Salary Calculator — Take-Home Paycheck & Tax Deduction Estimator

Your marginal tax rate is the tax bracket applied to your very last dollar of taxable income (e.g., 22% or 24%). Your effective tax rate is the actual percentage of your total income paid in taxes (Total Tax Paid / Gross Income), which is always significantly lower than your marginal bracket due to the standard deduction and progressive tax brackets.

FICA (Federal Insurance Contributions Act) taxes fund Social Security and Medicare. In 2024–2026, employees pay 6.2% for Social Security on wages up to the statutory wage cap ($168,600 in 2024, $176,100 in 2025/2026) and 1.45% for Medicare on all earnings with no cap (plus an additional 0.9% Medicare surtax on earnings over $200,000 for single filers). Employers pay an identical matching share.

Bi-weekly pay means receiving a paycheck every two weeks, resulting in 26 paychecks per calendar year (meaning two months per year contain 3 paychecks). Semi-monthly pay means receiving 24 paychecks per year (typically on the 15th and last day of each month). Each semi-monthly paycheck is slightly larger than a bi-weekly paycheck for the same annual salary.

Pre-tax contributions to a Traditional 401(k) and Health Savings Account (HSA) reduce your gross taxable income dollar-for-dollar on Form W-2. If you are in the 24% federal bracket and contribute $10,000 to a 401(k), you immediately save $2,400 in federal taxes plus state income taxes.

Nine US states impose no individual state income tax on earned wages: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming. Workers in these states pay only Federal income tax and FICA.