California Paycheck Calculator
Three different things come out of a California paycheck and they follow three different sets of rules: federal withholding, California Personal Income Tax, and State Disability Insurance at 1.3% of every dollar you earn. This calculator shows them on separate lines rather than as one “state tax” figure, for 2026 rates, hourly or salaried.
California payroll premiums
Mandatory deductions that aren't income tax. They come out of your paycheck whether or not California taxes income.
- CA SDI1.3% (no cap)
1.3% of all wages, with no cap since 2024.
Your Form W-4
Optional. Skip this and you'll get the withholding for a W-4 with nothing claimed on it. The form has had no "allowances" since 2020 — dependents are now a dollar credit in Step 3.
The dollar total from Step 3, not a number of people — typically $2,200 per qualifying child and $500 per other dependent.
Interest, dividends or retirement income with no withholding of its own.
Only deductions beyond the standard deduction, from the Step 4(b) worksheet.
An extra dollar amount held from each paycheck, on top of the tax above.
This calculator provides estimates for informational purposes only. Actual paycheck amounts may vary based on your employer, benefits, local taxes, filing status, and tax elections.
Federal withholding calculation updated September 2026 using IRS Publication 15-T (2026).
Your estimate will appear here
Enter your pay details and click calculate to see your estimated take-home pay, tax breakdown, and annual income.
The Three Withholdings, Kept Apart
Most calculators fold California into one “state tax” line. That hides the fact that two quite different things are being withheld, under different rules, and it makes the stub impossible to check.
Federal income tax is withheld under IRS Publication 15-T from your W-4: filing status, the multiple-jobs checkbox, dependant credits, other income and deductions. Nothing about it is Californian, and it is identical to what the same salary would produce in Texas.
California Personal Income Tax runs through the state’s own schedule, 1% to 12.3%, on wages after California’s standard deduction, then reduced by the exemption credit. California uses its own DE 4 form with allowances, which the federal W-4 dropped in 2020 — so the two forms do not mirror each other, and changing one does not change the other.
State Disability Insurance is neither of those. It is a flat 1.3% of gross wages with no brackets, no deductions, no credits and no cap. It funds short-term disability and Paid Family Leave benefits you may claim later, which makes it closer to an insurance premium than to a tax — but it comes out of your pay all the same.
On $75,000 a year that is $7,670.00 federal, $2,774.57 PIT and $975.00 SDI, plus $5,737.50 FICA. Four numbers, four sets of rules.
SDI Has No Wage Cap
Until the end of 2023, SDI stopped once your wages passed a taxable ceiling. Since 1 January 2024 there is no ceiling at all. Every dollar of wages is subject to it, at every salary.
This matters most to higher earners, and it is where older guidance and other calculators are most often wrong — many still apply a cap that has not existed for two years. On $250,000, SDI alone is $3,250.00 a year. Under the old capped rule it would have stopped far below that.
It is also the opposite of how Social Security behaves, which is what makes the mistake easy: Social Security stops at $184,500 of wages for 2026, so on a high salary you watch one line stop and may reasonably assume the other does too. It does not.
Which of These Are Yours, and Which Are Your Employer’s
California runs four state payroll taxes. Only two of them touch your paycheck, and the distinction is worth knowing when you are reading a stub or comparing an offer.
| Tax | Paid by | On your stub? |
|---|---|---|
| Personal Income Tax (PIT) | You | Yes — withheld |
| State Disability Insurance (SDI) | You | Yes — withheld |
| Unemployment Insurance (UI) | Employer | No |
| Employment Training Tax (ETT) | Employer | No |
UI and ETT are experience-rated, meaning the rate varies by employer, and they are a cost to the business rather than a deduction from you. If a payroll summary shows them, that is the employer’s total cost of employing you — not something taken out of your wages.
Unlike some states, neither of California’s employee-side deductions is optional. In New York an employer may choose to cover the Paid Family Leave premium; in Massachusetts a private plan can replace the state one. California SDI has no such route: an approved Voluntary Plan can replace the state plan, but the deduction still comes out of your pay.
Quick Answer
On $75,000 filing single and paid biweekly, a California paycheck of $2,884.62 gross comes to about $2,224.73 take-home. The deductions are federal income tax $295.00, California PIT $106.71, SDI $37.50, Social Security $178.85 and Medicare $41.83. SDI is not income tax and has had no wage cap since 2024.
