Annual tax calculator
Against what was already withheld.

The tax the exercise leaves you owing, next to what payroll deducted month by month. The balance can land in your favour or against you: both are normal.

✓El Salvador rules · Sources verified on 14 August 2026

This is an educational estimate. It does not replace your official return to the DGII or a review by an accountant. It works from the figures you type and the article 37 table; your real return can differ because of income this page does not model, definitive withholding, or deductions you can prove and that are not here. Do not make a payment decision on it alone.

Your year

Employee whose income is only salary

Tax yearThe exercise you are filing for

Where the figures come from

Monthly salary

Months worked in the year

Estimated from salary$12,000.00 · Income tax withheld in the year: $725.40Identical months, no bonuses and no salary changes, and without the June and December recalculation — which can move a few cents. If your year was not flat, take the figures off your payslips and switch to "I have them".

Year-end bonus received

Optional. Only the part above the exempt amount joins the year's income.

I had more than one employer during the year

Article 33 receipts

Only for those above $9,100 of renta obtenida

Medical expenses

Schooling or tuition

Up to $800 for each concept. They are not attached to the return, but must be kept for six years.

Article 32 is not here. Article 29 numeral 7 sends anybody above $9,100 to articles 32 and 33, and this page models only 33. If you made deductible donations, the balance you see is larger than the one you will file. We do not print article 32's ceiling because nobody has read it back against the consolidated text for this project, and a figure from memory is exactly what this site does not do.

Estimated balance

Estimated balance against you$320.03This is an estimate of the balance, not a settlement. Check it before paying.

What would close this balance$1,600.00

The full $1,600 of receipts brings the balance down to $0.03. The rest does not close this way.

Taxable pay$12,000.00

Pension−$870.00compulsory contribution: renta no gravable

Renta obtenida$11,130.00the $9,100 and $60,000 tests read this

ISSS−$360.00deduction

Deductions applied−$0.00Article 33 receipts

Taxable income$10,770.00Band 3

Tax for the year$1,045.43

Already withheld$725.40

The threshold is measured on the renta obtenida (taxable pay less the compulsory pension contribution), not on gross pay. The ISSS is not excluded at this point: it reduces the renta imponible, but not the renta obtenida.

Do you have to file?

Article 38 of the Income Tax Law

Do you have to file?Yes, under article 38

Filing deadline30 April 2026Four months after the exercise closes (arts. 13 and 48)

What was withheld does not match the tax from the article 37 table.

Article 38 sets no minimum difference: any difference is a failure of correspondence. That is why this page shows the balance even when it is cents, instead of applying a threshold of its own.

Anyone above $9,100 who does not get the flat deduction may file for a refund, even without being required to.

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The right to request a refund exists. Its deadline and procedure are set by the Código Tributario, which this page does not cite yet, so we do not state them here.

Why so many people are owed a refund without doing anything wrong

Monthly withholding is an estimate made with one month's information. The return is the whole year's account, and there are structural reasons for the two to differ.

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You worked part of the year

Five months of salary can land under the year's exempt band, even though each of those months withheld as if you were going to work all twelve.

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December's excess is not refunded by payroll

When the December recalculation comes out negative, literal i) does not refund it: it sends you to the annual return. That money is only recovered here.

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You had more than one employer

Each withheld as if its salary were the only one. Added together, the progressive bands give another figure.

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One unusual month

A bonus or some overtime pushes that month's withholding into a band the whole year does not support.

And why others end up owing. The withholding tables for bands III and IV already carry $1,600 of deductions inside them. Article 37 does not hand that over: it gives it to whoever earns up to $9,100 — as the flat deduction — or to whoever is above that and has medical or schooling receipts. Someone above $9,100 who spent nothing on those was under-withheld all year, and the difference shows up in April. It is nobody's mistake: it is how the tables are built.

Sources and rules applied

LOANPILOT INCOME TAX 101

How the year's account is built

Four pieces, in this order. Change any of them and the balance moves.

01$

Renta obtenida

Everything taxable you received in the year, including the excess of the bonus. The Quincena 25 stays out: the law declares it non-taxable.

02−

Less contributions

Pension and ISSS both leave the base before the table, but not in the same way: the compulsory pension contribution is renta no gravable and falls outside the renta obtenida, while the ISSS only lowers the renta imponible.

03§

Less deductions

Either the flat $1,600 if your renta obtenida is at or under $9,100, or up to $800 of medical and $800 of schooling if it is above. Never both.

04%

The article 37 table

On what is left. Its first band, up to $6,600 a year, has been exempt since D.L. 293 of 2025.

Annual tax calculatorAgainst what was already withheld.