Bonus Tax Calculator
Tax & IncomeWhat's left of your bonus after tax.
Bonus & withholding
Enter a bonus amount to begin.
Advanced options
Enter a bonus amount to estimate your take-home pay and withholding.
Reference rates
Annual withholding schedule — 2026, Single
The aggregate method spreads your bonus across this schedule.
| Rate | Annual wage over |
|---|---|
| 0% | $0 |
| 10% | $7,500 |
| 12% | $19,900 |
| 22% | $57,900 |
| 24% | $113,200 |
| 32% | $209,275 |
| 35% | $263,725 |
| 37% | $648,100 |
Supplemental rates at a glance
| Federal supplemental | 22% flat, then 37% over $1M |
Know what this estimate is based on
- Jurisdiction
- United States unless the calculator explicitly says otherwise
- Rules and time period
- Tax years supported by the selected calculator
- Scope and limitations
- Educational estimate only, not a tax return or filing determination. U.S. statutory-threshold tools use USD. Confirm current law and your facts with the relevant authority or a qualified tax professional.
- Source links checked
- Jul 30, 2026
Built and regression-tested by Smart Tools Lab. It has not been individually reviewed by a licensed financial, tax, or legal professional.
How to use
- 01
Pick the tax year (2024, 2025 or 2026) and your filing status, then enter the gross bonus before anything is taken out.
- 02
Choose your state — the calculator loads its supplemental bonus rate, or zero where there is no income tax — and pick the federal withholding method: the flat percentage method or the aggregate method.
- 03
Open Advanced to sharpen the estimate: year-to-date wages (for the Social Security cap and the Additional Medicare trigger), prior supplemental wages (for the $1 million tier), a 401(k) deferral, and — for the aggregate method — your regular paycheck and pay frequency.
- 04
Read your net bonus, total withheld and effective withholding rate, then explore the where-it-goes donut, the percentage-versus-aggregate comparison and the full withholding breakdown below.
Formula
A separately paid bonus counts as "supplemental wages," so payroll withholds it by adding up four independent pieces — it does not run the bonus through your tax brackets: Net bonus = bonus − 401(k) deferral − federal − state − FICA Federal (flat percentage method): 22% on the bonus up to $1,000,000 of cumulative supplemental wages for the year, then a mandatory 37% on anything above that ceiling: Federal = 22% × min(bonus, $1,000,000 − prior supplemental) + 37% × excess State: bonus × your state's supplemental rate. Some states publish a flat bonus rate; others have no separate rate (the figure is then a representative estimate), and no-income-tax states withhold nothing. FICA — always on the full bonus, including any 401(k) deferral: Social Security = 6.2% × min(bonus, wage base − year-to-date wages) Medicare = 1.45% × bonus Additional Medicare = 0.9% × max(0, year-to-date wages + bonus − $200,000) The effective withholding rate is total withheld ÷ gross bonus. Every figure is an estimate of what your employer holds back on payday — not your final tax.
Example
Picture a $20,000 bonus paid on its own to a single employee in California in 2026, using the flat percentage method with no year-to-date pay entered. Federal withholding is the flat 22% on the gross bonus: $20,000 × 22% = $4,400. California is one of the states with a published supplemental rate for bonuses — 10.23% — so state withholding is $20,000 × 10.23% = $2,046. FICA comes off the full bonus: Social Security at 6.2% is $1,240 and Medicare at 1.45% is $290, for $1,530 (no Additional Medicare, because total wages stay under $200,000). Add the three buckets — $4,400 + $2,046 + $1,530 — and $7,976 is withheld, an effective withholding rate of 39.88%. The net bonus is $20,000 − $7,976 = $12,024. This is an estimate of paycheck withholding, not your final tax bill, and it is not payroll, legal or tax advice — your actual take-home depends on your employer's method, your Form W-4 and your year-to-date pay.
Definitions
- Supplemental wages
- Pay outside your regular salary or hourly wages — bonuses, commissions, overtime, severance, prizes and back pay. When a bonus is paid separately, employers may withhold it at a flat supplemental rate instead of running it through your normal payroll tables.
