Paycheck Calculator
Tax & IncomeTurn gross salary into take-home pay.
Pay & withholding
Enter your pay to begin.
Pre-tax, W-4 & state options
Enter your pay to begin.
2025 Single or married filing separately withholding brackets
| Rate | Annual wage over |
|---|---|
| 10% | $0 |
| 12% | $11,925 |
| 22% | $48,475 |
| 24% | $103,350 |
| 32% | $197,300 |
| 35% | $250,525 |
| 37% | $626,350 |
Withholding bakes in a $15,750 standard deduction; Social Security stops at the $176,100 wage base.
Your inputs
| Input | What it means | Your value |
|---|---|---|
| Pay type | Salary or hourly basis | Salary |
| Pay frequency | How often you are paid | Bi-weekly |
| Gross annual salary | Your pay rate | $0 |
| W-4 filing status | W-4 withholding status | Single or married filing separately |
| Tax year | Tax year for the tables | 2025 |
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
Choose salary or hourly, then your pay frequency — weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly or monthly.
- 02
Enter your gross pay: an annual salary, or an hourly rate with your weekly and overtime hours.
- 03
Set up your Form W-4 — filing status, the multiple-jobs checkbox, dependent credits and any extra withholding.
- 04
Add pre-tax items (your 401(k) percentage and benefits), your state, and any post-tax deductions.
- 05
Read your net pay per paycheck, the federal and state withholding, FICA, and the full per-paycheck and annual breakdown.
Formula
Each paycheck starts from gross pay — your salary divided by the number of pay periods, or your hourly rate times the hours you work. Pre-tax money comes out next, and the order matters: a traditional 401(k) lowers the wages your income tax is figured on but is still hit by Social Security and Medicare, while Section 125 benefits such as health premiums and HSA contributions lower both. Federal withholding then follows the Form W-4 method: your taxable wages are annualised, adjusted for the W-4 entries, reduced by the standard deduction, run through the ordinary brackets, cut by any dependent credit, and divided back down to the period — plus any extra you ask to withhold. On top sit FICA taxes: 6.2% Social Security up to the annual wage base, 1.45% Medicare on every dollar, and an extra 0.9% Additional Medicare on wages above a flat $200,000. State income tax is withheld using your state's own flat rate or brackets, and any post-tax deductions come off last. What remains is your take-home pay. Every figure is an estimate.
Example
Take a single filer paid $60,000 a year on a bi-weekly schedule (26 paychecks) who puts 5% into a traditional 401(k) and lives in a no-income-tax state. Gross pay is $60,000 ÷ 26 = $2,307.69 a check. The 401(k) takes 5%, or $3,000 a year ($115.38 a check), leaving $57,000 of federally taxable wages. Withholding annualises that, subtracts the $15,750 standard deduction to reach $41,250, and runs the 2025 single brackets — 10% on the first $11,925 and 12% on the rest — for $4,711.50 a year, about $181.21 a check. FICA is figured on the full $60,000 (the 401(k) does not reduce it): Social Security at 6.2% is $3,720 and Medicare at 1.45% is $870, together $4,590 a year or $176.54 a check. Add the taxes — $9,301.50 a year — and the $3,000 retirement deduction, and take-home pay is $47,698.50 a year: roughly $1,834.56 in every bi-weekly paycheck. These figures are estimates; your real pay stub depends on your exact W-4, benefits and state rules.
Definitions
- Gross pay
- Your pay before anything is taken out. For salary it is your annual figure divided by the number of pay periods; for hourly work it is your rate times the hours worked, including overtime at 1.5×.
- Net pay (take-home)
- What actually lands in your account after taxes and deductions are withheld. It is the headline number on this calculator, shown both per paycheck and for the year.
- Pay frequency
- How often you are paid: weekly (52 checks a year), bi-weekly (26), semi-monthly (24) or monthly (12). It sets the size of each paycheck, though your annual totals stay the same.
- Federal income tax withholding
- The federal tax your employer estimates and sends to the IRS from each paycheck, based on your Form W-4. It is a prepayment of your annual tax, not the final bill.
- Form W-4
- The form that tells your employer how much to withhold. Its steps cover filing status, multiple jobs, dependent credits, other income, extra deductions and any additional withholding you request.
- FICA
- Payroll tax for Social Security and Medicare. As an employee you pay 6.2% toward Social Security up to the annual wage cap and 1.45% toward Medicare on every dollar, plus a 0.9% Medicare surcharge once your wages run high. It sits outside the income-tax brackets entirely.
