What to enter
- Gross annual pay
- Your yearly pay before anything is withheld. Include regular salary or wages. Leave out one-time items such as a bonus unless you want them spread across the year.
- Show results per
- The pay period for the headline figure. The results table always shows both the per-period and the annual amounts.
- Filing status
- Single, married filing jointly, or head of household. This sets the standard deduction and the tax brackets. For married filing jointly, enter the combined pay of both spouses, and the results describe the household.
- Tax year
- 2024, 2025 or 2026. Brackets, the standard deduction and the Social Security wage limit are updated every year.
- State
- Your state of residence. The calculator uses a built-in estimate of state income tax on wages: none for states without one, the published flat rate for flat-tax states, and a rounded effective rate for states with graduated brackets.
- State income tax rate override
- Optional. If you know your effective state rate, or want to include a local income tax, enter it and it replaces the built-in estimate.
- 401(k) or 403(b) contribution
- A percentage of gross pay put into a traditional pre-tax workplace retirement plan. It lowers income tax but not Social Security or Medicare tax. Roth contributions do not reduce income tax now, so enter 0 here for a Roth-only saver.
- Health insurance premiums
- Your yearly share of premiums paid through payroll before tax. These reduce income tax and payroll tax.
- Other pre-tax deductions
- HSA, FSA and commuter benefits paid through payroll. Also assumed to reduce both income and payroll taxes.
How to read your results
The main figure is estimated take-home pay per pay period. The table steps down from gross pay through each deduction to take-home pay so you can see where every dollar goes, with the annual equivalent alongside. The bar chart shows the share of gross pay that goes to take-home pay, federal tax, state tax, Social Security and Medicare, and pre-tax deductions. Below the table, the tax picture summarizes total income and payroll taxes, your federal marginal bracket and your federal taxable income.
Two numbers are worth separating. Your marginal rate is the tax rate on your last dollar of income, which is what matters for a raise or extra pre-tax savings. Your effective rate is total tax divided by gross pay, which is always lower because lower bands of income are taxed at lower rates.
How the estimate is built
The calculator follows the same order of operations as a paycheck and a tax return:
- Start with gross pay and subtract pre-tax deductions: 401(k) or 403(b), health premiums and other pre-tax items.
- Subtract the standard deduction for your filing status to get federal taxable income. Apply the progressive brackets to that amount to get federal income tax.
- Compute Social Security tax at 6.2% on wages up to the annual wage base. Health and other cafeteria-plan deductions reduce these wages, but 401(k) contributions do not.
- Compute Medicare tax at 1.45% on all those wages, plus the 0.9% Additional Medicare Tax on wages above $200,000 (single or head of household) or $250,000 (married filing jointly).
- Estimate state income tax as the state rate times federal taxable income.
- Take-home pay is gross pay minus pre-tax deductions, federal tax, state tax, Social Security and Medicare.
For 2026, the federal brackets for a single filer are shown below. The standard deduction is $16,100, the Social Security wage base is $184,500, and the employee 401(k) deferral limit is $24,500.
| Rate | Taxable income (single, 2026) |
|---|---|
| 10% | $0 to $12,400 |
| 12% | $12,400 to $50,400 |
| 22% | $50,400 to $105,700 |
| 24% | $105,700 to $201,775 |
| 32% | $201,775 to $256,225 |
| 35% | $256,225 to $640,600 |
| 37% | $640,600 and above |
Worked example
$70,000 salary, single, Texas, 2026
Gross pay is $70,000. A 5% 401(k) contribution is $3,500, and health premiums are $2,400, for total pre-tax deductions of $5,900. After the $16,100 standard deduction, federal taxable income is $48,000, and federal income tax is $5,512, with a marginal rate of 12%.
Social Security and Medicare apply to $67,600 of wages, so Social Security is $4,191 and Medicare is $980. Texas has no state income tax on wages. Total taxes are $10,683, and estimated take-home pay is $53,417 a year, or $2,054.48 per biweekly paycheck.