- Percentage (flat) method
- The simpler of the two federal options: the employer multiplies a separately paid bonus by a flat 22% (rising to 37% above $1 million of supplemental wages for the year) without referring to your Form W-4. This calculator uses it by default.
- Aggregate method
- The alternative federal option, used when the bonus rides along with a regular paycheck. The employer combines the two, looks up withholding on the larger amount using your W-4, subtracts what the paycheck alone would have withheld, and treats the remainder as the bonus's withholding.
- $1 million / 37% tier
- Once your cumulative supplemental wages for the year pass $1,000,000, the law forces 37% withholding — the top income-tax rate — on the portion above the ceiling, regardless of your W-4. Only the excess is hit; the first $1 million can still use the 22% flat rate.
- FICA
- The combined Social Security and Medicare payroll tax. It applies to a bonus in full — even to dollars you defer into a traditional 401(k) — and is figured entirely separately from income-tax withholding.
- Social Security wage base
- The yearly limit on the wages the 6.2% Social Security tax can reach — $184,500 in 2026. After your pay for the year passes that mark, no more Social Security comes out, so a late-year bonus may slip past the 6.2% entirely.
- Additional Medicare Tax
- An extra 0.9% your employer withholds on wages above $200,000 in a year, with no employer match. That $200,000 trigger is a flat withholding threshold that ignores filing status; your real liability threshold (for example, $250,000 jointly) is settled on Form 8959 at filing.
- State supplemental rate
- The flat percentage some states apply to separately paid bonuses (California 10.23%, New York 11.7%, for instance). States with no separate bonus rate, or no income tax, are shown as an estimate or zero — withholding there actually rides the aggregate method and your state W-4.
- Gross-up
- Working backwards from a promised net bonus to the larger gross an employer must pay so that, after withholding, the employee nets the round number agreed. A "$10,000 in hand" bonus therefore costs the employer noticeably more than $10,000.
- Withholding vs. liability
- Withholding is the money pulled from the bonus on payday; liability is the tax you actually owe once all your income, deductions and credits are tallied on your return. The two rarely match, which is why a bonus can produce a refund or a small balance due.
Good to know
Bonuses, commissions, and the IRS idea of supplemental wages
To your employer's payroll department, a year-end bonus is not really a category of its own — it belongs to a broader bucket the tax rules call supplemental wages. The label covers far more than the holiday check most people picture. Sales commissions, overtime premiums, severance and accumulated sick pay, prizes and contest winnings, retroactive raises, back pay won in a dispute, taxable moving reimbursements, and one-off spot awards all ride under the same heading. What unites them is timing and character: they are compensation that arrives on top of, or apart from, the steady salary or hourly rate you are normally paid for a pay period. That distinction is not academic. Because supplemental pay is irregular, the government lets employers run a separate, simplified withholding routine on it rather than forcing the ordinary paycheck formula to absorb a lumpy, one-time amount. Knowing that your bonus counts as supplemental wages in the eyes of the rulebook is the first step to understanding why the dollars held back from it can look so different from the dollars held back from your normal pay — and why that withholding figure, as later sections explain, is rarely the same as the tax you ultimately owe. One thing to settle up front: a cash bonus is fully taxable compensation, every bit as much as salary. It is not a gift, it is not exempt, and there is no secret lower rate tucked inside it. The only thing genuinely special about a bonus is the mechanics of how money is taken out of it before it reaches your account, and those mechanics are what this guide walks through. Everything here is an educational estimate of how that process works, not payroll, legal, or tax advice tailored to your circumstances.
