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8th Pay Commission: fitment factor and what your salary could be (what's decided and what isn't)

The 8th Pay Commission is still working, so the fitment factor isn't known. Here is what has been decided, how the factor and the DA reset change your pay, and what common scenarios would mean.

Published by Sumit Teli

Status as of October 2026. The 8th Pay Commission has not reported, so every salary figure here is a scenario, not a decision. Not financial advice.

The 8th Pay Commission salary calculator applies any fitment factor to your basic pay and shows DA and HRA before and after.

Try your own fitment factor

What's decided so far

DateDecision
January 2025Union Cabinet approves setting up the 8th Central Pay Commission.
28 October 2025Cabinet approves its Terms of Reference. Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai, a former Supreme Court judge, chairs it; Prof. Pulak Ghosh is a part-time member and Pankaj Jain the member-secretary.
18 months from constitutionDeadline for the final report, with interim reports allowed. That points to around the first half of 2027.
April 2026DA raised from 58% to 60% of basic pay, effective 1 January 2026, under the 7th CPC.
2026The commission collects memorandums and holds consultations with employee and pensioner groups.

The commission covers about 50 lakh central government employees, including defence personnel, and about 69 lakh pensioners. State governments usually follow with their own revisions later.

What isn't decided

  • The fitment factor. No figure has been recommended or notified.
  • The new pay matrix, including the minimum basic pay that replaces ₹18,000.
  • The effective date. 1 January 2026 is widely expected, ten years after the 7th CPC took effect on 1 January 2016, but the government has said the date will be decided later.
  • DA and HRA after the revision, and whether any allowances are merged, added or dropped.
  • Arrears, which depend on the effective date and on when the government accepts the report.

What the fitment factor does

The fitment factor converts your basic pay under the old pay matrix into basic pay under the new one:

Revised basic pay = current basic pay × fitment factor

The 7th CPC used 2.57. It multiplied the old pay by 2.57 and placed each employee in the new matrix at that figure or the next cell up. The old minimum of ₹7,000 × 2.57 = ₹17,990 became the new minimum of ₹18,000. The 6th CPC before it used 1.86.

The 2.57 wasn't a 157% raise. DA stood at 125% when the 7th CPC took over, so 2.25 of the factor simply folded DA into basic pay. The real increase was 2.57 ÷ 2.25 ≈ 1.14, about 14%.

Why DA changes the picture

When a new pay commission starts, DA is merged into basic pay and restarts at zero. So the honest comparison is not new basic against old basic, but new basic against old basic plus DA.

Real raise = fitment factor ÷ (1 + DA) − 1

With DA at 60%, a factor of 1.60 keeps you exactly where you are. Anything above that is a real raise:

Fitment factorReal raise on basic + DA (DA 60%)
1.600%
1.9220%
2.2842.5%
2.5760.6%
2.8678.8%

DA keeps rising every six months until the new pay is in place, so if the merger happens at a higher DA, the break-even factor rises with it. The calculator lets you change the DA figure for that reason.

Salary scenarios

Monthly basic + DA + HRA now, against the revised basic plus HRA at the 7th CPC's starting rates (24%, 16% and 8%) with DA at zero. Transport allowance, tax and deductions are left out.

EmployeeNow× 1.92× 2.28× 2.57× 2.86
Level 1, ₹18,000, X city₹34,200₹42,854₹50,890₹57,362₹63,835
Level 6, ₹35,400, Y city₹63,720₹78,843₹93,626₹1,05,534₹1,17,443
Level 10, ₹56,100, Z city₹95,370₹1,16,329₹1,38,141₹1,55,711₹1,73,282

At level 1, "now" is ₹18,000 basic + ₹10,800 DA + ₹5,400 HRA. With a 1.92 factor it becomes ₹34,560 basic + ₹8,294 HRA, about 25% more in total. The percentage is a bit higher than the 20% real raise because HRA is a share of the bigger basic pay.

HRA and other allowances

Under the 7th CPC, HRA started at 24%, 16% and 8% of basic pay for X, Y and Z cities, with minimums of ₹5,400, ₹3,600 and ₹1,800. It rose to 27%, 18% and 9% when DA crossed 25%, and to 30%, 20% and 10% when DA crossed 50% in January 2024. A similar reset is a reasonable assumption for the 8th CPC, but it isn't decided.

Transport allowance, children's education allowance and other allowances are revised by the commission too, so the final take-home change can differ from these estimates.

Pensioners are part of the commission's remit as well. Under the 7th CPC, pensions were revised with the same 2.57 factor, so a similar approach is likely, but like everything else here it isn't decided.

To make your own estimate, take the basic pay from your latest pay slip, not your gross salary, and note your city class. Then try a low, middle and high factor, say 1.92, 2.28 and 2.57, rather than relying on one number. The spread between them is the honest answer to "what will my salary be" until the report is out.

How to read the headlines

  • A "confirmed" fitment factor before the report is published and accepted is not confirmed.
  • Union demands are positions, not forecasts. Staff-side groups have asked for factors well above 2.57.
  • Compare any factor with 1 + DA. A factor below it would be a pay cut, so expect something above it.
  • Check announcements on the Department of Expenditure and Press Information Bureau websites.

Sources