What income does the HDFC Regalia Gold card ask for?

HDFC’s published income floor for the Regalia Gold is ₹1.5 lakh a month if you are salaried outside government, ₹1 lakh a month if you are a government employee, and an Income Tax Return above ₹18 lakh a year if you are self-employed. Those are the figures on HDFC’s own card pages as of September 2026. They are minimums. The pages say nothing about how the bank weighs an application once the floor is met.

The three published floors

HDFC splits applicants into three groups. Each has its own income test and its own age band.

Salaried applicants in private employment need a monthly income above ₹1.5 lakh and must be between 21 and 60 years old. Over a year that is ₹18 lakh, the same figure HDFC asks of the self-employed, so the two main routes line up once you annualise them.

Salaried government employees have a lower bar: a monthly income above ₹1 lakh, or ₹12 lakh a year, with the same 21 to 60 age band.

Self-employed applicants are tested on their ITR, not on a monthly figure. The return has to show more than ₹18 lakh a year, and their age band runs to 65.

All three groups must be Indian nationals. Neither page lists any other condition, such as a minimum length of credit history or an existing HDFC account.

Gross or net: the two HDFC pages disagree

HDFC’s eligibility page for the card describes the salaried test as gross monthly income above ₹1.5 lakh. The main product page, one click away, calls the same threshold net monthly income above ₹1,50,000, and it uses net for the government figure too.

Those are two different tests. Gross income is salary before tax and deductions. Net is what arrives in your account after income tax, provident fund and professional tax come out, and it is always the smaller number. A salary slip that shows ₹1.5 lakh gross does not show ₹1.5 lakh net.

HDFC does not say which page governs. If your net monthly pay clears the figure, you clear both readings. If only your gross pay clears it, you meet one page’s wording and not the other’s, and nothing HDFC publishes tells you which one the bank applies.

The self-employed test has no such split. Both pages say ITR above ₹18 lakh a year.

What the floor does not tell you

Clearing the income floor does not mean HDFC issues the card. The bank runs other checks, a credit report among them, and publishes none of those criteria for this card. This guide does not estimate anyone’s chances, because the published material gives no basis for doing so.

The route you apply under also sets the upper age. The salaried route closes at 60. The self-employed route stays open to 65, and it tests the ITR instead of a monthly salary.

What the card costs once you hold it

Once you hold the card, the fee, the lounge visits and the milestones all depend on how much you put through it.

The joining and renewal fee is ₹2,500 plus tax. In the first year a ₹2,500 gift voucher comes back against that fee. From the second year, the renewal fee is waived if you spend ₹4 lakh on the card in the year. That is about ₹33,333 a month. Set against the ₹18 lakh annual income floor, the waiver spend is 22.2% of the minimum qualifying income.

Domestic lounge access also depends on spend. Since 1 July 2026, the card gives 3 domestic visits in a calendar quarter only after ₹60,000 of spend in the quarter before, which averages ₹20,000 a month. Priority Pass adds 6 international visits a year, with no spend gate attached.

The milestones sit higher. Spending ₹1.5 lakh in a quarter earns a ₹1,500 Myntra or Nykaa voucher. Spending ₹5 lakh in a year earns a ₹5,000 SmartBuy flight voucher, and reaching ₹7.5 lakh earns a second one.

The base earn rate is 5 reward points per ₹200. Fuel, rent and wallet loads earn nothing.

What to check on your own paperwork

Start with your salary slip. Find the gross figure and the net pay line, and compare each with ₹1.5 lakh, or with ₹1 lakh if you work for government. If only the gross figure clears it, you are in the case where HDFC’s two pages disagree.

If you are self-employed, the number to look at is the total income on your most recent filed ITR. Turnover does not count and neither does a bank balance. It has to be above ₹18 lakh.

Check your age against the band for your route: up to 60 for salaried, up to 65 for self-employed.

Then take your last few card statements and add up the spend you would move to this card. If the monthly total is under ₹33,333, the renewal fee is likely to be charged from the second year. If it is under ₹20,000, the domestic lounge visits stay locked.

Krediit reads this card’s income floor, fee waiver and lounge gate from the same catalog record, and tracks your spend against the waiver and the quarterly gate so the shortfall shows before the quarter closes.