Take-Home Pay Calculator

The three deductions that decide your paycheck

Gross pay is the number in the offer letter. Take-home pay is what survives three separate deductions, and each one follows its own rules. Federal income tax is progressive, so the rate climbs as income climbs. FICA is flat for almost everyone and funds Social Security and Medicare. State income tax depends on where you live and ranges from nothing to more than 10%.

Add the voluntary deductions and the picture is complete. A health insurance premium, a traditional 401(k) contribution and a commuter benefit all come out before or after tax depending on the plan, and they can move a paycheck by hundreds of dollars. This calculator handles the three required deductions, so treat its output as the ceiling on what you take home rather than the exact deposit.

One habit makes all of this easier. Work in annual numbers first, then divide by the number of pay periods, because the tax tables are annual. Dividing a single paycheck and multiplying by 26 is how people end up surprised in April.

Federal income tax: brackets, not a flat rate

The United States does not have a flat federal rate. It has seven brackets, and each one applies only to the dollars that fall inside it. The figures below come from IRS Revenue Procedure 2025-32, the inflation adjustment for tax year 2026, and the standard deduction for 2026 is $16,100 for a single filer and $32,200 for a married couple filing jointly.

Taxable income is not salary. Subtract the standard deduction first, and subtract any pre-tax contributions such as a traditional 401(k). A $75,000 salary for a single filer becomes $58,900 of taxable income, which is why the top bracket touched is 22% and the effective federal rate is closer to 10%.

That distinction is the source of most bracket arguments. Moving into the 22% bracket does not tax the first $50,400 at 22%, it taxes only the dollars above $50,400 at that rate. The IRS explains the mechanics in Publication 15, the employer tax guide, which is also where withholding tables come from.

FICA: the 7.65% almost everyone pays

FICA is two taxes in one line. Social Security takes 6.2% of wages up to an annual cap, and Medicare takes 1.45% of every dollar with no cap. Together they are 7.65%, and your employer pays a matching 7.65% that never appears on your stub.

For 2026 the Social Security wage base is $184,500, according to the Social Security Administration's payroll guidance. Up to that point the 6.2% applies, which is a maximum employee contribution of $11,439. Above it, the Social Security piece stops and only Medicare continues. That is why a $250,000 salary does not pay 7.65% overall.

High earners also meet the Additional Medicare Tax. Wages above $200,000 for a single filer, $250,000 for a joint return or $125,000 for a married person filing separately carry an extra 0.9%, withheld by the employer once payroll crosses the threshold. The SSA contribution base table is the place to confirm the cap for the current year, because it moves with average wages.

State tax: from zero to more than 10%

State income tax is the wild card. Nine states levy no tax on wages, a group of states use a single flat rate, and the rest run brackets that can climb past 10%. Two people with the same salary and the same federal return can take home sharply different amounts because of a state line.

Only flat-rate states are listed, because a bracket state needs its own table and its own deductions. The rates match the 2026 survey published by the Tax Foundation, rounded to two decimals. If your state is not on the list, look up its top rate and treat the result as an upper bound, since most bracket states tax the first dollars at a lower rate.

Cities can add another layer. New York City, Philadelphia and Detroit all withhold local tax on top of the state rate, and those amounts are not in this calculator. If you live in one of them, subtract another 1% to 4% before you trust the monthly figure.

Worked example: $75,000 single in Texas

Start with the federal side, because it is the largest piece.

• Taxable income: 75,000 - 16,100 = 58,900
• First bracket: 12,400 x 10% = 1,240
• Second bracket: 38,000 x 12% = 4,560
• Third bracket: 8,500 x 22% = 1,870
• Federal tax: 1,240 + 4,560 + 1,870 = 7,670

Then FICA, which is simpler. Social Security is 75,000 x 6.2% = 4,650 and Medicare is 75,000 x 1.45% = 1,087.50, so FICA comes to 5,737.50. Texas has no income tax, so the state line is zero.

The same salary in Illinois at 4.95% would lose another $3,712.50, leaving $57,880 a year or $4,823.33 a month. The state line is worth more than a month of groceries, and it is the one variable you can check before you accept an offer.

Withholding is not the same as your tax bill

Every paycheck withholds an estimate of your annual tax, based on the W-4 you filled out and the payroll tables in Publication 15. That estimate is deliberately rough. It assumes the job lasts all year, it does not know about a spouse's income, and it cannot see the credits you will claim in April.

The tax bill is calculated on the return. If withholding was too high you get the difference back as a refund, and if it was too low you write a check. A refund is not a bonus from the government, it is your own money returned without interest, which is why a $3,000 refund usually means the W-4 was set conservatively rather than that the year went well.

The practical fix is to check the W-4 once a year, especially after a raise, a marriage, a new dependent or a second job. The IRS Tax Withholding Estimator compares your withholding with your expected liability and tells you how to adjust the form. Getting it close means a small refund or a small bill instead of a surprise in either direction.

Why a raise adds less than you expect

Take a single filer in a no-tax state who moves from $60,000 to $65,000. At $60,000 the taxable income is $43,900, federal tax is $5,020 and FICA is $4,590, so take-home pay is $50,390. At $65,000 the taxable income is $48,900, federal tax is $5,620 and FICA is $4,972.50, so take-home pay is $54,407.50.

The raise is $5,000 and the extra take-home is $4,017.50, which is 80.4% of the raise. The missing $982.50 is 12% federal tax plus 7.65% FICA, and both apply to the extra dollars rather than to the whole salary. Nobody lost money by accepting the raise, and nobody kept the full amount either.

The share you keep falls as income rises, because each new bracket takes a bigger bite of the next dollar. At $150,000 the marginal rate on the next dollar is 24% federal plus 7.65% FICA, so a $1,000 raise adds about $684 to take-home pay. At $75,000 the same $1,000 raise adds about $703, because the marginal federal rate is 22%. The difference is small per dollar and large over a career, which is why the effective rate matters more than the bracket headline.

A raise can also push a household over a phase-out threshold for a credit, and that is the one case where the next dollar can cost more than the bracket suggests. Child tax credit phase-outs and education credits work that way. The bracket itself never does, so the story about refusing a raise to stay in a lower bracket is a myth with a real exception hiding inside it.

What this estimate leaves out

Four things move the real number away from the calculator. Pre-tax benefits come first: a 401(k) contribution and a health premium reduce taxable wages, so they lower federal and state tax while also lowering the deposit. A $5,000 traditional 401(k) contribution in the 22% bracket saves $1,100 of federal tax, which is why the paycheck falls by about $3,900 rather than $5,000.

Credits come second. The earned income credit, the child tax credit and the saver's credit can wipe out a large part of the federal bill for a household with children, and none of them appear in a bracket calculation. A family with two children can see a federal liability far below what the brackets suggest.

Local tax comes third, and self-employment tax comes fourth. If you are a contractor rather than an employee, the 7.65% FICA becomes a 15.3% self-employment tax and the employer half becomes a deduction instead of a contribution. That is a different calculation, and it is worth running separately before you set aside money for the quarter.

Figures use tax year 2026 brackets from IRS Revenue Procedure 2025-32, the 2026 Social Security wage base and flat state rates. They are a planning estimate, not tax advice. Confirm anything that matters with a tax professional or the official tables.