- Social Security wage base
- The annual wage ceiling for the 6.2% Social Security tax — $176,100 in 2025. Earnings above it are not subject to Social Security, though Medicare keeps applying.
- Additional Medicare Tax
- An extra 0.9% Medicare tax. Employers withhold it on wages over a flat $200,000 for every employee, regardless of filing status — so it can be over-withheld and reconciled on your return.
- Pre-tax vs cafeteria deductions
- A traditional 401(k) lowers your income-tax wages but is still subject to FICA; Section 125 cafeteria benefits — health, dental, vision, HSA, FSA — lower both income-tax and FICA wages.
- State income tax withholding
- An estimate of the state tax taken from each paycheck, using your state's flat rate or brackets. Nine states withhold nothing. It ignores state-specific deductions and credits, so treat it as a ballpark.
Good to know
What a paycheck calculator actually estimates
A paycheck calculator answers a deceptively simple question: of the money your employer agrees to pay you, how much actually reaches your bank account? The number on your offer letter is gross pay. What lands in your account is net, or take-home, pay — and the gap between the two routinely runs from a quarter to more than a third of gross once income tax withholding, Social Security, Medicare, retirement contributions and benefits are taken out. The key word throughout is estimate. The amount your employer withholds from each paycheck is not your final tax bill. It is a prepayment, set up so that by the end of the year the total withheld is roughly what you will owe. The system that drives it — the IRS Form W-4 and the withholding tables in Publication 15-T — is built to approximate your annual liability, paycheck by paycheck, using only the handful of facts you put on your W-4. It cannot see your spouse's exact income, your side gigs, your investment gains or the credits you will eventually claim. That is why two people with identical salaries can take home different amounts, and why almost everyone ends up with a small refund or balance due when they file. This calculator rebuilds that per-paycheck math so you can see where every dollar goes before payday. It is a planning tool, not a substitute for your pay stub, your employer's payroll system or professional tax advice. Use it to compare job offers, test a bigger 401(k) contribution, see how moving to another state would change your take-home, or sanity-check the amount your employer is actually withholding against what the rules suggest it should be.
Gross pay: salary, hourly and overtime
Everything starts with gross pay, and how it is built depends on whether you are salaried or paid by the hour. For a salaried worker, gross pay per paycheck is simply your annual salary divided by the number of pay periods in the year. The number of periods is set by your pay frequency: 52 for weekly, 26 for bi-weekly, 24 for semi-monthly and 12 for monthly. A $78,000 salary is $1,500 a week, $3,000 bi-weekly, $3,250 semi-monthly or $6,500 monthly — the same yearly total sliced into different-sized checks. For an hourly worker, gross pay is your rate times the hours you work, and overtime matters. Under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, non-exempt employees earn at least 1.5 times their regular rate for hours over 40 in a week. So someone earning $30 an hour who works 40 regular hours plus 5 overtime hours earns $1,200 in regular pay and $225 in overtime ($45 times 5) that week. This calculator annualises both streams — regular hours and overtime hours, each multiplied by 52 weeks — to arrive at gross annual pay, then divides back down to your chosen pay frequency. It is worth separating gross pay from take-home in your own budgeting. Lenders, landlords and savings rules of thumb are often quoted against gross, but the money you can actually spend is net. Building a budget on take-home avoids the common trap of committing to payments you cannot comfortably cover once withholding is removed. A useful habit is to note your take-home percentage — the share of gross you actually keep — and use it to translate any future raise or job offer into real spending power.
Pre-tax deductions and the FICA twist
Before any tax is calculated, pre-tax deductions come out of gross pay — and a detail that trips up most simple calculators is that not all pre-tax money is treated the same way. A traditional 401(k) or 403(b) contribution is pre-tax for income tax: the money you defer is not counted when your federal and state income tax withholding is figured. But it is still subject to FICA — Social Security and Medicare are charged on your full earnings, including what you route into the plan. That is deliberate; your future Social Security benefit is based on those FICA wages, so the tax is collected now. Section 125 cafeteria-plan benefits work differently. Health, dental and vision premiums paid through your employer, along with Health Savings Account and Flexible Spending Account contributions, are exempt from both income tax and FICA. A dollar of health premium therefore saves you more than a dollar of 401(k) contribution does on this paycheck, because it dodges the 7.65% FICA bite as well as income tax. To model this honestly, the calculator keeps two separate wage bases. Your federal taxable wages are gross pay minus the 401(k) and minus cafeteria benefits. Your FICA wages are gross pay minus only the cafeteria benefits — the 401(k) is added back in. Getting this split right is the difference between a toy estimate and one that matches a real pay stub, especially for higher earners contributing heavily to retirement. There is also a ceiling on how much you can defer. The IRS sets an annual 401(k) employee contribution limit — $23,000 in 2024 and $23,500 in 2025 — and the calculator flags when your percentage would push you past it. Post-tax deductions sit on the other side of the tax calculation entirely: a Roth 401(k), union dues, garnishments or charitable payroll giving come out after taxes are withheld. They lower your take-home pay but do nothing to reduce your taxable wages.
