How we calculate take-home pay

Federal income tax follows Publication 15-T (2026), the method employers use for a Form W-4 from 2020 or later. When the W-4 or the 2025 to 2028 deductions for tips, overtime and seniors change the result, the calculator shows the tax owed and the expected refund next to the withholding.

Social Security takes 6.2% of wages up to $184,500 in 2026 and Medicare takes 1.45% of all wages, plus 0.9% of Additional Medicare Tax over $200,000. Paychecks are assumed equal through the year, so the calculator also shows the paycheck in which Social Security stops.

State income tax owed follows each state's own rules for 2026: brackets or a flat rate, the state's deductions and exemptions, and the credits every wage earner gets. Each paycheck uses the state's withholding formula where it publishes one; elsewhere the year's tax is spread evenly and pages show any gap as a refund at filing.

States differ on what pre-tax deductions reduce: One state taxes 401(k) contributions (Pennsylvania) and one taxes Section 125 health premiums (New Jersey). Each state's rules record both.

Employee state payroll taxes (disability insurance, paid leave, unemployment, long-term care and transit) are included in the 17 states that charge them, and local income taxes in 12 states, with 529 cities, counties and school districts to pick from.

Optional local taxes apply when you pick the locality. Where every resident pays a local tax, the most populous county is the default: Marion County in Indiana and Montgomery County in Maryland.

The calculator assumes one job, no other income, and living and working in the same state and locality, with a Form W-4 from 2020 or later; it leaves out employer taxes, itemized deductions and tax owed to a second state when you work across a state line.

Refundable credits are left out because they depend on family and household income, not on one paycheck: the federal additional child tax credit and earned income credit, Idaho's grocery credit, Maine's dependent credit, and the New Mexico, Massachusetts, New York and Minnesota child credits.

Every comparison between states uses one reference worker, so the only thing that changes is the state. Optional local taxes are left out; where every resident pays one, the most populous county's rate is included.

15 official statistics put the paycheck in context: wages by occupation, price levels, minimum wages, household income, Social Security wages, pay frequency, refunds, household finances and consumer prices, each with its publisher and publication date below.

Wage statistics describe employees, not the self-employed, and price levels describe a whole state, not one city.

Every rule on the site is tested against its official publication: 2,319 automated tests, counted on November 1, 2026, including 35,831 cells of the Publication 15-T wage bracket tables. 51 of 51 states and DC run on official 2026 rules today, and a page that cannot show a verified number is not published.

Auditors who did not write the rules ran 838 independent checks across all 50 states and DC with their own calculators: 829 matched the engine within a dollar, 20 mismatches were fixed before launch, and 9 differ only because printed tax tables round income to the middle of a band while the site uses the exact rate schedule, kept on purpose.