Free Paycheck Calculator 2026 — Take-Home Pay After Federal & State Tax

Gross pay and take-home pay are rarely close, and the gap is made up of five separate deductions that stack on top of each other — some fixed, some entirely dependent on where you live.

Federal income tax is the biggest and least predictable, because it is not a flat percentage. It runs through your W-4 elections and the 2026 progressive brackets, after your standard deduction ($16,100 single, $32,200 married filing jointly) reduces the income that gets taxed at all.

Social Security is a flat 6.2% on wages, but only up to the annual wage base — $176,100 for 2026. Every dollar earned above that cap stops having Social Security withheld for the rest of the year, which is why a high earner's paycheck sometimes jumps in December once the cap is reached.

Medicare is 1.45% on every dollar of wages with no cap at all, plus an Additional Medicare Tax of 0.9% on wages above $200,000 for single filers ($250,000 married filing jointly) — but only on the amount over that threshold, not the whole paycheck.

State income tax is where paychecks diverge most sharply by geography. Nine states — Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming — withhold none at all. Everywhere else runs anywhere from a low flat rate to California's progressive brackets topping out near 13%.

Local or city income tax is the deduction most people forget exists until it shows up. New York City, Philadelphia, and Detroit are the best-known examples of cities that levy their own income tax on top of state and federal withholding, and it is calculated and withheld entirely separately from the state line.

Put a real number on it. A single filer earning $60,000 in Texas, paid bi-weekly, with no pre-tax deductions, sees this breakdown — reproducible in the calculator above with those exact inputs.

Every dollar of federal withholding on your paycheck traces back to the W-4 you filed with your employer — and since 2020 that form no longer uses allowances. It works in five steps, and skipping the ones that apply to you is the single most common cause of a paycheck that surprises you at tax time.

Step 1 sets your name, Social Security number, and filing status — Single, Married Filing Jointly, or Head of Household — which alone determines which standard deduction and bracket table your employer's payroll software applies.

Step 2 exists for one purpose: telling your employer that this is not your only source of household income. It applies if you hold a second job, or if you are married and your spouse also works. Checking the box here — or skipping it — is the single biggest lever on this form, and the scenario below shows why.

Step 3 claims the Child Tax Credit and the credit for other dependents ($2,200 per qualifying child in 2026), which directly reduces how much tax is withheld from every paycheck rather than waiting to show up as a refund.

Step 4 is optional but powerful in three parts. 4(a) reports other income — investment income, freelance work, a side business — so your employer withholds extra against it instead of leaving you to cover it alone at filing. 4(b) reports deductions beyond the standard amount if you itemize. 4(c) adds a flat extra dollar amount to withhold each pay period, the simplest tool on the form for closing any gap you've identified.

Here is why Step 2 matters so much. Take a married couple where each spouse earns $50,000, for a household income of $100,000. Filed correctly with Step 2 checked, their combined federal tax liability is about $7,659 — 10% on the first $23,850 of joint taxable income and 12% on the rest, after the $32,200 married standard deduction. But if each spouse's W-4 claims "Married Filing Jointly" without checking the multiple-jobs box, each employer's payroll system withholds as though that one $50,000 salary were the household's entire income — applying the full $32,200 deduction and the bottom bracket twice. Each job then withholds only about $1,780, for a combined $3,560 against a real liability of $7,659. The couple is under-withheld by roughly $4,100, discovered only when they file. Checking Step 2 — or using the IRS Tax Withholding Estimator, linked below — fixes this before it becomes a bill.

The same annual salary produces a different-looking paycheck depending on how often you're paid, and the difference is not just arithmetic — it also changes how your employer's software calculates withholding for that check.

$60,000 a year splits cleanly across every common frequency, but the per-check amount varies a lot.

The pair worth understanding is bi-weekly versus semi-monthly, because they get confused constantly and the payroll math genuinely differs. Bi-weekly means every two weeks — 26 paychecks a year, and twice a year you get a third check in a month. Semi-monthly means twice a month, always on set dates — 24 paychecks a year, always two per month, never three. $60,000 divides to $2,307.69 per bi-weekly check (26 × $2,307.69 = $60,000 exactly) and $2,500.00 per semi-monthly check (24 × $2,500.00 = $60,000 exactly) — both land on the same annual salary.

Where it gets genuinely different is withholding. Federal withholding tables annualize each paycheck by multiplying it by the number of pay periods in a year to estimate your annual income, then work out the tax on that estimate before dividing back down to a per-check amount. A bi-weekly check gets multiplied by 26; a semi-monthly check gets multiplied by 24. Two employees earning the exact same $60,000, paid on different schedules, can see slightly different withholding as a result — not because either payroll department made an error, but because the two schedules run through the annualization formula differently. If your employer switches your pay schedule mid-year, expect your per-check withholding to shift even though nothing about your salary changed.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) changed several things that show up directly in 2026 paychecks, and each requires your employer — or your own W-4 — to catch up before the effect is visible in your take-home pay.

Tips are now partially tax-exempt. Tipped workers can exclude up to $25,000 of reported tip income from federal income tax. Employers are still required to withhold Social Security and Medicare on tips as before — only the federal income tax portion is affected — so the change shows up specifically in the federal withholding line, not the FICA lines.

Overtime pay gained a similar exemption. Up to $12,500 of overtime premium pay is exempt from federal income tax for single filers, or $25,000 for married filing jointly. This applies to the extra premium portion of overtime pay specifically, not straight-time wages worked during overtime hours.

The standard deduction rose to $16,100 for single filers and $32,200 for married filing jointly — up from the prior year's lower figures. Because federal withholding tables build the standard deduction directly into their formula, this alone lowers withholding for most W-2 workers automatically, with no action required.

The catch is that none of this happens automatically for tips and overtime — your employer's payroll system needs to be configured to apply the new exemptions, and your own W-4 may still be set up for the old rules if you haven't touched it recently. If your paycheck doesn't reflect these changes, the fix is the same either way: go to IRS.gov/W4App to complete a new W-4 online, or ask your HR or payroll department for a fresh W-4 form and confirm your employer's system has been updated for the current tax year.

The federal, Social Security, and Medicare portions of a paycheck are identical no matter where you live — only the state line changes. On a $60,000 salary, single filer, that one line is worth over $5,600 a year between the best and worst case among the 15 most populous states.

The table below uses each state's rate as applied by the calculator above, so every row is reproducible by entering that state directly into the tool on this page.