Leave Travel Allowance exemption is narrower than most employees assume, it only covers the actual fare, by the shortest route, for travel within India, and only twice in a block of four years. A surprising number of LTA claims get rejected simply because someone assumed hotel and food costs were included.
Under Section 10(5), LTA exemption applies to the fare for you and your family’s travel within India, by the shortest available route, using economy class air, AC first-tier rail, or an equivalent mode. It does not cover hotels, food, sightseeing, or local conveyance at the destination, only the journey fare itself. International travel is never eligible.
The exemption applies to two journeys within any block of four calendar years (set by the government, not by your joining date), and there’s a limited carry-forward provision if you don’t use a claim in one block. Like HRA, this benefit only applies under the old tax regime.
No, only twice within a four-year block, so most people claim it roughly once every two years if they want to use both entitlements evenly across the block.
You can only claim exemption up to the lower of the two, LTA received or actual eligible fare, so the excess travel cost is simply a personal expense with no tax benefit.
Yes, typically spouse, children, and dependent parents/siblings travelling with you, subject to your company’s specific policy definition of “family.”
Our HRA Exemption Calculator covers the other major old-regime exemption, and our Take-Home Salary Calculator shows how they combine into your final tax outcome.
Run the comparison first. Our Income Tax Calculator lets you check both regimes side by side, sometimes the new regime’s lower slabs beat the old regime even after stacking HRA and LTA exemptions together.
Usually yes, as part of your CTC structure, check our CTC to In-Hand Salary Calculator if you want to see how it’s typically positioned alongside the other components.