How federal withholding is calculated
Federal income tax withholding is the most involved line on your paycheck, and since 2020 it has been driven by the redesigned Form W-4, which no longer uses the old allowances. The calculator follows the structure of the IRS percentage method. First it annualises your taxable wages for the period — what you would earn in a year at this rate. Then it applies your W-4 entries: it adds any other income you reported in Step 4(a), subtracts extra deductions from Step 4(b), and subtracts the standard deduction for your filing status (for 2025 that is $15,750 for single filers, $31,500 married filing jointly and $23,625 for head of household). The result is an adjusted annual wage. That adjusted wage is run through the ordinary federal tax brackets — 10, 12, 22, 24, 32, 35 and 37% — exactly as your annual return would, producing a tentative annual tax. From that, the calculator subtracts the dependent and other credits you entered in Step 3, such as $2,000 for each qualifying child. The remaining amount is your annual withholding, divided back down to the pay period. Finally, any extra dollar figure you requested in Step 4(c) is added to every check. The Step 2 multiple-jobs checkbox deserves special mention. When you or your spouse hold more than one job, the standard deduction and lower brackets would otherwise be applied at each job, so too little is withheld overall. Checking the box tells payroll to use a schedule that effectively splits the standard deduction, raising the withholding at this job to compensate. In the calculator, switching it on cuts the standard-deduction offset in half, which is why your withholding rises noticeably. Notice that withholding only knows about three filing categories — single (which it shares with married filing separately), married filing jointly, and head of household — rather than every status on your return. Because this is a withholding estimate rather than the exact Publication 15-T table lookup your employer's software performs, the figure may differ from your stub by a few dollars. The structure, however, is the same one payroll systems use.
FICA: Social Security, Medicare and the flat surtax
FICA is the payroll tax that funds Social Security and Medicare, and it is withheld separately from income tax — it does not go through brackets, deductions or your W-4 at all. There are two standing pieces. Social Security takes 6.2% out of each paycheck, but it reaches only the first slice of wages you earn in a year — a ceiling that resets every January and is raised most years as national wages climb, landing at $168,600 for 2024, $176,100 for 2025 and $184,500 for 2026. A high earner who hits that ceiling partway through the year simply stops seeing Social Security deducted from later checks, so their net pay quietly steps up for the remaining pay periods. Medicare is the steadier of the two: a flat 1.45% on every dollar, with no ceiling at any income. A third piece, the Additional Medicare Tax, is where paycheck withholding diverges sharply from your annual return. Employers are required to withhold an extra 0.9% on wages over a flat $200,000, and they apply that threshold to every employee regardless of filing status. On your tax return, the threshold is actually $250,000 for married couples filing jointly and $125,000 for married filing separately. The mismatch is intentional: your employer cannot know your spouse's income, so it withholds on the flat $200,000 and the difference is reconciled on Form 8959 when you file. A married couple can therefore have the surtax withheld here and recover part of it later — a quirk this calculator models faithfully by using the flat $200,000 for withholding. For most workers, FICA is a flat, predictable 7.65% of pay (6.2% plus 1.45%). It is one of the few taxes you cannot reduce with a traditional 401(k), and it is a major reason take-home pay is lower than a glance at the income-tax brackets alone would suggest. Remember, too, that your employer quietly matches your FICA dollar for dollar — a cost that never appears on your stub but is part of what it actually pays to employ you.
State income tax withholding
On top of federal tax, most states withhold their own income tax — and the rules vary enormously from one state to the next. Nine states levy no broad income tax on wages at all: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming. If you work in one of them, your state withholding line is zero and your take-home is correspondingly higher. Among the states that do tax income, some use a single flat rate — Pennsylvania at 3.07%, Colorado at 4.4%, Illinois at 4.95% — while others run graduated brackets that climb with income, much like the federal system. California's top marginal rate reaches into the double digits. The calculator estimates state withholding by applying your state's flat rate or brackets to your taxable wages. It deliberately keeps this simple: it does not model state-specific standard deductions, personal exemptions, credits, or the local city and county income taxes that places like New York City, parts of Ohio and much of Maryland add on top. Those provisions can move the real number up or down. For a state with a flat tax on gross-style wages, such as Pennsylvania, the estimate is close; for a state with generous deductions and credits, it tends to run high. Treat the state figure as a ballpark to understand your overall pay, not a precise withholding instruction. If you are comparing offers in different states, it is still a powerful tool — the difference between a no-tax state and a high-tax one can be several thousand dollars a year in take-home, and it is one of the largest single levers on the net pay this calculator shows.
