tax Officer ’s Assistant Commissioner above him, and it climbs faster and further, to grades those cadres reach only in small numbers. The salary by pay level chart shows the entry pay at every level side by side, and the central government jobs hub sets the UPSC and SSC routes in one map.

See also

• Indian Revenue Service
• Civil Services Examination
• Union Public Service Commission
• Central government jobs
• SSC CGL salary
• SSC CGL
• Income Tax Inspector salary
• Income Tax Officer
• Salary by pay level
• Salary by pay level calculator
• 7th CPC salary calculator
• Pay matrix
• 7th Central Pay Commission
• Take-home salary of central government employees
• Dearness allowance
• House rent allowance
• Transport allowance
• Annual increment
• Pay fixation on promotion calculator
• Department of Personnel and Training
• National Pension System
• Unified Pension Scheme
• Income tax for government employees
• Central government employees in India

External references

• Department of Personnel and Training
• Union Public Service Commission
• Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration
• Department of Expenditure
• Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority