Net salary in Peru: quinta categoria, AFP or ONP

Income tax scale 2026

Gross to net for common salaries (2026)

Single filer without children, standard scale and employee contributions. Estimates for planning, identical to the calculator above.

Wage benchmarks in Peru

Minimum wage: the Remuneracion Minima Vital of the private-sector employment regime, raised by 105 soles to 1,130 by supreme decree 006-2024-TR, in force since 1 January 2025 and unchanged since. Average and median: no line. The INEI publishes a labour income rather than a gross salary, measured over employees AND the self-employed, over main and secondary activity together, and including the gratificaciones, the CTS and profit shares, so it cannot be set beside a monthly minimum wage without misleading; it publishes no median in that series either. The average pay of formally declared employees, which the labour ministry compiles, could not be read, its statistics host not responding.

A scale written in tax units, and a deduction that exempts most salaries

Peruvian income tax on salaries is not written in soles. Article 53 of the income tax law sets its five bands in UIT, the Unidad Impositiva Tributaria, a reference unit a supreme decree fixes each year: 5,500 soles for 2026. The bands are 8% up to 5 UIT, then 14%, 17%, 20% and 30% above 45 UIT, which in 2026 means 27,500, 110,000, 192,500 and 247,500 soles. Rewriting the decree is enough to move the whole scale, which is why the figures on this page carry a year.

Before any of that, article 46 removes a flat 7 UIT, 38,500 soles, from the year’s pay. A salary below that threshold carries no fifth-category tax at all, and that is where most Peruvian salaries sit. The same article allows a further deduction of up to 3 UIT for rent, doctors’ and dentists’ fees, certain services and hotel and restaurant spending, but it plays no part in the monthly withholding: article 75 of the law and article 40 b) of the regulation limit that withholding to the flat amount, the rest being settled by the employee on the annual return. This calculator follows the withholding rule.

One consequence is worth stating plainly, because it runs against the intuition of most tax systems: the pension contribution is not deductible. Article 46 lists what may be deducted and no pension scheme appears there, article 49 admits only the financial transactions tax and donations after that point, and article 75 narrows the monthly base to the flat 7 UIT alone. The scale therefore applies to gross pay less 38,500 soles, whatever has been withheld for retirement.

Sources: TUO de la Ley del Impuesto a la Renta, art. 53 · Decreto Supremo N° 301-2025-EF · TUO de la Ley del Impuesto a la Renta, art. 46 · TUO de la Ley del Impuesto a la Renta, art. 75

ONP or AFP: two schemes, and a statutory default that surprises

An employee belongs either to the national scheme, the ONP, or to one of the four private pension managers, the AFPs. The ONP is one line: 13% of insurable pay, borne entirely by the employee. That 13% is not written as a rate anywhere; article 2 of Law 26504 sets 11%, and it is the second transitional provision of the same law that imposes a floor, "no seran menores a 13%", from 1 January 1997. The employer adds nothing: its own contribution was abolished by that law, which the pension authority records in its annotated edition of the founding decree.

There is no ceiling on the ONP base. That is not an omission read into a silence: article 23.3 of the unified regulation of the national scheme states it, "no hay tope en la remuneración mensual asegurable", and the annotated edition gives the reason, to let a member raise their future pension. The counterpart is that the maximum pension is set at 893 soles a month by article 55.1 of the same regulation, save for higher amounts already being paid under a statutory entitlement.

An AFP takes 10% to the individual fund and an insurance premium of 1.37%, the only capped line, at an insurable salary of 12,672.65 soles a month revised quarterly. The manager’s commission depends on which schedule the member falls under. Anyone who joined the private system from 2013 is on the balance commission: it is not withheld from pay but charged yearly on the fund itself, from 0.68% at Profuturo to 1.25% at Habitat and Prima, its flow component having been nil since February 2023. The flow commission, 1.47% at Habitat to 1.69% at Profuturo, now reaches only those who chose to stay on it in 2013. These are the figures the supervisor published for the August 2026 accrual month. This calculator models an AFP with no payroll commission by default, which is the case of anyone affiliating today, and offers the ONP as the alternative. Nor is the AFP always chosen: anyone entering the private system for the first time is assigned to whichever AFP won the current tender, for two years.

Sources: Ley N° 26504 · Decreto Ley N° 19990, edicion anotada de la ONP · Reglamento Unificado de las Normas Legales que regulan el SNP, arts. 23 y 55 · SBS, Comisiones y Primas de Seguro por AFP

What the employer pays, and what is never withheld

Health cover does not appear on the employee side of a Peruvian payslip at all. EsSalud is 9% of pay, and article 6 a) of Law 26790 attributes it to the employer, "es de cargo de la entidad empleadora". The negative is anchored in the article’s own structure rather than in a silence: its next paragraph, on pensioners, does use the word "retencion", so the legislator withholds when it means to withhold. On a salary of 120,000 soles a year the employer therefore pays 130,800 soles in all.

The same article sets a floor rather than a ceiling: the monthly base may not fall below the minimum wage, 1,130 soles since 1 January 2025. It binds only under that level and is not modelled here. An employer that contracts with a private health entity can also offset part of the 9%, a credit this page does not quantify.

Sources: Ley N° 26790, art. 6 · Decreto Supremo N° 006-2024-TR

Fourteen payments, two of which carry no contribution

A Peruvian year holds fourteen payments, not twelve. Law 27735 makes two gratificaciones compulsory, one in the first half of July and one in the first half of December. Each is worth a month’s pay for someone who worked the whole half-year; below that it is proportional to the months worked, and it assumes the employee is at work on the date it falls due, or on paid leave, on paid licence or drawing social security benefit. What makes them unusual is their treatment: article 1 of Law 30334 puts them outside every contribution, "no se encuentran afectas a aportaciones, contribuciones ni descuentos de índole alguna", its closing proviso leaving only the deductions established by law or authorised by the employee; and it is on that proviso that article 2 of decree 012-2016-TR expressly keeps the income tax withholding.

Because the employer saves its 9% EsSalud contribution on those two payments, article 3 of the same law hands that saving to the employee as a bonificacion extraordinaria, itself contribution-free and taxable, article 34 a) of the law expressly listing bonificaciones as fifth-category income; it drops to 6.75% for an employee covered by a private health entity. And the CTS, which people often count as a further payment, is not one: it is a half-yearly deposit into a bank account in May and November, and article 18 of the income tax law places it outside the tax altogether, at c) of its list of ingresos inafectos.

This calculator models the twelve ordinary monthly salaries. Entering a monthly figure multiplied by fourteen would make the engine levy pension on two payments that bear none, so an annual Peruvian package is larger than the figures above, and its pension line smaller in proportion.

Sources: Ley N° 27735 · Ley N° 30334, arts. 1 y 3 · Decreto Supremo N° 012-2016-TR · TUO de la Ley del Impuesto a la Renta, art. 18