Paycheck Calculator

What this paycheck calculator includes

This paycheck calculator models the deductions that account for almost all of the gap between a salary and what actually lands in your account:

• Federal income tax withholding, using the current year's brackets and standard deduction.
• Social Security at 6.2% of gross wages, up to the annual wage base.
• Medicare at 1.45% of gross wages, with the additional 0.9% surtax above the high-earner threshold.
• State income tax, using each state's own structure — flat, graduated, or none at all.
• Pre-tax deductions, including 401(k) contributions and employer match.

What it cannot see is just as important. It does not know about city or county income taxes (Manhattan, Philadelphia, most of Ohio and Kentucky), state disability or paid-leave levies such as California SDI, New York PFL, Washington Cares, Oregon Paid Leave, Colorado FAMLI or Massachusetts PFML, court-ordered garnishments, union dues, imputed income from employer-paid life insurance, health premiums specific to your plan, dependent exemptions, senior or blind additions, or a mid-year change in pay or filing status. Those are real money and they are invisible to any calculator that does not have your actual benefits enrolment.

This models your annual tax liability, not your withholding. That distinction explains most of the gap when a result does not match a paystub. Many states withhold against completely different figures than the ones used on the annual return — Iowa withholds against a $13,000 standard deduction where the return uses the federal $16,100; New York withholds against roughly $7,400; Ohio subtracts $650 a year per exemption against a return exemption of $2,400 and uses a different rate schedule entirely; Oregon applies no income phase-out during the year even though the return does; South Carolina's 2026 withholding tables still use the pre-reform rate schedule and a $7,500 deduction, where the return now uses the new two-tier rates and the income-adjusted deduction. Your employer is following the withholding rules, and the two numbers are supposed to differ. The return is what settles it.

Where our state figures are approximate. We would rather say this than imply more precision than we have. Arizona, Ohio and Vermont had not published tax-year 2026 standard deduction or exemption amounts when this page was last updated, so their most recent confirmed figures are used. California and New York figures are tax-year 2026, confirmed against the Franchise Tax Board and the Department of Taxation and Finance. Utah is not modelled at all — its relief is a credit calculated from your federal deduction that then phases out, which does not fit the same shape as other states, so Utah's figure runs high. Ohio's exemption varies by income band and only one band is applied. Alabama's standard deduction shrinks as income rises, and the higher-income amount is used. Wisconsin's sliding-scale deduction is approximated. South Carolina's and Maine's deductions phase out against federal adjusted gross income, and this page uses gross pay as the stand-in, so large pre-tax deductions or other income will shift those two. Mid-year rate changes are not modelled, and several states had one in 2026.

Marginal rate and effective rate are not the same number

This is the single most common misunderstanding about take-home pay, and it costs people real decisions — turning down overtime, or fearing a raise will "push them into a higher bracket" and leave them worse off.

Your marginal rate is the rate applied to your next dollar of income. Your effective rate is total tax divided by total income. Because the United States uses graduated brackets, only the income above each threshold is taxed at the higher rate. A raise never reduces your take-home pay.

If your marginal rate is 22%, your effective federal rate is usually somewhere in the low teens, because the first slice of your income was taxed at 10%, the next at 12%, and only the top slice at 22%. When people say "almost half my paycheck goes to taxes," they are nearly always quoting a marginal rate, or including Social Security, Medicare, state tax and retirement contributions in the same breath.

A worked example you can check by hand

Take a $75,000 salary in North Carolina, paid biweekly, contributing 5% to a 401(k). North Carolina is useful here because it charges a flat 3.99%, so the state portion can be worked out on paper.

The detail worth noticing: the 401(k) contribution reduces the income subject to federal and state tax, but not the income subject to Social Security and Medicare. FICA is calculated on the full $2,884.62 either way. This is why increasing your 401(k) contribution saves less per paycheck than people expect — the 7.65% FICA slice never moves.

State income tax in 2026

Where you work changes take-home pay more than almost any other single factor. Nine states levy no income tax on wages at all, fifteen apply a single flat rate to every dollar, and twenty-seven use graduated brackets where only the top slice of income pays the headline rate.

No state income tax on wages: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming.

The rates below are the ones this paycheck calculator actually uses. For graduated states the figure shown is the top bracket — most earners pay well under it.

State rules change more often than federal ones, and several states have been phasing rates down year over year. The figures here are checked against each state's published rate when this page is updated — see the note at the bottom for when that last happened.

Why your real paystub may not match

If the calculator's number and your actual paystub disagree, the difference is almost always one of these:

• Your W-4 settings. Dependents claimed, extra withholding requested, or the "two jobs" checkbox all change withholding substantially. Leaving the two-jobs box unchecked while holding two jobs is the most common cause of a surprise tax bill in April — more is taken home each period, and the shortfall arrives at filing.
• Local income tax. New York City, Philadelphia, most Ohio municipalities and many Kentucky counties levy their own income tax on top of state tax.
• Benefit deductions. Health, dental, vision, HSA and FSA contributions come out before tax and vary by plan.
• Bonus and commission pay. Supplemental wages are often withheld at a flat statutory rate rather than your usual rate, which is why a bonus can look over-taxed. It evens out at filing.
• Wage-base crossovers. Social Security stops once you pass the annual wage base, so late-year paychecks are larger for high earners.

Withholding is an estimate the payroll system makes on your behalf. The only figure that is truly final is the one on your return.

Data and method

Federal brackets, the standard deduction, and the Social Security wage base are taken from published figures for the current tax year. State rates, standard deductions and personal exemptions are taken from each state's own revenue authority — withholding formulas, instruction booklets and statute — across all fifty states plus the District of Columbia, rather than estimated from a national average. Where a state had not yet published a 2026 figure, its most recent confirmed figure is used and noted above; nothing here is extrapolated or inflation-estimated.

Sources. IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32 (2026 federal brackets and standard deductions); the SSA contribution and benefit base ($184,500 for 2026); IRS Topic 560 (the 0.9% Additional Medicare Tax, withheld above $200,000); and each state's revenue agency, listed in the Federation of Tax Administrators directory.

State tax is calculated the way the law actually works: the state standard deduction and personal exemption come off first, then each slice of the remaining income is taxed at its own bracket rate. A handful of states — Arkansas, California, Delaware, Iowa, Nebraska and Oregon — give their personal exemption as a credit against the tax rather than a deduction from income, and it is applied that way. The calculation runs entirely in your browser — nothing you type is transmitted or stored.

This is an estimate for planning and for sanity-checking a payroll figure that looks wrong. It is not tax advice, and it is not a substitute for your employer's payroll calculation or a filed return. See the full disclaimer for the limits of the finance tools.

Spotted a number that looks wrong? Tell us which state and which inputs and it gets checked. Reported errors are fixed quickly.