US Take-Home Pay Calculator

How this is calculated

This is an annualized estimate of the actual 2026 tax math — not a simulation of your employer's W-4 withholding. Four pieces are computed and divided by your number of paychecks:

• Federal income tax — the seven 2026 marginal brackets (10% to 37%) applied to gross pay minus pre-tax deductions minus the 2026 standard deduction ($16,100 single / $32,200 married filing jointly / $24,150 head of household). No credits or itemized deductions.
• Social Security — 6.2% of FICA wages up to the 2026 wage base of $184,500.
• Medicare — 1.45% of all FICA wages, plus 0.9% on wages above $200,000 ($250,000 married filing jointly; thresholds are set by statute and not inflation-adjusted).
• State income tax — an effective rate times gross pay minus pre-tax deductions. Exact $0 for the nine no-tax states; the exact 2026 flat rate for the sixteen single-rate states (state-specific exemptions not modeled); and for graduated states, an editable rate pre-filled with the midpoint of the state's 2026 range, clearly labeled as a placeholder.

Pre-tax treatment follows the real rules: 401(k)-type deferrals reduce income tax but not Social Security or Medicare, while health and other cafeteria-plan deductions reduce both. This calculator is an estimate — payroll deductions like your actual 401(k), insurance premiums, HSA, or wage garnishments aren't included unless you enter them, and local/city income taxes (and Maryland's county taxes) aren't modeled at all.

Data: federal brackets and standard deductions from IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32 (tax year 2026); Social Security wage base from SSA; FICA rates from IRS Topic 751; state rates from the Tax Foundation's State Individual Income Tax Rates and Brackets, 2026. Bundled with this page, retrieved July 18, 2026; updated when next year's figures are published.

Where your paycheck actually goes

The gap between your salary and your bank deposit is not one tax but a stack of them, each with its own rules. On the default example — $75,000, single, in a no-income-tax state — gross pay of $2,884.62 per biweekly check becomes about $2,368.94: roughly $295 to federal income tax, $179 to Social Security, and $42 to Medicare. Understanding each layer is the difference between guessing and knowing.

Brackets are marginal — the most misunderstood fact in taxes

Federal tax rates apply to slices of income, not to all of it. That $75,000 earner first subtracts the $16,100 standard deduction, leaving $58,900 of taxable income. The first $12,400 of that is taxed at 10%, the slice up to $50,400 at 12%, and only the last $8,500 at 22%. Total: about $7,670 — an average federal rate under 11%, even though the earner is "in the 22% bracket." This is why a raise can never shrink your paycheck: crossing into a higher bracket taxes only the dollars above the line. Turning down a raise to "stay in a lower bracket" is always a mistake, arithmetically.

The flat taxes underneath

Social Security and Medicare (together, FICA) work differently: flat rates from the first dollar, with no standard deduction. Social Security's 6.2% stops at the 2026 wage base of $184,500 — above that, the marginal FICA burden actually falls, which is why high salaries see a bump in take-home late in the year once the cap is reached. Medicare's 1.45% never stops, and adds 0.9% above $200,000. And your pay stub shows only half of FICA: your employer remits a matching 7.65% on your behalf, a cost most economists conclude is ultimately borne by workers through lower wages. Even counting just the visible half, for roughly the bottom two-thirds of earners FICA takes more than federal income tax does — a fact that surprises almost everyone who checks.

Pre-tax dollars are discounted dollars

A 401(k) contribution reduces your taxable income now, so a $100 deferral at a 22% marginal rate only shrinks your check by about $78 — though it still pays FICA. Employer health premiums and other cafeteria-plan deductions do even better, escaping income tax and FICA. Enter yours in the calculator and watch the effective discount appear in the breakdown bar; it's the cheapest way most people will ever buy investments or insurance.

What an estimate can and can't tell you

Your pay stub will not match any calculator to the dollar, including this one. Employers withhold using W-4 tables that approximate your annual liability; credits (child tax credit, education credits), itemized deductions, bonuses taxed at the flat supplemental rate, multiple jobs, and local taxes all move the real number. Treat the output here as a well-sourced baseline for decisions — comparing offers, sizing a 401(k) change, checking a state move — and expect the final figures to be settled, as always, by your actual tax return.