2026 paycheck calculator using IRS Publication 15-T withholding. Add your state, W-4 dependants, 401(k) and health premiums for real take-home pay.
Nine states levy no tax on wage income at all. City and county taxes are separate from the state schedule, so enter your local rate if you pay one.
These two pre-tax boxes are taxed differently and that is why they are separate. A traditional 401(k) deferral escapes income tax withholding but still pays Social Security and Medicare. A Section 125 benefit - health premiums, FSA, HSA - escapes both. After-tax covers Roth contributions, garnishments and union dues.
Your employer turns these into an annual credit and subtracts it from your withholding, so they lower the tax taken from every paycheck. Withholding stops at zero - a credit larger than the tax does not create a negative deduction.
The 2026 amounts behind the result above.
| Item | Rate or amount | Applies to |
|---|---|---|
| Social Security | 6.2% | Wages up to $184,500 |
| Medicare | 1.45% | All wages |
| Additional Medicare | 0.9% | Wages over $200,000 |
| Child tax credit (W-4 Step 3) | $2,200 | Per child under 17 |
| Other dependent credit (W-4 Step 3) | $500 | Per other dependant |
An estimate for education, not tax advice. Federal withholding follows IRS Publication 15-T for 2026; state income tax is estimated from each state's own 2026 brackets and deductions rather than that state's withholding tables, so your pay stub may differ. Your employer's figures depend on your actual Form W-4, your pay history and your state's rules. Check the IRS Tax Withholding Estimator or a tax professional before acting.
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Your gross salary is not what arrives in your bank account. Between the paycheck your employer quotes and the money you can actually spend sit federal income tax withholding, Social Security, Medicare, your state's income tax, sometimes a city tax, and whatever you have elected to put into a retirement plan or a health premium. This calculator runs the same procedure your payroll department runs - IRS Publication 15-T for 2026 - and adds an estimate of your state's income tax from that state's own brackets, so you can see the whole path from gross to net for one paycheck.
Most take-home estimates divide your annual tax bill by the number of paychecks. That is not what an employer does. Publication 15-T tells your employer to annualise this paycheck, subtract any deductions you claimed on Form W-4 Step 4(b) plus a fixed $8,600 ($12,900 if you file jointly), look the result up in the Annual Percentage Method table, divide by your number of pay periods, subtract your Step 3 credits divided by the same number, and add any extra withholding you asked for on Step 4(c). The withholding tables are not the same as the filing tables, and the Step 3 subtraction stops at zero - which is why a household with two children often has no federal income tax withheld at all while still owing tax at the end of the year.
IRS Publication 15-T, Worksheet 1A
A salary quoted in one state is not the same money in another. Run the same gross pay against two states and compare the take-home rather than the headline.
The wage-base table shows what each tax was actually charged on. When Social Security wages and gross pay differ on your stub, a Section 125 deduction is usually why.
Increase the retirement box and watch take-home fall by less than you contributed - the difference is the tax you did not pay. In Pennsylvania it falls by more, and the calculator says so.
Once year-to-date wages pass the Social Security wage base, 6.2% stops coming out. Enter your year-to-date pay to see the exact paycheck that happens on.
A new child is worth $2,200 of Step 3 credit spread over your remaining paychecks. See what your paycheck becomes before you file a new W-4.
Run each realistic gross figure separately. Withholding is not proportional, so a bigger paycheck loses a bigger share to tax.
Both are called pre-tax, and they are taxed differently. A traditional 401(k) deferral escapes income tax withholding but still pays Social Security and Medicare. A Section 125 benefit - health, dental and vision premiums, an FSA, an HSA - escapes both. IRS Publication 15-B Table 2-1 marks accident and health benefits exempt from Social Security and Medicare; nothing marks a 401(k) deferral that way. Tools with a single pre-tax box get one of the two wrong.
Form W-4 Step 3 is worth $2,200 per child under 17 and $500 per other dependant, and your employer subtracts it from withholding every payday. A calculator without a dependants field overstates the tax on a family's paycheck by hundreds of dollars a month.
Social Security applies to the first $184,500 you earn in 2026 and then stops until January. Averaging that across the year understates every early paycheck and overstates every late one. Enter what you have earned so far and you get the paycheck you are actually about to receive.
All 50 states and the District of Columbia are built in with their 2026 brackets, standard deductions and personal exemptions - including the states that give the exemption as a credit against tax rather than a deduction from income, and the nine states that tax no wage income at all.
