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Combining inorganic–organic perovskites and crystalline silicon into a monolithic tandem solar cell has recently attracted increased attention due to the high efficiency potential of this cell architecture. Promising results with published efficiencies above 21% have been reported so far. To further increase the device performance, optical optimizations enabling device related guidelines are highly necessary. Here we experimentally show the optical influence of the ITO thickness in the interconnecting layer and fabricate an efficient monolithic tandem cell with a reduced ITO layer thickness that shows slightly improved absorption within the silicon sub-cell and a stabilized power output of 17%. Furthermore we present detailed optical simulations on experimentally relevant planar tandem stacks to give practical guidelines to reach efficiencies above 25%. By optimizing the thickness of all functional and the perovskite absorber layers, together with the optimization of the perovskite band-gap, we present a tandem stack that can yield ca 17.5 mA cm−2 current in both sub-cells at a perovskite band-gap of 1.73 eV including losses from reflection and parasitic absorption. Assuming that the higher band-gap of the perovskite absorber directly translates into a higher open circuit voltage, the perovskite sub-cell should be able to reach a value of 1.3 V. With that, realistic efficiencies above 28% are within reach for planar monolithic tandem cells in which the thickness of the perovskite top-cell and the perovskite band-gap are highly optimized. When applying light trapping schemes such as textured surfaces and by reducing the parasitic absorption of the functional layers, for example in spiro-OMeTAD, this monolithic tandem can overcome 30% power conversion efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]