Take-Home Pay Calculator

How to use the take-home pay calculator

Enter a gross annual salary, choose how often you are paid, and set one combined deduction rate that stands in for federal income tax, state income tax and FICA rolled together. The tool strips that percentage off the gross and divides what remains across the pay periods in a year, returning a rough annual net and a rough per-paycheck figure.

The defaults model a common case: a $60,000.00 salary at 22 percent deductions paid biweekly gives about $46,800.00 net for the year and roughly $1,800.00 across 26 checks. Switch to weekly and the same annual net splits into 52 payments of about $900.00, because pay frequency changes only how the year is sliced and never the size of the year itself.

Where does a defensible deduction rate come from?

For a defensible rate, start from what federal rules actually charge and then add your state. Under the 2026 schedules published in IRS Revenue Procedure 2025-32, the standard deduction is $16,100 for a single filer and $32,200 for married filing jointly.

FICA sits on top of the income tax and applies to gross wages rather than taxable income: 6.2 percent for Social Security on wages up to the 2026 taxable wage base of $184,500 announced by the Social Security Administration, plus 1.45 percent for Medicare on all wages, with an extra 0.9 percent on wages above $200,000 for a single filer.

Put those together and the reference table above gives the combined federal and FICA share of gross at fourteen salary levels for a single filer taking the standard deduction with no pre-tax contributions. It is worth reading before you accept the 22 percent default, because at $60,000 that federal-plus-FICA figure is only about 16.0 percent, and the default therefore implicitly assumes roughly six points of state tax on top.

Someone at that salary in a state with no wage income tax would be closer to 16, while a higher earner in a high-tax state can sit well above 30. This page is general information, not tax or financial advice.

The formula, worked line by line

The arithmetic here is deliberately thin. One combined deduction rate comes off the gross salary to give an annual net, and that net is divided by the number of paychecks in a year.

Nothing is modelled in between, which is a design choice rather than an oversight: the tool exists to give a fast budgeting line, and every additional input it might ask for would have to be guessed by most people anyway. What it buys in speed it pays for in precision.

Two consequences follow. First, the pay frequency selector cannot change the annual figure, only how it is divided, so weekly and monthly produce identical yearly nets.

Second, the whole accuracy of the output rests on one number you supply. Because real withholding is progressive at the federal level, layered with state rules, and reduced by pre-tax contributions, the rate that makes this estimate honest is personal to you, and the reference table above is a starting point rather than an answer.

net annual = gross × (1 − deduction% ÷ 100)
per paycheck = net annual ÷ pay periods per year
pay periods: 52 weekly, 26 biweekly, 24 semimonthly, 12 monthly

Now test the default rate against the actual federal rules. A single filer earning $60,000 in 2026 and taking the $16,100 standard deduction has $43,900 of taxable income. Under IRS Revenue Procedure 2025-32 that is 10 percent on the first $12,400, which is $1,240, plus 12 percent on the remaining $31,500, which is $3,780, for $5,020 of federal income tax.

FICA takes 7.65 percent of the full gross, or $4,590. Together that is $9,610, which is 16.0 percent of gross. The 22 percent default therefore only makes sense once roughly six points of state income tax are stacked on, and it would overstate deductions for someone in a state that does not tax wages.

Treat the output accordingly. It is a general-information budgeting estimate, not a payroll calculation, not a tax return and not tax or financial advice. The figures cited here are the 2026 federal schedules and the 2026 Social Security taxable wage base of $184,500; both are adjusted annually and state rules vary enormously and change on their own timetable.

The single most reliable way to set the rate is to take a recent pay stub, divide the net that actually reached your account by the gross for that same period, and use the result. Then confirm any decision that matters against your employer payroll system or a qualified tax professional.

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