Enter your salary, filing status, state, and pay frequency, and you’ll see your estimated take-home pay per paycheck — with every deduction itemized in an annual breakdown, and the exact formula and official sources shown below. Free, no signup, and nothing you type leaves your browser.
How to use this calculator
- Pay type — annual salary, or hourly (enter your rate and hours per week; the calculator annualizes it at 52 weeks).
- Filing status — single, or married filing jointly.
- State — pick from the 37 states plus Washington, D.C. with a verified schedule (every no-income-tax state included), or “None / other state” for the federal-only picture.
- Pay frequency — how often you’re paid; biweekly (26 checks) and semi-monthly (24 checks) are the most commonly confused.
The result updates as you type, and the URL updates too — copy it to share or save a scenario, or to compare two salaries side by side in two tabs.
A note on the frequency menu: it changes how the annual net is sliced, not the tax itself. Taxes here are computed on the full year and divided evenly, which matches how salaried withholding averages out — hourly workers with variable weeks should enter their average, and expect more check-to-check noise than any calculator can capture.
Where a paycheck actually goes
Four separate charges come out before money reaches you. Federal income tax is progressive: in 2026 the first $12,400 of taxable income (after the $16,100 single standard deduction) is taxed at 10%, the next slice at 12%, and so on up to 37% — so a raise never lowers your net pay; only the dollars inside the higher bracket are taxed at the higher rate. Social Security takes a flat 6.2% of wages, but only up to $184,500 in 2026 — earn more and the deduction simply stops, which is why high earners see their checks grow late in the year. Medicare takes 1.45% of everything, plus an extra 0.9% once wages pass $200,000 (single) or $250,000 (married). State income tax is the wildcard: it ranges from zero in Texas and Florida to a nine-bracket system topping out above 12% in California.
Marginal vs effective rate — the number that matters
People often mix up their top bracket with what they actually pay. A single filer at $60,000 sits in the 12% federal bracket, but their effective total tax rate — everything divided by gross — is about 16% federally, because much of the income was taxed at lower rates and the standard deduction shielded the first $16,100 entirely. The calculator reports this effective rate so you can compare offers across states honestly: a $70,000 offer in Texas can net more than $75,000 in California, and this tool makes that difference concrete in two clicks. The same logic applies to raises and bonuses — a bump that “pushes you into a higher bracket” only exposes the new dollars to the higher rate, so it always leaves you ahead on net pay.
Limits
This is an annual-liability estimate, not a payroll clone. It ignores pre-tax deductions (401(k), HSA, insurance premiums), local and city taxes, tax credits, and W-4 withholding adjustments. State coverage spans 37 states plus Washington, D.C. — every no-income-tax state and every state whose schedule we’ve verified to two sources; the remaining states (New York, Ohio, Oregon, and a few others with phase-outs the simple schedule can’t model) aren’t covered yet and would reduce net pay further. California figures use the FTB 2025 schedules (2026 is not yet published), and CA SDI (1.3% of all wages in 2026) is not included. If you want to check whether your actual withholding will produce a refund, run your W-2 numbers through the tax refund calculator.
Browse the rest of our calculators — every one shows its formula and official sources — or try the file-based tools, which run just as privately in your browser.