Paycheck Calculator

What this calculator does

The Paycheck Calculator estimates the take-home pay on a single paycheck after federal income tax and FICA (Social Security and Medicare). You give it four pieces of information about your job, and it splits each paycheck into four numbers: gross pay per period, federal tax, FICA, and net take-home. The result panel appears as soon as you enter a salary and updates live as you change anything.

It is a ballpark tool, not a substitute for a real pay stub or a W-4 worksheet. Think of it as the kind of math you'd do on the back of a napkin when you're sizing up a job offer, deciding how much you can put into your 401(k), or trying to understand why your first paycheck at a new job looked smaller than you expected. If you want a number for a budget or a planning decision, this gets you within a reasonable range. If you want the exact figure your employer will withhold, your HR portal is the right source.

Who actually needs this

A few honest use cases:

• Evaluating an offer. A recruiter quotes you a number in salary. You want to know what hits the bank account every two weeks.
• Sizing a 401(k) bump. You're thinking about raising your contribution from 6% to 10% and want to see roughly how much your paycheck shrinks.
• Sanity-checking your stub. Your federal tax line on the actual pay stub looks too high or too low, and you want a second opinion before you go down the W-4 rabbit hole.
• Modeling a raise. You got a 5K bump. You want to see what actually lands in the check, not what the gross looks like on paper.
• Budgeting at a new job. You haven't received the first paycheck yet, and you need a rent-vs-income gut check before you sign a lease.

If your situation is more involved — equity, multiple jobs, state plus local plus city taxes, supplemental wages, or a W-4 with extra withholding — this tool won't capture that. Use it as a starting point, then go to a more detailed calculator (or your payroll system) for the final number.

How to use it

There are four inputs. None of them is required to be filled in any specific order, and the calculator picks sensible defaults if you leave the dropdowns alone.

• Gross Annual Salary. Your before-tax salary in dollars per year. If your offer letter says "$75,000," type 75000. Don't include bonuses you haven't actually committed to, and don't subtract your 401(k) contribution here — that goes in the pre-tax deductions field below.
• Pay Frequency. Pick how often you get paid: Bi-Weekly (26), Semi-Monthly (24), Monthly (12), or Weekly (52). If you don't pick anything, the tool defaults to 26 (bi-weekly).
• Filing Status. Single or Married. If you don't pick anything, it uses Single. "Married" here means married filing jointly, which is what most married couples select.
• Pre-Tax Deductions (annual). The yearly total of everything that comes out of your paycheck before federal income tax is calculated — typically traditional 401(k) contributions, HSA contributions, traditional FSA, and pre-tax health insurance premiums. If you contribute $500 a month to your 401(k), that's $6,000 here. Leave it blank if you don't have any.

As soon as you've typed a salary, the result card shows up. Four lines: gross pay per period, federal tax, FICA, and net take-home. Each number is the annual figure divided by the number of pay periods you chose.

How the math actually works

Everything is computed in annual dollars first, then divided by your pay frequency at the very end. That's a small detail with one important consequence — see "Common pitfalls" below — but it keeps the bracket math clean.

The steps the calculator takes, in order:

1. Taxable income = gross salary − pre-tax deductions. Pre-tax deductions reduce the income that the federal brackets see, which is the whole point of contributing pre-tax.
2. Federal income tax is computed by walking the 2024 marginal brackets and applying each rate to the portion of income that falls inside its band. Every dollar that crosses into a higher bracket only pays the higher rate on the amount above the threshold.
3. Social Security tax = 6.2% × min(gross, $168,600). The $168,600 figure is the 2024 Social Security wage base — earnings above it aren't subject to Social Security tax. Note this uses gross, not taxable income; pre-tax 401(k) contributions don't reduce Social Security.
4. Medicare tax = 1.45% × gross. No cap. Same note about gross applies.
5. Net annual pay = gross − federal tax − Social Security − Medicare − pre-tax deductions.
6. Each line in the result = its annual amount divided by the number of pay periods (26, 24, 12, or 52).

The 2024 single-filer brackets are 10% up to $11,600, 12% up to $47,150, 22% up to $100,525, 24% up to $191,950, 32% up to $243,725, 35% up to $609,350, and 37% above. The 2024 married-filing-jointly brackets are 10% up to $23,200, 12% up to $94,300, 22% up to $201,050, 24% up to $383,900, 32% up to $487,450, 35% up to $731,200, and 37% above.

A worked example

Say you're single, you earn $75,000 a year, you contribute $6,000 a year to a traditional 401(k), and you're paid bi-weekly.

• Taxable income = 75,000 − 6,000 = $69,000.
• Federal tax (walking the single brackets): 10% on the first $11,600 = $1,160. 12% on the next $35,550 (from $11,600 to $47,150) = $4,266. 22% on the next $21,850 (from $47,150 to $69,000) = $4,807. Total federal tax = $10,233.
• Social Security = 6.2% × $75,000 = $4,650.
• Medicare = 1.45% × $75,000 = $1,087.50.
• Net annual = 75,000 − 10,233 − 4,650 − 1,087.50 − 6,000 = $53,029.50.
• Per bi-weekly check (÷ 26): gross $2,884.62, federal tax $393.58, FICA $220.67, net $2,039.60.

That's a useful sanity-check number. Your real paycheck will almost certainly be a bit higher because the calculator doesn't subtract the standard deduction (more on that next), and lower if you live somewhere with state income tax.

