US Paycheck & Salary Take-Home Pay Calculator (2026)

Worked example

How your US take-home pay is calculated

Your gross salary is the headline number on your offer letter, but your take-home pay (net pay) is what actually lands in your bank account after taxes. This calculator models the two federal taxes that every W-2 employee in the United States pays: federal income tax and FICA (Social Security and Medicare). Together they are the largest deductions on most paychecks.

The flow from gross to net follows a fixed order. First, your gross salary is reduced by the standard deduction for your filing status to arrive at taxable income. For 2026 the standard deduction is $16,100 for single filers and for married filing separately, $32,200 for married filing jointly, and $24,150 for head of household. These amounts are the annual inflation adjustments published by the IRS in Rev. Proc. 2025-32, applied to the baseline set by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (Public Law 119-21).

Next, your taxable income runs through the 2026 federal tax brackets, which are progressive. This is the single most misunderstood part of a paycheck. Moving into the 22% bracket does not mean all of your income is taxed at 22%. Only the dollars that fall inside that bracket are taxed at that rate; the dollars below it stay taxed at 10% and 12%. That is why your effective rate (total tax divided by gross salary) is always lower than your top marginal rate. In the worked example above, a single earner on $80,000 sits in the 22% marginal bracket but pays an effective federal income tax rate of about 11.0%.

FICA works differently. It is a flat percentage of gross wages, not of taxable income, so your standard deduction does not reduce it. Social Security is 6.2% and Medicare is 1.45%, for a combined base rate of 7.65% that comes straight off the top of your pay. Because FICA ignores deductions, lower earners often find FICA takes a bigger bite than income tax.

Finally, the calculator adds federal income tax and FICA together, subtracts the total from your gross salary, and divides the annual net by your number of pay periods. Choosing monthly gives you 12 paychecks, biweekly gives you 26, and annual shows the full-year figure. The pay frequency only changes how the same annual net is sliced; it never changes how much total tax you owe.

FICA: Social Security and Medicare, line by line

FICA (the Federal Insurance Contributions Act) funds Social Security and Medicare. As an employee you pay half and your employer pays the matching half; this calculator shows only the employee half, because that is what comes out of your paycheck.

Social Security is withheld at 6.2% of your gross wages, but only up to an annual wage base. For 2026 that base is $184,500. Once your year-to-date wages cross that ceiling, Social Security withholding stops for the rest of the year, so the most any single employee pays in 2026 is $11,439.00 (6.2% of $184,500). High earners often notice their paychecks get slightly larger late in the year for exactly this reason.

Medicare is withheld at 1.45% of all your wages with no cap, so it applies to every dollar you earn. On top of that, an Additional Medicare Tax of 0.9% applies to wages above a threshold that depends on filing status: $200,000 for single and head-of-household filers, $250,000 for married filing jointly, and $125,000 for married filing separately. Your employer must begin withholding the extra 0.9% once your wages with that employer pass $200,000, regardless of filing status, so joint filers sometimes see it withheld before they actually owe it and reconcile the difference on their return.

Add the pieces up and a typical employee under the Social Security cap pays a flat 7.65% of gross to FICA. On a $60,000 salary that is $4,590 for the year, or about $176.54 from each of 26 biweekly checks. Unlike income tax, there is no standard deduction, no bracket, and no way to lower FICA except by reducing taxable wages through pre-tax benefits such as a 401(k) contribution or an HSA, which shrink the wage figure your employer reports.

It helps to keep the two systems separate in your head: income tax is progressive and deduction-driven, while FICA is flat and wage-driven. That is why two people with the same gross salary but different filing statuses can owe very different income tax yet identical FICA.

Why state tax and pre-tax deductions change the answer

This calculator deliberately covers federal income tax and FICA only. It does not include state or local income tax, and that gap can be large. State income tax is set independently by each state, so the same $80,000 salary produces a very different check in different places.

Nine states levy no state income tax at all: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire (on wages), South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming. In those states the federal result here is close to your full picture. Other states use flat rates, and a number use progressive brackets that can add several thousand dollars of tax on a mid-range salary. Some cities, such as New York City and several in Ohio and Pennsylvania, add a local income tax on top. Because these rules change by jurisdiction and year, we exclude them rather than risk an inaccurate figure; treat this tool as your federal baseline and add your state's rate separately.

Pre-tax deductions are the other major reason your real paycheck may differ from this estimate. Contributions to a traditional 401(k), a 403(b), a health savings account (HSA), or an employer health-insurance premium are typically taken out before income tax is calculated, lowering your taxable wages. A single filer on $80,000 who contributes $8,000 to a traditional 401(k) is taxed on income as if they earned $72,000, cutting federal income tax while keeping the same take-home discipline of saving. Note that 401(k) contributions reduce income tax but not Social Security and Medicare, which are still charged on the full wage; HSA contributions made through payroll can reduce both.

Post-tax items also affect the number that hits your account: Roth 401(k) contributions, wage garnishments, union dues, and after-tax insurance are subtracted from net pay without lowering tax. Because every employer benefits menu is different, the cleanest way to use this calculator is to run your gross salary first for a clean federal-and-FICA baseline, then layer your own state rate and benefit elections on top. The result will bracket your true take-home closely enough to plan a budget or compare two job offers.

Turning annual pay into a per-paycheck figure

Most people experience their salary one paycheck at a time, so the calculator converts your annual net into a per-period amount. The math is simple division, but the number of periods matters. Monthly pay means 12 checks a year, and biweekly pay means 26 checks (every other week), not 24. That distinction trips up a lot of budgeting: biweekly employees receive two extra 'bonus' paychecks in the two months each year that contain three pay dates, which is why dividing an annual figure by 24 undercounts each check.

Picking a different pay frequency in this tool never changes your total tax or your annual take-home. It only reslices the same yearly net pay. A single filer keeping $65,110 for the year takes home about $5,425.83 monthly or $2,504.23 biweekly. The annual total is identical; only the slice size differs.

One important nuance: the per-paycheck figure here is a smooth, even estimate. Real employer payroll systems calculate withholding on each individual paycheck using IRS Publication 15-T and the information on your Form W-4, and they annualize each period's pay. That method can make early-year and late-year checks differ slightly from a flat annual average, especially once Social Security stops for high earners who cross the $184,500 wage base mid-year. Your W-4 choices (filing status, extra withholding, dependents, and multiple-job adjustments) also shift withholding up or down without changing your actual year-end tax liability.

Because of that, treat the per-paycheck output as a reliable planning number rather than a guarantee of the exact cents on your stub. If your goal is to compare two salary offers, judge them on annual net take-home, which is the apples-to-apples figure. If your goal is monthly budgeting, use the per-period net but keep a small buffer for the biweekly quirk and for any state tax or benefit deductions you add. When you file your return, the standard deduction and brackets modeled here settle your true federal income tax, and any over- or under-withholding across the year is reconciled as a refund or a balance due.

Frequently asked questions