How It Works: Formula & Variables
Net Pay = Gross − Federal Withholding − Social Security − Medicare − California PIT − SDI − Other Deductions
- Federal withholding
- IRS Publication 15-T, Worksheet 1A, from your W-4 steps. Not affected by living in California.
- Social Security
- 6.2% of wages up to $184,500 for 2026. Stops above that.
- Medicare
- 1.45% of all wages, no ceiling, plus an extra 0.9% on wages above the high-earner threshold.
- California PIT
- The full published schedule, 1% to 12.3%, on wages after California's standard deduction, then reduced by the exemption credit. Worked bracket by bracket, not averaged.
- SDI
- 1.3% of all gross wages, with no cap since 2024. A flat rate, unaffected by filing status or deductions.
- Pre-tax deductions
- 401(k) and similar reduce both federal and California taxable income before either tax is worked out.
California withholding follows the Franchise Tax Board's Method B exact-calculation schedules, which is the method payroll systems use, rather than a single average rate.
Worked Examples
Example 1: Hourly, $24.00 an hour
Alex works 40 hours a week at $24.00 an hour, filing single, paid weekly. Gross is $960.00 a week ($49,920 a year). Federal withholding takes $73.28, California PIT $19.90, SDI $12.48, Social Security $59.52 and Medicare $13.92. Take-home is $780.90 a week, or 81.3% of gross. Note how small the PIT line is at this income and how the SDI line is not much smaller — SDI is flat, so it weighs proportionally heaviest on lower wages.
Example 2: Salaried, $75,000, single
David earns $75,000 paid biweekly, so $2,884.62 gross a period, filing single. Federal withholding $295.00, California PIT $106.71, SDI $37.50, Social Security $178.85, Medicare $41.83. Take-home $2,224.73 a paycheck, 77.1% of gross. Across the year that is $2,774.57 of California income tax and $975.00 of SDI. The same salary in Texas would leave him $144.21 more per paycheck — $3,750 a year — because Texas has neither of those two lines.
Example 3: $250,000, where the cap question bites
On $250,000 filing single, take-home is $6,206.81 a biweekly paycheck, 64.6% of gross. California PIT is $19,004.98 for the year, 7.6% of gross — roughly double the share paid on $75,000, because the schedule is progressive. SDI is $3,250.00, and this is the figure other calculators most often get wrong: with no wage cap since 2024, it keeps accruing on every dollar, while Social Security has already stopped at $184,500.
Key Concepts
SDI is not income tax. It has no brackets, no deductions and no credits, and your filing status does not change it. It is 1.3% of gross wages, full stop — $975.00 a year on $75,000.
No SDI wage cap since 2024. Unlike Social Security, which stops at $184,500, SDI applies to every dollar at any salary.
California PIT is genuinely progressive. The schedule runs 1% to 12.3%. On $75,000 it comes to 3.7% of gross; on $250,000, 7.6%. Quoting a single "California rate" will be wrong at almost every income.
The DE 4 is not the W-4. California kept withholding allowances when the federal form dropped them in 2020. Your state allowances and your federal W-4 entries are set separately, and updating one leaves the other alone.
Two of California's four payroll taxes are yours. PIT and SDI are withheld from you; UI and ETT are employer costs and never appear on your stub.
No California city charges income tax. Your stub is the same in Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego — unlike Ohio, Pennsylvania or Maryland, where the locality genuinely changes withholding.
Common Mistakes
Applying an SDI wage cap. The most common error in California payroll estimates, and the one that grows with salary. The cap was removed on 1 January 2024. If a calculator stops charging SDI part-way up the year, it is running pre-2024 rules.
Folding SDI into "state tax". They behave completely differently — one is a flat rate on gross, the other runs through a schedule after deductions and credits. Adding them together makes your stub impossible to check line by line.
Counting UI and ETT as your deductions. They are employer taxes. Including them overstates what California costs you personally.
Assuming the W-4 controls California withholding. It does not. California uses the DE 4 with its own allowances, so a federal change alone will not move your state line.
Comparing gross offers across states. $75,000 in California nets $2,224.73 a paycheck against $2,368.94 in Texas. Compare net, not gross.