Common pitfalls and why your real check probably differs

A few deliberate simplifications you should know about so you don't chase a phantom error:

• No standard deduction. The calculator applies the brackets straight to (gross minus pre-tax deductions). It does not subtract the 2024 standard deduction of $14,600 single or $29,200 married. That means the federal tax line runs higher than what you'd actually owe at year-end, and the net take-home runs lower. The error is typically a few thousand dollars of tax a year, which works out to one or two hundred dollars per bi-weekly check. If your real check is higher than this estimate, this is usually why.
• No state or local income tax. California, New York City, Oregon, and similar places will pull more out of your check than this tool shows. Texas, Florida, and the other no-income-tax states will track closer to the estimate. If you're moving between states for a job, the difference can be enormous and the tool won't capture it.
• No Additional Medicare Tax. Wages above $200,000 (single) attract an extra 0.9% Medicare. The calculator doesn't model this, so very high earners will see a slightly understated FICA line.
• No tax credits. Child tax credit, EITC, education credits, dependent care — none of it is modeled. If you have kids or qualify for credits, your real federal tax will be lower than shown.
• FICA is on gross, not taxable. Pre-tax 401(k) lowers your income tax but not your Social Security or Medicare. This matches how payroll actually works and is intentional, but it sometimes surprises people who assume "pre-tax" means free of all taxes.
• Annual-then-divide. Because the math is done annually and then split evenly across pay periods, the tool can't show the bracket-creep effect you'd see if you got a mid-year raise or a year-end bonus. Real payroll systems use the IRS's per-period method, which can produce slightly different per-check withholding even when the year-end total matches.
• "Married" means married filing jointly. If you file separately, your actual brackets are different (roughly the single brackets shifted around). The tool only models the joint case.
• 2024 numbers. Brackets and the Social Security wage base shift each year. If you're modeling a year other than 2024 the figures will be slightly off — usually by less than a percent on the bottom line, but worth noting.

Sensible defaults to start with

If you don't know what to put in some of the fields, here's a reasonable starting point:

• Pay frequency: bi-weekly is the most common in the US private sector. Government and some larger employers run semi-monthly. Hourly workers are often weekly.
• Pre-tax deductions: if you contribute the typical 6% to a 401(k) to capture an employer match, that's $4,500 a year on a $75K salary. Add another $1,000 to $4,000 if your health insurance premium is pre-tax. Add HSA contributions on top if you have one.
• Filing status: use whatever you actually file. If you're married but file separately, "Single" is a closer match than "Married" in this tool, though neither is exact.

What to do if the result looks wrong

A short checklist:

• Net pay way too low? The most common cause is forgetting the standard deduction. The calculator doesn't subtract it, so federal tax is overstated by roughly $1,500 (single) or $3,000 (married) a year compared to your actual liability.
• FICA looks too high? Remember it applies to gross pay, not gross minus 401(k). On $75K that's about $5,738 a year regardless of how much you put in pre-tax.
• Bi-weekly vs semi-monthly mixed up. Bi-weekly = every two weeks = 26 checks. Semi-monthly = twice a month = 24 checks. Same salary, slightly different per-check amount.
• Filing status reversed. Married joint brackets are roughly double the single brackets, so flipping the dropdown changes federal tax substantially when your taxable income is in the 22% or higher band.
• Pre-tax field used wrong. The field is annual, not per-paycheck. If you contribute $500 a month to your 401(k), enter 6000, not 500.

When not to use this tool

Skip this one and find a more detailed calculator (or talk to payroll, or a CPA) if any of the following apply:

• You live in a state with income tax and the state piece is the number you actually care about.
• You're self-employed or a 1099 contractor. The math is different — you owe both halves of FICA (the self-employment tax) and there's no withholding at all.
• You have multiple jobs or your spouse works. The default withholding tables don't handle two incomes well.
• You receive significant non-wage income — RSUs, capital gains, rental income — that pushes your bracket up.
• You're modeling a bonus or supplemental wage. The IRS lets employers use a flat 22% withholding for supplemental wages, which this tool doesn't model.
• You need an exact net-pay number for a loan application, an alimony calculation, or any legal use. Use a real pay stub.

Adjacent concepts worth knowing

Marginal rate vs. effective rate. Your marginal rate is the bracket your last dollar falls into. Your effective rate is your total federal tax divided by your taxable income. In the $75K example above, the marginal rate is 22% but the effective rate is about 14.8%. When people say "I'm in the 22% bracket," they almost always mean the marginal rate, which is not what you pay on average.

Pre-tax vs. Roth. A traditional 401(k) lowers your taxable income today and you pay tax later when you withdraw. A Roth 401(k) doesn't lower your taxable income today, but withdrawals later are tax-free. This calculator's pre-tax field models the traditional version; Roth contributions don't go here because they don't reduce current-year federal tax.

FICA cap. The $168,600 Social Security cap means high earners hit a wall partway through the year, after which their checks suddenly get bigger because Social Security stops coming out. Medicare keeps going (and goes up by 0.9% above $200,000 wages).

Withholding vs. liability. What gets pulled out of your check (withholding) is not the same as what you actually owe (liability). The difference shows up at tax time as a refund or a payment. A withholding calculator like this one estimates the first; only a full return calculation tells you the second.

Related tools on the site

If you want to dig into a specific piece of this:

• The Tax Bracket Estimator shows which federal bracket your income lands in.
• The Salary to Hourly Converter turns an annual salary into an equivalent hourly rate.
• If you're sizing a 401(k) contribution decision, the Compound Interest Calculator projects what the deferred dollars will grow into.