The two ways your employer can withhold: percentage and aggregate
Federal rules hand employers two approved ways to decide how much income tax to take from a bonus, and which one your payroll team picks can noticeably change the size of your check. The first is the percentage method, often called the flat method. When a bonus is paid separately from regular wages (or at least listed separately on the stub) and the employer has already withheld income tax from your ordinary pay at some point in the current or prior year, payroll may simply multiply the bonus by a flat 22% and be done. It is fast, predictable, and indifferent to whatever you wrote on your Form W-4. The second is the aggregate method, which is the required fallback whenever the flat method's conditions are not met — for instance, when the bonus is folded into the same payment as your salary. Here payroll adds the bonus to your most recent regular paycheck, looks up the withholding on that combined total using the normal wage tables tied to your W-4, subtracts what it would have withheld on the regular wages alone, and keeps the difference from the bonus. The two routes can land on strikingly different numbers. Picture a single employee in 2026 who earns $3,000 every two weeks and receives a separate $10,000 bonus. Under the flat method the federal withholding is a clean $2,200 — that is 22% of $10,000. Under the aggregate method the arithmetic is harsher: payroll effectively treats that $13,000 combined period as though it repeated all year, which annualizes to a six-figure salary and pulls part of the bonus into much steeper brackets, producing roughly $2,855 of federal withholding instead. That is over six hundred dollars more set aside from the same bonus, purely because of the method chosen. Neither figure is your final tax; both are deposits toward it. The practical lesson is that you usually do not get to pick the method — your employer does — so it is worth asking which one they use before you count on a particular take-home amount.
Why the idea that bonuses are taxed more is a myth
The most durable belief about bonuses is that they suffer a higher tax rate than ordinary pay. It feels true the instant you watch a chunk of your check disappear, but it conflates two separate things: withholding and tax. Withholding is a prepayment — an estimated deposit your employer forwards to the government on your behalf each time you are paid. Your actual tax is something else entirely. It is figured once, after the year ends, when you file a return that totals every dollar of income, applies your deductions, and runs the result through the same graduated schedule that governs all of your wages. A bonus is simply ordinary income inside that calculation; it carries no premium rate of its own. So why does it feel punished? Because the flat 22% deposit is frequently heavier than what your salary withholding works out to, particularly if most of your earnings sit in the 10%, 12%, or 22% range. If your true position is below 22%, the extra that was held back does not vanish — it returns to you as a larger refund (or a smaller balance due) when you file, because the year-end reconciliation credits you for everything already deposited. The opposite case is the trap that catches higher earners: if your income reaches the 32% or 35% territory, a flat 22% on the bonus actually under-collects, and you can be left owing the gap in April even though the bonus felt heavily taxed at the moment you received it. Either way, the bonus did not alter your tax rate; it only changed the timing and size of a deposit against a bill that is settled later. The message to carry away is that the amount withheld from a bonus is a rough down payment, not a verdict, and the true cost is decided on your return — never on your pay stub.
The million-dollar line and the mandatory 37% rate
There is one point at which the flat method stops being optional and becomes a hard rule. Once the supplemental wages an employer has paid you cross $1,000,000 within a single calendar year, the portion above that line must be withheld at 37% — the highest individual income-tax rate — and the employer has no discretion to do otherwise. It does not matter what your Form W-4 says, and it does not matter whether you would have preferred gentler treatment; for the slice over a million, 37% is automatic. The steeper rate bites only on the excess. The first $1,000,000 of cumulative supplemental pay can still be handled with the ordinary 22% flat rate (or the aggregate method); only the amount beyond the threshold jumps to 37%. Work through a clean illustration: an executive receives a single $1,200,000 bonus and has had no other supplemental pay during the year. The first $1,000,000 is withheld at 22%, which comes to $220,000. The remaining $200,000 sits above the line and is withheld at 37%, adding $74,000. Together the federal income-tax withholding on that one bonus is $294,000. Note the word cumulative — the threshold tracks everything supplemental you have already received in the year, so a string of smaller bonuses that collectively pass a million tips later payments into the 37% zone just as surely as one enormous check would. For the overwhelming majority of employees this tier is purely theoretical, a rule that never touches their pay. But it is worth grasping for two reasons. First, it explains why very large bonuses are withheld so aggressively. Second, like every other figure in this guide, that 37% is a withholding rate, not a settlement: the recipient's final tax is still computed on the full return, and whether $294,000 turns out to be too much or too little depends on the rest of their income and deductions for the year.
