Radiologist salary in India in 2026: employed, freelance and teleradiology pay

Radiologist pay in India comes in two shapes. An employed radiologist draws a salary: published 2026 figures put entry-level pay at ₹9 to 12 lakh a year, ₹15 to 25 lakh with four to ten years’ experience, and ₹30 lakh or more for a subspecialist at a metro hospital.¹ A freelance or teleradiology radiologist is paid per study: one large network publishes flat rates of ₹425 to 575 a study with uplifts for evenings and nights,¹⁴ and the Indian Radiological and Imaging Association (IRIA) publishes minimum charges from ₹300 for a CT brain to ₹1,200 for a cardiac MRI.³ This guide gives the sourced numbers for both, then covers tax, costs and the demand that sits behind them.

Employed salaries by experience

The most recent published breakdown is from June 2026. It should be read as a range rather than a scale: a hospital’s size, its city and whether it is corporate, trust or government all move the number.

The same publisher reports that a permanent radiologist costs a hospital ₹9 to 25 lakh a year, and that tier-2 and tier-3 hospitals report six- to eighteen-month searches to fill a single post.² Both figures are consistent with the salary table and with the shortage described in the radiologist shortage guide.

By city and sector

There is no reliable published city-by-city salary table for radiologists in India, and this guide does not invent one. What the sources do support is qualitative. Between 70 and 80 percent of practising radiologists work in tier-1 metros,² and the ₹30 lakh-plus band is explicitly a metro, subspecialist figure.¹ Large corporate hospital chains in metros pay at the top of each band; smaller private hospitals and trust hospitals in tier-2 and tier-3 cities pay less in cash but often find it harder to fill the post at all, which is why they turn to remote reporting.

Government and medical-college posts run on pay-commission scales rather than negotiated salaries, with allowances and pension terms that a cash comparison does not capture. Many government radiologists also read privately in the evening where their service rules permit, which blurs the line between the employed and freelance figures below.

Per-study and freelance income

Teleradiology pays per study, and the rate for a given study is set by five things: the modality (CT or MRI), the study type (a CT brain is paid less than a triphasic CT abdomen), whether contrast was given, the priority (routine, urgent or STAT), and the shift (day, evening or night).³

The IRIA floor

The IRIA’s April 2024 circular sets minimum radiologist charges for teleradiology reporting, or 10 percent of the gross scan charge, whichever is higher. It adds ₹100 for contrast, extra for nights and emergencies, and states that the floor does not apply to government or corporate hospitals.³

What networks actually pay

5C Network, the largest published example, pays a flat ₹425 to 575 a study, with 10 percent more in the evening and 20 percent more between 1 and 5 AM, on a monthly payout.¹⁴ A June 2026 career guide from an insurer puts market pay at ₹200 to 800 a study, subspecialists above ₹500, and full-time teleradiology income above ₹25 lakh a year.⁵ Rates below the IRIA floor exist, particularly for X-ray, and a radiologist should know the floor before accepting a rate card.

An illustrative month

The calculation below is illustrative only. It is not Raydiac’s rate and not a promise of volume; it shows how the arithmetic works.

Twelve such months would gross ₹16.2 lakh, inside the employed 4-to-10-year band, from roughly ten studies a day. Doubling the volume or reading more contrast and night studies moves the figure up; reading fewer, or reading only routine CT brains, moves it down. Whether that beats a salary depends on the costs in the section below.

Taxes for freelance radiologists

A freelance radiologist is a professional for income-tax purposes. Two deduction regimes apply depending on who pays. Fees paid through a platform that is an e-commerce operator attract TDS at 0.1 percent under section 194-O, with no deduction until the gross through that platform passes ₹5 lakh in the year for a resident individual with a PAN; the provision continues as section 393 of the Income-tax Act 2025 from 1 April 2026.⁶ Fees a hospital pays a radiologist directly attract 10 percent under section 194J.⁷ In both cases the deduction is a prepayment of the radiologist’s own income tax, claimed through Form 16A.

The report itself is GST-exempt as a health care service by an authorised medical practitioner,⁸ so a radiologist does not charge GST on reporting fees. Presumptive taxation schemes for professionals exist and may suit some radiologists; whether one applies, and what it does to allowable expenses, is a question for a chartered accountant. The GST and TDS guide works through the invoice line by line.

Costs of freelance reading

The per-study figures above are gross. A freelance radiologist carries costs an employer would otherwise absorb.

• A diagnostic-grade display. The ACR–AAPM–SIIM standard for diagnostic displays calls for a minimum luminance of at least 1.0 cd/m², a maximum of about 350 cd/m², calibration to the DICOM greyscale standard display function within 10 percent, and ambient light of 25 to 75 lux.¹¹ A consumer monitor does not meet this. The DICOM viewer guide explains what the standard means in practice.
• Professional indemnity. The IRIA Radiologist Protection Scheme provides indemnity through CoverYou with ICICI Lombard at a reduced premium and continuity of retroactive dates;⁹ CoverYou’s doctor professional indemnity starts at ₹299 a month.¹⁰ Hospitals expect named reporting radiologists to carry their own cover.
• Reliable internet with a backup connection, since a full CT or MRI study is streamed to the browser.
• No employer benefits. No paid leave, provident fund, gratuity or health cover, and no income in a month with no studies.

Demand context

India has roughly 20,000 to 22,000 practising radiologists for about 1.4 billion people, and 70 to 80 percent of them work in tier-1 metros.² Hospitals outside those cities report searches of six to eighteen months to fill one post.² That gap is why per-study reporting exists as a market at all, and why a radiologist in a metro can read for a district hospital several hundred kilometres away in the evening. The demand is strongest for CT and MRI, for nights and weekends, and for hospitals that have a scanner but no radiologist on the roster.

How Raydiac pays

Raydiac is a managed teleradiology network, not an employer. Radiologists on the network are independent contractors who choose their modalities and shifts. Pay is a published per-study rate that depends on modality, study type, contrast, priority and shift, shown separately from the platform fee and shared as a rate card during onboarding; the IRIA floor is the reference point. Each month the radiologist receives a payout statement listing every study read, the gross fee, the TDS deducted under section 194-O and the net amount, followed by Form 16A. Settlement runs through an authorised payment aggregator’s split settlement so that the radiologist’s share never passes through Raydiac’s own account.

Every report carries the radiologist’s name, qualification, registration number and council, and every study is read in full by the radiologist who signs it. The for radiologists page sets out the credentialing steps and the teleradiology jobs guide compares this with an employed hub post.