US Paycheck Calculator
Estimate your take-home pay after federal income tax and FICA (Social Security and Medicare). Texas and Florida are calculated; for any other state you type your own rate.
Calculated in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere.
Married filing separately is not offered: its brackets are not in our verified data.
We only calculate states whose rules are confirmed by the state tax agency. For any other state, type the rate yourself.
Enter your pay to see your take-home pay.
Federal income tax and FICA use the 2026 figures published by the IRS.
Indicative estimate, not financial or tax advice.
How the calculation works
The calculator starts from your gross pay for the year (an hourly wage is multiplied by your weekly hours and 52 weeks). Federal income tax is figured on taxable income: gross pay minus the standard deduction for your filing status. The tax is then built bracket by bracket: each slice of taxable income is taxed at its own rate, so only the part above a threshold is taxed at the higher rate.
FICA is separate and does not use the standard deduction. Social Security is 6.2% of wages up to the annual wage base. Medicare is 1.45% of all wages, and an extra 0.9% applies to wages above the Additional Medicare withholding threshold. Employers withhold that extra 0.9% above that threshold whatever your filing status.
State income tax is where rules differ most. We calculate only the states whose rule we have confirmed from the state tax agency: Texas and Florida, which do not tax wages. For every other state, enter your effective state rate yourself and it is applied to your gross pay. We do not guess state brackets, because an unverified bracket would give a wrong answer that looks exact.
Worked example
A single filer in Texas earning $75,000 a year and paid every two weeks. The standard deduction is $16,100, so taxable income is $58,900.
- Federal income tax
- $7,670.00
- Social Security (6.2%)
- $4,650.00
- Medicare (1.45%)
- $1,087.50
- Take-home pay per year
- $61,592.50
- Take-home pay per paycheck (26 a year)
- $2,368.94
Your employer’s withholding can differ because it follows your Form W-4 and the IRS withholding tables, not the annual bracket calculation shown here.
Short glossary
- Gross pay
- What you earn before any tax or deduction comes out.
- Standard deduction
- A fixed amount subtracted from income before federal income tax is calculated. It depends on filing status.
- Tax bracket
- A range of taxable income taxed at one rate. Only the income inside a range is taxed at that range’s rate.
- FICA
- The payroll taxes that fund Social Security and Medicare.
- Effective tax rate
- Total tax divided by gross pay. It is always lower than your top bracket.
- Withholding
- Tax your employer takes out of each paycheck and sends to the government on your behalf.
What this calculator does not do
- Federal income tax and FICA only. Credits (such as child credits), itemized deductions, 401(k) and health contributions are not modeled.
- Local taxes (city, county) and state payroll programs such as disability or family leave contributions are not included.
- Only Texas and Florida are calculated by name. California’s standard deduction, New York’s 2026 brackets and Ohio’s rates are not confirmed in our data, so those states use the rate you enter.
- Annual estimate divided by pay periods, not the exact IRS Publication 15-T withholding method.