Social Security and Medicare still take their cut
Income-tax withholding is only one layer peeled off a bonus. The payroll taxes that fund Social Security and Medicare — together known as FICA — apply to bonus dollars just as they apply to salary, and they are figured on the full, gross bonus before any income-tax method enters the picture. Three pieces make up this layer. Social Security claims 6.2% of your earnings, but only up to a yearly earnings ceiling that the Social Security Administration lifts almost every year; for 2026 that cap sits at $184,500, after $176,100 the prior year and $168,600 in 2024. Once your wages for the year have already reached the ceiling, no further Social Security comes out — so a December bonus paid to someone who long ago passed the cap escapes that 6.2% entirely. Suppose a worker has $180,000 of wages already booked when a $20,000 bonus lands in 2026: only the first $4,500 of the bonus fits beneath the $184,500 cap, so Social Security takes 6.2% of $4,500, about $279, and nothing more. Medicare is the second piece, charged at 1.45% on every dollar with no ceiling at all, so the whole bonus always feels it. The third piece is the Additional Medicare Tax, an extra 0.9% that kicks in once your year-to-date pay with an employer climbs past $200,000. Two features of this surtax surprise people. It is withheld using a flat $200,000 trigger regardless of your filing status — the employer does not adjust for whether you are single or married — and there is no employer match on it; you shoulder it alone. If that same worker had instead reached $195,000 in wages before the $20,000 bonus, the part of the bonus sitting above $200,000 is $15,000, and 0.9% of that is $135 of Additional Medicare. Whatever the income-tax method does, FICA marches on top, which is why two bonuses of identical size can net out differently based only on how much you had already earned that year. The thresholds you ultimately reconcile when you file can differ from the flat $200,000 your employer uses, and that reconciliation happens on a separate form with your return.
State withholding: flat-rate states, it-depends states, and why ours are estimates
On top of the federal layers, most states want their own slice of a bonus — and the way they take it is all over the map. A sizeable group publishes a distinct flat supplemental rate that employers apply straight to the bonus, mirroring the federal flat method. California is the most eye-catching: it withholds 10.23% specifically on bonuses and stock-option pay, with a lower 6.6% on other supplemental wages. New York designates 11.70% for bonuses, a rate set deliberately above its top ordinary bracket to recapture under-withholding. Pennsylvania, by contrast, simply applies its flat 3.07% personal income tax to every dollar of compensation, so 3.07% is the exact rate on a bonus there, not an approximation. A second group of states publishes no separate supplemental rate at all. There the employer is expected to fold the bonus into the regular wages and withhold using the ordinary method keyed to whatever the employee filed on the state's W-4 equivalent, so the true rate genuinely varies with that person's total pay and elections. For those states this calculator shows a representative estimate — usually the state's flat income-tax rate or the bracket most bonus recipients land in — clearly flagged as approximate, because no single published figure exists to quote. Nine states sidestep the question entirely by taxing no wage income: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming impose no state withholding on a bonus. One more reason to treat the state numbers as estimates is that they move. Tax law in 2026 has been unusually busy. Arkansas enacted a cut to its top rate to 3.7% retroactive to the start of the year, yet its revenue agency had not reissued the official withholding formula as this was written, so the figure actually deducted remained 3.9%. South Carolina similarly enacted a sweeping bracket overhaul carrying a 5.21% top rate, but its published 2026 withholding tables still topped out at 6.0% pending revised guidance. In cases like these the law on the books and the number payroll actually subtracts can disagree for months, so each state result here is best read as a careful approximation you should confirm against your own pay stub and your state's latest employer guide.
Softening the hit: 401(k), an HSA, and what actually changes
If a bonus is about to be withheld heavily, the natural question is whether you can blunt it. You can influence the income-tax portion, but it is essential to understand precisely what a pre-tax deferral does and does not move. Routing part of a bonus into a traditional, pre-tax 401(k) — or into a health savings account — lowers the wages that count toward income tax, which shrinks your eventual income-tax bill on that money. Here, though, the withholding method matters enormously. Under the flat percentage method the 22% is charged against the gross bonus, before any deferral is subtracted, so electing a 401(k) contribution does not reduce the amount withheld from a flat-method bonus at all. The benefit is real, but it is deferred: it surfaces later, at filing, as a lower total tax and therefore a bigger refund or a smaller balance due. Under the aggregate method the story differs — because that method runs the bonus through the regular wage tables, a pre-tax deferral lowers the income-tax base directly and does cut the withholding right there in the paycheck. So the same 401(k) election can either trim your withholding now (under aggregate) or only your tax later (under flat), depending on a method you usually do not control. There is one boundary no deferral crosses: FICA. Social Security and Medicare are charged on the full pre-deferral bonus no matter what. A traditional 401(k) contribution reduces income-tax wages but not Social Security and Medicare wages, and a Roth contribution reduces neither, so the 6.2% and 1.45% layers — plus any 0.9% surtax — are owed on the whole bonus however much you set aside. Beyond retirement accounts the honest levers are familiar: mind the annual contribution limits, consider timing a bonus into a year when your income is lower if you have any say, and remember that a fat refund is just your own money coming back without interest. Deferring into tax-advantaged accounts is often a smart move on its own merits — just do it for the long-term tax saving and the retirement balance, not on the assumption that it will fatten this particular paycheck.
