Cost Inflation Index Table and Calculator

The complete cost inflation index published by the CBDT, with a calculator that applies it to your own purchase cost.

The full table

Base year 2001-02 is set at 100. Source: CBDT notification dated 15 July 2026.

What this index actually is

Money loses value over time. A lakh of rupees in 2001 bought a great deal more than a lakh buys today. So taxing the whole difference between an old purchase price and a current sale price would be taxing inflation as though it were profit.

The cost inflation index is the government's correction for that. The CBDT publishes one number per financial year. The base year, 2001 to 2002, is fixed at 100, and every later year carries a higher number that reflects how prices have moved since.

For 2026-27 the index is 384. So a cost incurred in the base year is multiplied by 384 divided by 100 before it is set against the sale price.

A worked example, start to finish

A flat bought in March 2005 for Rs 18,00,000, sold in this financial year for Rs 95,00,000.

Step one, find both index numbers. The year of purchase, 2004-05, and the year of sale. Both are in the table above.

Step two, index the cost. Purchase price multiplied by the index for the year of sale, divided by the index for the year of purchase. That gives the indexed cost of acquisition.

Step three, subtract. Sale price minus indexed cost is your long term capital gain. Not sale price minus what you paid, which is the figure most people arrive at on their own and it is always too high.

Put your own numbers into the calculator above and it shows each of these three lines separately, so you can see where the tax actually goes.

Doing it by hand

The formula is short. Indexed cost equals your original cost, multiplied by the index for the year you are selling in, divided by the index for the year you bought in.

Say you bought in 2010 to 2011, when the index was 167, and you are selling in a year when the index is 384. The multiplier is 384 divided by 167, which is about 2.3. A cost of twenty lakh becomes an indexed cost of about forty six lakh, and that larger number is what gets subtracted from your sale price.

The 2001 rule that catches most people out

If the property was bought before 1 April 2001, you do not index the old purchase price at all. You start from what the property was worth on 1 April 2001, and you index that figure instead.

This matters far more than most sellers expect. An old purchase price from the 1980s is usually tiny, while the 2001 value of the same property is often ten or twenty times larger. Substituting it, and then indexing it, is frequently the difference between a large tax bill and a small one.

The catch is that the 2001 value has to be evidenced. This guide explains how a valuer establishes it and why a guessed figure gets rejected.

When indexation is no longer available

For transfers on or after 23 July 2024 the standard route is a flat 12.5 percent with no indexation at all. Resident individuals and HUFs who bought before that date may still compute the old way and pay whichever tax is lower.

So the index has not disappeared. It has become one of two calculations you compare, which is exactly what our capital gains calculator does for you.

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