Pay frequency: same year, different checks
How often you are paid changes the size of each paycheck but not, by itself, what you earn or owe over a year. Weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly and monthly schedules all add up to the same annual gross and very nearly the same annual tax. The practical differences are about cash flow and budgeting. Bi-weekly pay — every two weeks — produces 26 checks a year, which means two months each year contain three paychecks instead of the usual two. Semi-monthly pay, by contrast, is twice a month for 24 checks, always landing on fixed dates such as the 15th and the last day. Weekly pay smooths cash flow the most but makes each check the smallest; monthly pay concentrates everything into twelve larger deposits that require more disciplined budgeting. Withholding adapts automatically. Because the calculator annualises your wages before figuring federal tax, the per-paycheck withholding scales to the frequency: a weekly check withholds about a quarter of what a monthly check does, but four times as often. This calculator shows your net pay at every frequency side by side, so you can see exactly what a switch would mean for the rhythm of your income. One tip: if you are paid bi-weekly, plan your fixed monthly bills around two paychecks and treat the two annual three-paycheck months as a built-in opportunity to save, pay down debt or build an emergency fund, rather than letting the extra check quietly disappear into spending.
Bonuses, raises and supplemental pay
Bonuses, commissions and other one-off payments are taxed as wages, but they are often withheld differently, which is why a bonus check can look as though it was taxed at a punishing rate. The IRS classifies bonuses and similar payments as supplemental wages. Many employers withhold federal tax on them at a flat 22% (rising to 37% on supplemental pay above $1 million in a year), rather than running them through your normal W-4 calculation. FICA and state tax still apply on top. A $5,000 bonus can therefore arrive with well over a third already withheld. Crucially, that is withholding, not your final tax — if the flat rate over-withholds relative to your actual bracket, the excess comes back as a larger refund when you file. This calculator models regular, recurring pay rather than the flat supplemental method, so for a one-off bonus, treat the flat 22% as a separate rule of thumb. A raise is more intuitive but still widely misunderstood because of how marginal brackets work. Moving into a higher tax bracket never lowers your take-home pay; only the dollars above the bracket threshold are taxed at the higher rate, so a raise always leaves you with more money in hand. The fear that a raise can push you backward usually comes from confusing the marginal rate with the average rate, or from losing an income-tested benefit at a specific cliff — not from the brackets themselves. To see the true effect of a raise, run your old and new salary through this calculator and compare the take-home figures directly.
W-2 employees, contractors and who this is for
This calculator models a W-2 employee — someone on a company payroll whose employer withholds taxes and issues a Form W-2 each January. If that is you, the numbers here mirror how your paycheck is built. Independent contractors and the self-employed work differently and are not the target here. A 1099 contractor receives gross pay with nothing withheld, then owes self-employment tax — both the employee and employer halves of Social Security and Medicare, about 15.3% — plus income tax, usually paid through quarterly estimated payments rather than per-paycheck withholding. A contractor earning the same headline figure as an employee therefore keeps a very different amount, and should plan for a larger tax set-aside. If you are weighing a W-2 offer against contract work, compare the after-tax outcomes, not the gross rates. A few other situations sit outside this model. Tipped workers have additional rules around reporting and tip credits; people who change states partway through the year split their state withholding; and equity compensation such as RSUs is usually withheld at the supplemental rate when it vests. For the large majority of salaried and hourly employees, though, the gross-to-net path this calculator walks — pre-tax deductions, federal withholding, FICA, state tax and post-tax deductions — is exactly the one your employer follows.