Non-cash awards, signing and retention bonuses, gross-ups, and clawbacks
Not every bonus arrives as a tidy cash deposit, and the variations carry their own wrinkles. A non-cash award — a gift card, a prize trip, the use of company property, event tickets, or merchandise handed over as a reward — is generally taxable at its fair market value and is itself treated as supplemental wages, which means tax must be withheld on its worth even though no cash changed hands to cover that withholding. Employers often handle this by adding the value to a regular paycheck, so the prize you won quietly shrinks your next cash check. Signing bonuses, used to lure new hires, are ordinary supplemental wages too, but they frequently come tethered to a repayment clause: leave before a set period and you may have to give some or all of it back, sometimes the gross amount even though you only ever pocketed the after-withholding figure — a genuine trap worth reading the contract for. Retention bonuses work the same way in reverse, paying you to stay through a merger, a busy stretch, or a project's finish, and they are withheld and taxed like any other bonus. A gross-up is the employer's tool for making a bonus land on a promised net number: to put, say, a clean $10,000 in your pocket, payroll calculates a larger gross so that after withholding the leftover equals the target. Because you are then taxed on the bigger grossed-up figure, a gross-up amounts to the employer paying the tax on the tax, and it shows up often with relocation packages and executive perks. Finally, clawbacks — repaying a bonus you have already received — are messy at tax time, because you were taxed on the money in the year you got it. Depending on the amount and the timing, recovering the tax you paid on a clawed-back bonus can require a special deduction or credit rather than a simple refund, so it is exactly the kind of situation where a tax professional earns the fee. The thread running through all of these is that the supplemental-wage rules still apply, yet the cash you actually keep can diverge sharply from the headline number, so it pays to read the fine print before celebrating.
Planning around a bonus, and the mistakes to avoid
A little foresight turns a bonus from a withholding mystery into a manageable event. Begin by refusing to read the withheld percentage as your tax rate; it is a deposit, and your real liability is set by your whole-year income on your return. If you know a flat 22% is lighter than the bracket your income actually reaches, stash the likely shortfall so April is not a shock, or adjust your Form W-4 to have a little more withheld from regular pay across the year. If 22% is heavier than your situation warrants, recognize that the excess is simply money you have lent the government at no interest, returned to you when you file — pleasant, but not a windfall. Check where you stand against the Social Security wage cap before a late-year bonus, since clearing it means that 6.2% layer switches off, and time large discretionary contributions to retirement or health accounts with the contribution limits in view. Watch for the aggregate-method surprise: a big bonus paid alongside a normal paycheck can be withheld far more steeply than the flat 22% you expected, because the method briefly treats your pay as though you earned that much every period. And never forget that FICA rides on the entire bonus no matter what you defer. The common mistakes are all variations on one theme — mistaking the deposit for the bill. People panic at the withholding, turn down bonuses or extra hours on the false belief that a higher bracket will swallow the gain, or assume a refund proves they were overtaxed on the bonus specifically rather than across all of their income. The fix in every case is to hold withholding and liability apart in your mind and reconcile the two when you file. Above all, treat every number this calculator produces as an educational estimate, not payroll, legal, or tax advice. Real withholding depends on your employer's chosen method, the details of your Form W-4, your year-to-date earnings, and your state's current rules — so confirm anything that matters against your pay stub, your payroll department, your state's employer guide, or a qualified tax professional before you rely on it.