Same job in California. With the built-in estimate for California, state tax adds $2,640 and take-home falls to $50,777. Without the 401(k) contribution in Texas, take-home rises to $56,387, but that is $2,970 more than before, not the full $3,500 contribution, because the contribution also cut your tax bill. At $250,000, the marginal rate rises to 32% and the effective rate on total tax is 24.8%.
State and local taxes
Nine states levy no broad tax on wage income: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming. Others use a flat rate, and the rest use graduated brackets. The calculator uses the published flat rate where a state has one, and a rounded effective rate for graduated states. That effective rate is a rough planning figure that ignores state deductions, exemptions and credits, so it can be off by a noticeable amount. If you know your state’s effective rate from a prior return or your pay stub, use the override field.
Some places add taxes the calculator cannot know: city or county income taxes, school district taxes, and state payroll programs such as disability insurance, paid family leave or unemployment contributions withheld from wages. Check a recent pay stub for those lines and enter a combined rate in the override if they apply to you.
Assumptions and limits
This is an estimate for planning, not a payroll calculation. It applies the standard deduction only and does not model itemized deductions, tax credits such as the child tax credit, other income, self-employment tax or local taxes. Your employer’s actual withholding depends on how you filled out Form W-4, and the amount of tax you owe or get back depends on your full return. The IRS Tax Withholding Estimator is the tool for tuning a W-4.
Recent tax law has added temporary federal deductions for tax years 2025 through 2028, including deductions for qualified tips, qualified overtime pay, interest on certain qualified new-vehicle loans and an additional deduction for eligible people age 65 and older, each with limits and income phase-outs. They are claimed on the tax return and are not included here. The “married filing jointly” option applies the joint standard deduction and brackets to the pay you enter, so enter combined household pay when you use it. Social Security tax is capped for each worker separately, so a household with one very high earner is only approximated. For two earners with similar pay, choosing Single and entering one person’s pay is often a close alternative.
Because 401(k) contributions do not reduce Social Security and Medicare wages, but health premiums do, the calculator treats them differently. If your 401(k) contribution would push your pay over the employee deferral limit, a warning appears; workers age 50 and older can contribute more under separate catch-up rules.
Frequently asked questions
Why is my actual paycheck different from this estimate?
Common reasons are local or state payroll taxes, different W-4 withholding choices, benefits deducted after tax, pay periods that vary in length, bonuses withheld at a flat rate, and state tax that does not match the built-in estimate. Compare the lines on your pay stub with the table to find the gap.
What is the difference between gross and net pay?
Gross pay is what you earn before deductions. Net pay, or take-home pay, is what remains after taxes and deductions.
How does a 401(k) contribution affect take-home pay?
A traditional 401(k) contribution is taken out of pay before income tax, so it reduces your paycheck by less than the amount contributed. It does not reduce Social Security or Medicare taxes.
Are Social Security and Medicare taxes capped?
Social Security tax applies only to wages up to an annual limit, which is $184,500 for 2026. Medicare tax has no wage cap, and an additional 0.9% applies to wages above certain thresholds.
Does the calculator include the new tips and overtime deductions?
No. Those federal deductions are claimed when you file your return and depend on eligibility and income. They can lower your final tax but are not part of paycheck withholding, so they are outside this estimate.
How should I use the result for budgeting?
Use the monthly take-home figure as the starting point for your budget, and compare housing and debt payments against it rather than against gross pay. The home affordability calculator shows the difference between gross-income lending ratios and take-home budgeting.
Sources and further reading
- IRS: Tax inflation adjustments for tax year 2026
- IRS Topic no. 751: Social Security and Medicare withholding rates
- IRS Publication 15-T: Federal Income Tax Withholding Methods (2026)
- IRS: 401(k) limit increases to $24,500 for 2026, IRA limit increases to $7,500
- IRS: Tax deductions for working Americans and seniors (tips, overtime, car loan interest, seniors)
- Social Security Administration: Contribution and benefit base (taxable maximum)
- Tax Foundation: 2026 state tax data