Leaving out pre-tax deductions. 401(k) and health premiums reduce both federal and California taxable income, so omitting them understates your take-home pay.
Frequently Asked Questions
On $75,000 a year filing single and paid biweekly, gross pay is $2,884.62 a period and take-home is about $2,224.73, or 77.1% of gross. That is made up of four separate withholdings: federal income tax $295.00, California PIT $106.71, SDI $37.50, and FICA — Social Security $178.85 plus Medicare $41.83. They are four different taxes with four different rules, and only one of them is California income tax.
State Disability Insurance. It funds short-term disability and Paid Family Leave, it is withheld from the employee, and it is not income tax — it does not go through brackets, deductions or credits. It takes 1.3% of every dollar you earn, which on a $75,000 salary is $975.00 a year.
No. There has been no SDI wage ceiling since 1 January 2024, when the previous taxable wage limit was removed. Every dollar of wages is subject to it, at any salary. This is the detail most often out of date in older guidance and in other calculators, which still show a cap that no longer exists.
You pay California Personal Income Tax and SDI; both are withheld from your wages and both appear on your stub. Your employer separately pays Unemployment Insurance and the Employment Training Tax, at experience-rated rates — those are an employer cost, are never deducted from your pay, and do not appear on your stub. So of California’s four state payroll taxes, exactly two reduce your take-home pay.
California PIT runs through the state’s full schedule, 1% to 12.3%, applied after California’s own standard deduction and then reduced by the exemption credit — a credit that comes off the tax itself, not off your income. On $75,000 filing single that is $2,774.57 a year, about 3.7% of gross. On $250,000 it is $19,004.98, or 7.6% — the rate climbs steeply because the schedule is genuinely progressive.
Yes, on both the federal and the state line. The same $75,000 salary paid biweekly nets $2,224.73 filing single and $2,410.85 filing married jointly — a difference of $186.12 a paycheck, from the wider brackets and larger deductions that status brings. SDI does not change: it is a flat rate on wages regardless of how you file.
California still uses its own DE 4 form with regular withholding allowances, which is different from the federal W-4 — the IRS dropped allowances in 2020, California did not. California withholding is worked out with the Franchise Tax Board’s Method B exact-calculation schedules, which apply a standard deduction based on your allowances and then subtract exemption credits. This calculator follows that structure using the published schedules rather than approximating with a single average rate.
On $75,000 paid biweekly, a Texas worker nets $2,368.94 and a California worker $2,224.73 — $144.21 more per paycheck in Texas, or $3,750 a year. Almost all of that gap is the two lines Texas does not have: California PIT and SDI. Federal tax and FICA are identical in both.
No. California levies income tax at state level and no California city charges its own income tax, so the same salary produces the same stub in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and everywhere else in the state. This is unlike Ohio, Pennsylvania or Maryland, where the city or county you live in genuinely changes the withholding.
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Compare Take-Home Pay by State
See exactly how much more you keep in Texas than in California.
Weighing California against somewhere else?
The state comparison tool runs the same salary through two or three states at once and shows each levy on its own line, so you can see exactly which of the $144.21 per-paycheck gap against Texas is income tax and which is SDI. If a bonus or overtime is part of the offer, those are withheld differently from salary — see the bonus calculator and the overtime calculator. Paid hourly and comparing against a salaried role? Convert first with hourly to salary.
Sources and assumptions
- SDI rate and the removal of the wage cap: California EDD, Rates and Withholding — "The SDI withholding rate for 2026 is 1.3 percent. Effective January 1, 2024, all wages are subject to SDI contributions." Verified 6 September 2026.
- California PIT schedule, standard deduction and exemption credit: Franchise Tax Board published rate schedules and the Method B exact-calculation method used by payroll systems.
- Federal withholding: IRS Publication 15-T, Worksheet 1A, the percentage method for automated payroll systems. Social Security 6.2% to $184,500 for 2026; Medicare 1.45% uncapped.
- Every figure on this page is generated at build time from the same engine the calculator runs on, so a rate change reaches the text and the tool together rather than leaving one behind.
- Assumptions: wages only, with no other income; a default W-4 unless you enter otherwise; no local income tax, because no California city levies one. Your employer's payroll may differ by a small amount depending on its rounding and your benefits.