Pennsylvania taxes 401(k) contributions in the year you make them rather than when you withdraw them, so a deferral that lowers your federal withholding does not lower your Pennsylvania tax. The calculator applies that and tells you it did.
Every figure is derived on screen, line by line, against the Publication 15-T worksheet - so you can check it against your own pay stub instead of trusting a number.
The most common reasons are a state or local tax this calculator estimates rather than reproduces, a benefit deduction you have not entered, or a Form W-4 on file with your employer that differs from what you entered here. Federal withholding here follows IRS Publication 15-T exactly, so if the federal line differs it is usually because your employer holds different W-4 entries. Compare the wage-base table above with the wage boxes on your pay stub - that identifies a missing deduction quickly.
FICA is Social Security and Medicare. Social Security takes 6.2% of your wages up to $184,500 in 2026 and nothing above that. Medicare takes 1.45% of all wages with no cap, plus another 0.9% on wages above $200,000 for the year. They are flat taxes on wages and are not affected by your filing status, your dependants or your W-4 - which is why they behave so differently from income tax withholding on the same paycheck.
No. A traditional 401(k) or 403(b) deferral reduces the wages your federal income tax withholding is computed on, but Social Security and Medicare are still charged on the full amount. A Section 125 benefit - health, dental or vision premiums, an FSA, or an HSA through a cafeteria plan - reduces both. That is a real 7.65% difference between two deductions people often treat as interchangeable, and it is why this calculator asks for them separately.
Usually because your Form W-4 Step 3 credits are bigger than the tax on the paycheck. Two children under 17 are $4,400 a year of credit, and your employer spreads that across every payday and stops at zero rather than going negative. It is not an error, but it is worth checking against your expected annual tax - withholding nothing all year can leave a balance at filing if your circumstances changed.
It tells your employer that you (or you and your spouse together) have two jobs of roughly similar pay. Without it, each job withholds as though it were your only income and both under-withhold. Ticking it switches your employer to a separate table whose brackets are exactly half as wide, so each job withholds as if it were half of your household income. It usually increases the tax taken from each paycheck and reduces what you owe at filing.
Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming. Washington does levy a tax on capital gains, but not on wages, so a wage earner there pays no state income tax. New Hampshire's tax on interest and dividends has been repealed and does not touch wages either.
Yes. Bi-weekly means 26 paychecks a year; semi-monthly means 24. On the same annual salary a semi-monthly paycheck is about 8% larger, and the withholding tables treat the two schedules differently, so the tax per paycheck is not simply proportional. Picking the wrong one is one of the most common reasons an estimate misses.
It applies each state's own 2026 brackets, standard deduction and personal exemptions to your annualised wages, then spreads that across your paychecks. It is not a reproduction of your state's withholding tables, which every state publishes separately with its own state W-4 and allowance values. Expect it to be close on the annual total and to differ somewhat per paycheck. Local city and county taxes are not included; enter your local rate if you pay one.
You probably crossed the Social Security wage base. Once your year-to-date wages pass $184,500 in 2026, the 6.2% stops for the rest of the year and restarts in January. Enter your year-to-date pay in the last section and the calculator will tell you which paycheck that happens on.
No, and it should not. Your employer pays a matching 6.2% for Social Security and 1.45% for Medicare, plus unemployment taxes, but none of that comes out of your paycheck or appears on your pay stub as a deduction. Only the employee side is shown here.
Withholding is an estimate your employer sends the IRS during the year. Your actual liability is settled on your tax return, where credits, other income, itemised deductions and your spouse's income all come in. If withholding exceeded liability you get a refund; if it fell short you pay the difference. This calculator computes withholding, which is what determines the size of your paycheck.
Yes - enter the gross pay for the specific paycheck, hours times rate plus any overtime. Because withholding is progressive, a week with overtime loses a larger share to tax than a normal week, so run each paycheck separately rather than averaging.
Because they are worth different amounts on Form W-4. A qualifying child under 17 carries $2,200 of Step 3 credit; any other dependant carries $500. Your employer uses the total, but the two counts are entered separately on the form and the difference is more than four to one.
No. A Roth contribution comes out of your pay after every tax has been calculated, so it lowers your take-home by its full amount and changes none of the tax lines. Put it in the after-tax box. A traditional contribution goes in the retirement box, where it does reduce income tax withholding.