California pairs the country’s highest state income tax rates with a low standard deduction, so the gap between your salary and your take-home pay is bigger here than almost anywhere else. This calculator itemizes it: federal income tax, Social Security, Medicare, and California state tax across all nine FTB brackets, using the formula and official sources shown below. Free, no signup, and everything runs in your browser.
How to use it
- Enter your annual gross salary — or switch Pay type to Hourly and enter your rate and hours per week.
- Pick your filing status — CA brackets for married filing jointly are exactly double the single ones.
- California is preselected in the state menu; switch it to compare.
- Choose your pay frequency to see the per-check figure.
How California’s nine brackets actually bite
The first slices are gentle — 1% and 2% — which makes headlines about “California’s 13.3% tax” misleading for typical earners. What matters for the middle class is the 9.3% bracket, which starts at just $72,724 of taxable income for a single filer (FTB 2025). That’s not a millionaire’s threshold: a $80,000 software support salary in Sacramento already has dollars taxed at 9.3%, a rate most states never reach at any income. From there the climb continues — 10.3% past $371,479, 11.3% past $445,771, 12.3% past $742,953, and the 1% Mental Health Services Tax takes the true top rate to 13.3% above $1 million. For high earners the state bill rivals the federal one: at $500,000 single, California alone takes roughly $45,000.
Married filing jointly: exact doubling, fewer penalties
Unlike the federal schedule — where the top brackets stop doubling and create a genuine “marriage penalty” for two high earners — California’s married-filing-jointly brackets are exactly twice the single ones at every tier, from the 1% floor to the 12.3% threshold at $1,485,906. Two similar incomes therefore combine without bracket damage at the state level. The flip side: a single-income household gets a real advantage from filing jointly in California, since the working spouse’s salary spreads across brackets sized for two. Toggle the filing-status menu and watch the state row change to see the effect for your own salary; the federal row shifts too, since the $32,200 federal deduction is also exactly double.
San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego — one statewide schedule
Searching for a “San Francisco paycheck calculator” or an “LA salary calculator”? In California they’re all this calculator: no California city levies a personal income tax on employee wages, so state withholding is identical in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, and Sacramento. (San Francisco’s payroll-related taxes — the gross receipts tax and the administrative office tax — are employer-side business taxes that never appear on your pay stub.) That’s a real contrast with New York City or Philadelphia, where the city takes its own cut. What actually changes between California metros is the cost of living the same net pay has to cover — a $47,000 take-home stretches very differently in Fresno than in SoMa.
What California takes that this calculator doesn’t show
Two real deductions sit outside the scope here. SDI (State Disability Insurance) is 1.3% of every wage dollar in 2026 — the wage cap was abolished in 2024, so a $200,000 earner now pays about $2,600 a year into it. And because the CA standard deduction is only $5,706 (single), far below the federal $16,100, more of your income is state-taxable than federally taxable — one reason the state bill feels disproportionately large at modest salaries. Exemption credits claw a little back, but they’re small (about $154 per filer) and not modeled here.
Limits
Federal math uses tax year 2026; California uses the FTB 2025 schedules — the state publishes its inflation-indexed brackets each fall, so 2026 amounts aren’t out yet. Pre-tax 401(k)/HSA/ insurance deductions, local taxes, credits, and SDI are excluded. For the withholding-vs-refund side of the equation, run your numbers through the tax refund calculator.
Comparing a move? See the same salary in Texas or Florida — neither has a state income tax — or use the general paycheck calculator to switch states freely. More formula-first calculators are on the hub page.