Reading your pay stub and tuning your withholding
The real test of any paycheck estimate is your actual pay stub, and learning to read one closes the loop. A stub lists gross pay, each pre-tax deduction, the individual taxes — federal income tax, Social Security, Medicare and state tax — any post-tax deductions, and the net pay that follows. Comparing those lines against this calculator is the fastest way to spot a misconfigured W-4 or an unexpected deduction. If your numbers do not line up, the usual culprits are on the W-4. Too large a refund every year means you are withholding more than you owe and lending the government money interest-free; you can reclaim that cash flow by claiming dependent credits or adding deductions on the form. A repeated balance due, or an underpayment penalty, means too little is coming out — often because of a second job, a working spouse or significant side income. The fixes are the multiple-jobs checkbox, a smaller dependent figure, or an extra withholding amount in Step 4(c). After any big life change — a marriage, a new child, a raise, a home purchase or a move to a new state — it is worth redoing your W-4 and re-running the numbers. Keep the limits of an estimate in mind. This tool uses verified federal brackets, the standard deduction, FICA rates and Social Security wage bases, along with state schedules, but it simplifies the withholding tables, ignores local taxes and state-specific rules, and cannot replicate your employer's exact payroll configuration. It is not payroll, legal or tax advice. Use it to plan and to ask better questions, then confirm the specifics with your pay stub, your employer's payroll team, the IRS Tax Withholding Estimator or a qualified tax professional before making decisions that depend on the exact figure.
Frequently asked questions
How does this paycheck calculator work?
It starts from your gross pay for the chosen pay frequency, removes pre-tax items such as a 401(k) and benefits, then estimates federal income tax withholding from your Form W-4, FICA (Social Security and Medicare) and an optional state withholding amount. Post-tax deductions come off last, leaving your net take-home pay per paycheck and for the year. Every figure is an estimate.
Why is my withholding different from my actual tax bill?
Withholding is a per-paycheck prepayment, not your final tax. Your employer uses the Form W-4 method to spread an estimate across the year, but your real bill depends on all your income, deductions and credits, which you settle when you file. Come up short across the year and you owe the gap at filing; overshoot and the surplus comes back to you as a refund.
Does a 401(k) lower the Social Security and Medicare I pay?
No. A traditional 401(k) reduces the wages your federal and state income tax are figured on, but Social Security and Medicare are still charged on the full amount you earn. That is why this calculator keeps two separate wage bases — one for income tax and a higher one for FICA. Pre-tax health benefits, by contrast, lower both.
What is the difference between the pay frequencies?
Weekly pays 52 times a year, bi-weekly 26, semi-monthly 24 and monthly 12. A more frequent schedule means smaller individual paychecks but the same annual pay and roughly the same annual tax. The calculator shows your take-home at every frequency so you can compare them side by side.
How is overtime handled?
Choose the hourly option and enter your regular weekly hours plus any overtime hours. Overtime is paid at 1.5× your hourly rate. The calculator annualises both — regular hours and overtime — to build your gross pay, then taxes and deductions follow as normal.
What does the multiple-jobs checkbox do?
It mirrors Step 2 of the Form W-4. When you or your spouse hold more than one job, checking it splits the standard deduction so each job withholds more, helping avoid a surprise bill at tax time. In the calculator it raises your federal withholding to reflect that.
Why is Additional Medicare withheld at $200,000 even for married couples?
Employers are required to withhold the 0.9% Additional Medicare Tax on wages over a flat $200,000 for every employee, with no regard to filing status. The higher married thresholds only apply when you reconcile the tax on your return, which is why a couple can have some withheld here and get part of it back later.
How accurate is the state withholding?
Think of it as a close approximation, not a payroll instruction. Each state's flat rate or bracket schedule is applied to your taxable wages, but the many state-level twists — personal exemptions, state standard deductions, local city or county taxes and assorted credits — are left out because they differ so much from one state to the next. Nine states take nothing from wages at all. The number is most dependable in flat-tax states and tends to run high where a state grants generous deductions, so confirm the exact amount with your state's own withholding tables or your payroll department.
What is the difference between pre-tax and post-tax deductions?
Pre-tax deductions — a traditional 401(k) or cafeteria-plan benefits — come out before tax is figured, lowering the income you are taxed on. Post-tax deductions, such as a Roth 401(k), union dues or garnishments, come out after tax and do not reduce your taxable wages. Both lower your take-home pay, but only pre-tax items cut your tax.
Is this estimate accurate enough to rely on?
Treat it as a planning estimate, not a pay stub or tax advice. It uses verified federal brackets, the standard deduction, FICA rates and Social Security wage bases, plus state schedules, but it simplifies the Form W-4 tables, ignores local taxes and state-specific rules, and cannot know your employer's exact setup. Confirm with your pay stub, your employer's payroll team or a tax professional.
Which tax years does it cover?
Three years are available: 2024, 2025 and 2026. Switching between them swaps in that year's tax brackets, standard deduction and Social Security wage base, so choose the year whose pay periods you actually want to model. The 2025 and 2026 tables carry the larger standard deductions enacted in recent legislation.