Paycheck Calculator

The W-4 was rewritten in 2020. Withholding allowances are gone, and a calculator that still asks how many you claim is answering a question the IRS stopped asking. What replaced them is four numbered steps, and each one moves your withholding in a different way.

Step 1 — filing status

Sets which withholding schedule applies. Single, married filing jointly, or head of household.

Step 2 — the multiple-jobs checkbox

Tick it when you hold two jobs, or when you and your spouse both work. It switches to a second schedule that assumes roughly half your income is taxed at the other job. Leaving it unticked with two incomes is the most common cause of owing money in April.

Step 3 — dependants and credits

A dollar amount, and this is the part most often misunderstood: it is a credit, subtracted from the tax itself, not a reduction in income. Entering $2,000 for one child reduces your annual withholding by the full $2,000, not by $2,000 times your tax rate.

Step 4(a) — other income

Interest, dividends, retirement income with nothing withheld. Adds to the income your withholding is worked out on.

Step 4(b) — deductions

For itemisers claiming more than the standard deduction. Reduces the income withholding is based on.

Step 4(c) — extra withholding

A flat amount taken from every paycheck on top of everything else. The simplest lever if you want a bigger refund or are covering tax on side income.

Leave everything blank and you get the default: the standard deduction for your filing status and nothing else, which is what most single-job employees are actually on.

This calculator applies those entries the way payroll does, using the percentage method for automated systems in IRS Publication 15-T. There is no need to read the publication to use the page — the fields above are the whole interface — but it is the source, and it is linked at the foot of this page.

Six things can come out of a US paycheck. The first three are the same wherever you work; the last three are entirely about where you are, and they are the reason the same salary produces different pay in different places.

Three worked cases, all on $75,000 filing single and paid biweekly, showing how far apart those last three lines can push the answer:

• California — $106.71 state income tax plus $37.50 SDI, no local tax. Net $2,224.73.
• Washington — no income tax at all, but $40.01 of paid-leave and long-term-care premiums, which is $1,040.37 a year. Net $2,328.93.
• Philadelphia — $69.55 Pennsylvania income tax, $107.74 city wage tax, $2.02 employee unemployment. Net $2,189.64. The city line alone is $2,801.25 a year, more than the state line.

A state-level figure would show Philadelphia and rural Pennsylvania as identical. They are not, and the difference is larger than the entire income tax bill of several other states. If you are comparing two places, the state comparison tool runs both at once with each line kept separate.

If you'd rather work it out by hand than run the numbers through the calculator, here's the full path from gross pay to net pay, using a real example.

Jenna earns $60,000 a year, paid biweekly, filing Single, working in Texas (no state income tax), and puts $100 per paycheck into an HSA through payroll.

1. Find gross pay per period. $60,000 ÷ 26 pay periods = $2,307.69.
2. Subtract pre-tax deductions. $2,307.69 − $100 (HSA) = $2,207.69 in taxable pay. Payroll HSA contributions skip income tax and FICA both.
3. Apply federal income tax. Annual pay of $57,400 after the HSA, minus the $16,100 standard deduction, leaves $41,300 taxable. Through the 2026 Single brackets that's $4,708 a year, or $181.08 for this paycheck.
4. Subtract Social Security. 6.2% of FICA wages: $2,207.69 × 0.062 = $136.88.
5. Subtract Medicare. 1.45% of FICA wages: $2,207.69 × 0.0145 = $32.01.
6. Subtract state tax. $0, since Texas has no state income tax.
7. Add it all up. $2,307.69 − $100 − $181.08 − $136.88 − $32.01 = $1,857.73 net pay.

Swap that HSA for a traditional 401(k) and step 3 stays the same, but steps 4 and 5 don't: retirement contributions still count as wages for Social Security and Medicare, so FICA would come off the full $2,307.69 instead. The calculator's pre-tax deduction field follows the HSA/FSA treatment, which means it shades FICA slightly low for a 401(k)-only contributor.

The calculator above runs through the same steps automatically, and adjusts for your actual state, filing status, and deductions.

Federal income tax is progressive, which means you don't pay one flat rate on your whole income. Each bracket below only applies to the slice of income that falls inside it. These are the exact brackets the calculator above uses to work out your federal withholding.

Take a Single filer with $60,000 in taxable income as an example: the first $12,400 is taxed at 10%, the next chunk up to $50,400 is taxed at 12%, and only the remainder above that is taxed at 22%. Nobody's whole paycheck gets taxed at their top bracket, no matter what their coworkers say at lunch.

The IRS adjusts these thresholds for inflation almost every year, usually announcing the next year's numbers in the fall. These figures come from IRS Revenue Procedure 2025-32, which sets the 2026 tax year, and the Social Security wage base of $184,500 comes from the SSA contribution and benefit base. This calculator gets updated to match as soon as the new figures are final.