Frequently asked questions
Are bonuses taxed at a higher rate than my salary?
No — a bonus is not subject to a special, higher tax. What you see is withholding: employers often apply a flat 22% to a separately paid bonus, which can be more (or less) than the rate your salary is withheld at. Withholding is only a prepayment toward the same brackets that tax all your income. When you file, the bonus is folded in with everything else and taxed at your ordinary rates, and any gap between what was withheld and what you owe is trued up as a refund or a balance due.
Why was exactly 22% taken out of my bonus?
Because your employer used the federal percentage method. When a bonus is paid separately from your regular check, the IRS lets the employer skip your Form W-4 and simply withhold a flat 22% on supplemental wages (up to $1 million for the year). It is quick and predictable, but it is one-size-fits-all: if your marginal rate is below 22% you have probably over-withheld, and if it is above 22% you may have under-withheld.
What is the aggregate method, and how is it different?
The aggregate method is the other way employers can withhold a bonus. Instead of a flat rate, they add the bonus to a regular paycheck, find the withholding on that combined amount using your W-4, subtract what the paycheck alone would have withheld, and apply the difference to the bonus. Because it leans on your actual W-4 and pay frequency, it usually tracks your real rate more closely — sometimes withholding more than 22%, sometimes less. Switch this calculator to the aggregate method and enter your regular paycheck to compare the two side by side.
Does my state tax my bonus?
It depends on where you work. Several states publish a flat supplemental rate just for bonuses — California 10.23% and New York 11.7% among them — which this tool applies automatically. The nine states with no wage income tax (Texas, Florida and the rest) withhold nothing. The remainder have no separate bonus rate at all; their employers fold the bonus into the regular method, so the percentage shown for those states is a representative estimate you can override, not a guaranteed figure.
Does putting my bonus into my 401(k) lower the tax on it?
It lowers your eventual income tax, but where the benefit shows up depends on the method. This calculator models the flat percentage method by applying the 22% to the gross bonus, so a pre-tax 401(k) deferral does not shrink the flat withholding on the spot — its income-tax saving lands later, as a smaller bill or a larger refund at filing. Under the aggregate method the deferral does reduce the income-tax base, so it trims withholding right away. Either way, one thing never changes: FICA (Social Security and Medicare) is charged on the full bonus, including every dollar you defer.
What is the $1 million bonus rule?
Once your supplemental wages for the year top $1,000,000, federal law forces the employer to withhold 37% — the highest income-tax rate — on the part above that line, no matter what your W-4 says. The first $1 million can still be withheld at the 22% flat rate; only the excess jumps to 37%. It is aimed at very large bonuses and equity payouts, and the calculator applies it automatically once you cross the threshold, counting any prior supplemental wages you enter.
Will I get some of my bonus tax back?
Quite possibly. Because the flat 22% is an estimate rather than your real rate, it often over-withholds — especially if your total income sits in the 10%, 12% or 22% brackets. Anything withheld beyond what you actually owe comes back as part of your refund when you file. It can also go the other way: a large bonus that pushes income into a higher bracket may have been under-withheld at 22%, leaving a small balance due.
Does FICA come out of a bonus too?
Yes, and it is separate from income-tax withholding. Social Security takes 6.2% of the bonus up to the annual wage base ($184,500 in 2026), and Medicare takes 1.45% with no cap; a high earner also pays an extra 0.9% on wages past $200,000. If your year-to-date pay has already reached the Social Security wage base, a later bonus skips the 6.2% — one reason a year-end bonus can net a little more than the same bonus paid in January.
How accurate are these numbers?
Treat them as a well-grounded estimate, not a final figure — and not payroll, legal or tax advice. The federal rules and FICA limits come from IRS and Social Security Administration figures for 2024–2026, but real withholding hinges on your employer's chosen method, your Form W-4, your year-to-date pay, and state rules that can shift mid-year (a few states enacted 2026 rate cuts their payroll formulas had not yet adopted). Use it to plan and sanity-check your pay stub, then confirm anything important with your payroll department or a tax professional.