Take-Home Pay / Paycheck Calculator

• Calculates federal income tax from the actual current-year federal brackets, not a flat estimate.
• Computes Social Security and Medicare (FICA) exactly, including the additional Medicare surtax where it applies.
• Models how a traditional 401(k) contribution and pretax health insurance each affect your paycheck differently.
• Add an optional flat state/local tax rate for a rough all-in estimate.

How to use this calculator

Enter your annual gross salary, filing status and how often you're paid. That alone produces an estimate of federal income tax, FICA (Social Security and Medicare), and net take-home pay per paycheck, using the current published federal tax brackets and the standard deduction for your filing status.

Under Advanced, you can add a traditional 401(k) or 403(b) contribution percentage, pretax health insurance premiums, an itemized deduction amount (used only if it exceeds the standard deduction), and an optional flat state/local tax rate if you want a rough all-in estimate rather than a federal-only one.

How federal tax and FICA are calculated

Federal income tax is calculated using the actual marginal tax brackets for the filing status selected — each slice of income is taxed at its own bracket's rate, not the whole income at one flat rate. Taxable income is gross wages minus the larger of the standard deduction or the itemized amount entered, minus any pretax retirement contribution.

FICA is calculated separately and is not affected by the standard deduction or 401(k) contribution the same way income tax is:

Social Security = 6.2% of wages, up to the annual Social Security wage base
Medicare        = 1.45% of all wages
Additional Medicare = 0.9% of wages above the threshold for your filing status

Pretax health insurance premiums (a Section 125 "cafeteria plan" benefit) reduce wages for both federal income tax and FICA. A traditional 401(k) contribution reduces wages for federal income tax only — it does not reduce the wages Social Security and Medicare are calculated on. That distinction is exactly how real payroll systems handle it, and it's why the two deductions are modelled differently here.

A worked example

A single filer earning $75,000 a year, paid biweekly, with no pretax deductions: federal income tax on the taxable income after the standard deduction comes to roughly $7,949, and FICA comes to roughly $5,738 (6.2% + 1.45% of $75,000). Net take-home pay works out to about $61,314 a year, or roughly $2,358 per biweekly paycheck — about 82% of gross pay reaching the bank account.

How pretax deductions work

Contributing to a traditional 401(k) reduces the paycheck by the contribution amount and also reduces the federal income tax withheld, because that income isn't taxed until it's eventually withdrawn in retirement. It does not, however, reduce Social Security or Medicare tax — those are calculated on gross wages before the 401(k) deduction.

Pretax health insurance premiums work a little differently: because they're typically run through a Section 125 cafeteria plan, they're excluded from wages for both federal income tax and FICA purposes, making them slightly more tax-advantaged than a 401(k) contribution on a dollar-for-dollar basis, though the two serve very different purposes (current healthcare cost versus long-term retirement savings).

Assumptions and limitations

• Federal tax and FICA only, by default. State and local income tax are not modelled unless you enter a flat rate estimate under Advanced — and even then, it's applied as a flat percentage, not through that state's actual bracket structure, credits or deductions.
• Tax credits are not modelled. The child tax credit, earned income tax credit, education credits and others are not included, so actual tax owed — and any refund or amount due at filing — will often differ from the withholding estimate shown here.
• Assumes level pay. Bonuses, overtime, commission and irregular pay are not modelled, and each can be withheld differently than regular wages under actual payroll rules.
• This estimates withholding, not necessarily your exact paycheck. Your actual paycheck depends on the specific elections on your W-4, employer payroll practices, and any other deductions (union dues, garnishments, employer benefits) not entered here.

Common mistakes

Assuming a flat percentage covers "taxes." Federal income tax is progressive — different slices of income are taxed at different rates — so a single flat percentage always understates tax at some income levels and overstates it at others.

Forgetting FICA is separate from income tax. Even someone in a very low federal tax bracket still pays 7.65% combined Social Security and Medicare on virtually all wages.

Expecting this to match a specific state's withholding exactly. Without entering a state rate, this is a federal-only estimate; with a flat rate entered, it's still an approximation of a real state tax system, which likely has its own brackets and rules.

Frequently asked questions