Age Calculator

Most people know their age to the nearest year. Forms, exams and tax rules want it to the day. This calculator gives you the exact gap between two dates expressed the way officials expect it — completed years, then completed months, then leftover days — along with the total days lived and the countdown to your next birthday.

How exact age is calculated

Age is not a simple division of days by 365. The correct method walks through the calendar in three steps. First, subtract the birth year from the target year. Second, compare months: if the target month falls before the birth month, you have not completed the current year, so subtract one year and add twelve months. Third, compare the day of the month: if the target day is earlier than the birth day, borrow the number of days in the preceding month.

An example. Someone born on 15 March 1992, measured on 5 September 2026, is 34 years, 5 months and 21 days old. The year difference is 34, the month difference is 6, and because 5 is earlier than 15 we borrow 31 days from August, leaving 21 days and reducing the months to 5.

Leap years are handled automatically because the calculation uses real calendar dates rather than a fixed year length. This matters for anyone born on 29 February: in a non-leap year, Indian records and most institutions treat 1 March as the birthday for age purposes, so a person born on 29 February 2000 completes 18 years on 1 March 2018 in a year that has no 29 February.

Note the difference between "completed age" and "running age". Indian government forms almost always mean completed age — the age you have actually finished. A person who is 21 years and 11 months old is 21, not 22, for every eligibility test on this page.

Age on a specific date

The second field lets you set any date, past or future, and this is the field that matters most in practice. Almost every Indian eligibility rule is written against a cut-off date rather than the date you apply.

UPSC measures age as on 1 August of the examination year. SSC and most banking exams use 1 January or 1 August. School admissions use 31 March or 30 September depending on the state. Income tax treats you as a senior citizen if you turn 60 at any point during the financial year, so the relevant date is 31 March. Set the "as on" field to the exact cut-off in the notification and you will know where you stand before you fill the form.

Age limits that matter in India

Government job applications

Age is the most common reason applications are rejected outright, because the limit is checked mechanically against the cut-off date. For UPSC Civil Services the general-category window is 21 to 32 years as on 1 August of the exam year, with six attempts. OBC candidates get three extra years and nine attempts; SC and ST candidates get five extra years and unlimited attempts until the upper limit. Persons with benchmark disabilities get a further ten-year relaxation. Different services within the same exam can have different limits — the Indian Forest Service and the police services have their own physical and age criteria — so read the specific notification rather than relying on a general figure.

Senior citizen status and tax

Under the old tax regime, the basic exemption limit is ₹3,00,000 for those aged 60 to 79 and ₹5,00,000 for those aged 80 and above, against ₹2,50,000 for everyone else. Senior citizens also get a higher TDS threshold on interest — ₹1,00,000 a year against ₹50,000 — a Section 80TTB deduction of up to ₹50,000 on deposit interest, and exemption from paying advance tax if they have no business income. The new regime, which is now the default, applies the same ₹4,00,000 exemption to everyone regardless of age, so age-based tax relief only helps those who deliberately opt for the old regime. Banks separately add about 0.50 percentage points to FD rates for depositors aged 60 and above, which our FD calculator can price for you.

School admissions

Nursery and Class 1 admission cut-offs are set by each state and cause more anxiety than they should. A child born in April can end up a full year behind a child born in March simply because of where the cut-off falls. Check the exact date in your state's admission circular and compute your child's age as on that date, not as on the application date.