Some deductions come out of your paycheck before taxes are calculated, which means they shrink your taxable income rather than just your bank balance. The three you'll run into most often:

401(k)

An employer-sponsored retirement account. Traditional contributions skip federal and state income tax, but they're still counted as wages for Social Security and Medicare. The 2026 employee limit is $24,500, or $32,500 if you're 50 or older.

HSA (Health Savings Account)

Only available if you're on a qualifying high-deductible health plan. Contributions made through payroll usually skip income tax and FICA tax both, which makes an HSA the most tax-efficient of the three. 2026 limits: $4,400 for self-only coverage, $8,750 for family coverage.

FSA (Flexible Spending Account)

Gets the same tax treatment as an HSA through payroll, but there's no high-deductible plan requirement, and it's mostly use-it-or-lose-it within the plan year (some employers allow a small carryover or grace period). 2026 limit: $3,400.

Example: Say you earn $70,000 a year, paid biweekly, which comes to $2,692.31 gross per paycheck. You put $150 into your 401(k) and $75 into an HSA each paycheck.

• Wages subject to Social Security and Medicare: $2,692.31 minus the $75 HSA contribution = $2,617.31 (the 401k doesn't reduce FICA wages).
• Wages subject to federal and state income tax: $2,692.31 minus $150 and $75 = $2,467.31.

That $225 never shows up as spendable cash in your account, but it also never gets taxed on the way out, which is the whole point of routing it through payroll instead of paying for retirement savings or medical costs out of your already-taxed take-home pay.

Single

Unmarried and not eligible for another status. 2026 standard deduction: $16,100. Uses the narrowest set of brackets.

Married Filing Jointly

Married couples reporting combined income and deductions on one return. 2026 standard deduction: $32,200, and each bracket threshold is roughly double the Single amount. That said, doubling the brackets doesn't fully cancel out the effect of combining two incomes onto one return, so dual-income couples don't always see as much of a benefit as the numbers suggest at first glance.

Married Filing Separately

Married, but each spouse files their own return. 2026 standard deduction: $16,100, the same as Single, but the brackets are narrower than Married Filing Jointly (roughly half), and filing separately closes the door on several credits and deductions, including the student loan interest deduction and some education credits. It usually only pays off in specific situations: separating tax liability between spouses, lowering payments on an income-driven student loan plan, or when one spouse has large deductions tied to their own income.

Head of Household

Unmarried, and paying more than half the cost of keeping up a home for a qualifying dependent. 2026 standard deduction: $24,150, with wider brackets than Single. That combination is why Head of Household usually comes out to a lower tax bill than filing Single for someone who qualifies.

The calculator above supports Single, Married Filing Jointly, and Head of Household directly. If you file Married Filing Separately, the Single option is the closest stand-in since both share the same 2026 standard deduction and similarly narrow brackets, though the two statuses aren't identical on every rule.

A few of these actually put more cash in each paycheck. Others trade a smaller paycheck now for better value overall, which is a different thing worth being honest about.

• Fix an overloaded W-4. If you get a large refund every year, that's a sign too much was withheld from every paycheck, essentially an interest-free loan to the government. Adjusting your W-4 brings that money into your regular paychecks instead of making you wait until tax season.
• Double-check your filing status and dependents. Using the wrong status, or leaving off dependents and credits you actually qualify for, is a common reason people get over-withheld without realizing it.
• Use HSA or FSA accounts for expenses you already have. This one lowers the number on your paycheck, but since those dollars skip tax entirely, you get more real spending power per dollar than paying the same medical or dependent care bill with already-taxed income.
• Ask about a raise, bonus, or overtime. The only item on this list that actually grows your gross pay rather than just changing how much of it gets withheld.
• Add a second income stream. Freelance work, a part-time job, or a side business adds income outside your main paycheck's withholding. Set aside money for taxes yourself, especially self-employment tax, since nobody's withholding it for you.
• Consider a lower-tax state if you can work remotely. State income tax can eat several percentage points of gross pay in high-tax states, and zero in states like Texas or Florida that don't have one at all.

Biweekly means you're paid every two weeks, 26 times a year. Pay day lands on the same weekday every period, like every other Friday, so the rhythm is predictable, but it doesn't line up neatly with calendar months. A couple of months a year end up with three paychecks instead of the usual two.

Semi-monthly means you're paid twice a month on fixed calendar dates, usually the 15th and the last day of the month, for 24 paychecks a year. That lines each paycheck up with roughly half a month, which makes it easier to match against monthly bills, but the actual number of days between paychecks shifts between 13 and 16 depending on how the month falls.

For a salaried employee, your annual take-home pay ends up the same either way, it's only sliced differently. Biweekly paychecks tend to run a little smaller individually since there are more of them (26 versus 24), which is worth knowing if you're budgeting paycheck to paycheck rather than by the year. Switch the pay frequency dropdown in the calculator above to see your own per-paycheck number under each schedule.