What your paycheck breakdown shows
The headline is what lands in your account each payday. Above it, every deduction is separated, because they behave differently: federal income tax depends on your bracket and falls when you contribute pre-tax, while Social Security and Medicare are charged on gross pay and are unaffected by a 401(k) deferral.
Two lines are here because no other paycheck calculator prints them. One more percent to your 401(k) costs shows what raising your contribution actually does to your take-home — always less than the amount saved, because the money is never taxed. It is the number that answers "I can’t afford to save more", and the gap is exactly your marginal rate. Social Security stops after paycheck N appears if you earn above the wage base: contributions cease part-way through the year and your later paychecks are visibly larger.
Effective tax rate is all federal tax as a share of gross, and it is always lower than the bracket you are "in" — because only the last slice of income pays the top rate.
How to use this paycheck calculator
- Salary or hourly rate, then your pay frequency. Twice a month (24) and every two weeks (26) are different — the latter gives you two extra paychecks a year.
- Filing status, which sets both your rate schedule and your standard deduction.
- 401(k) percentage — pre-tax. Watch what changing it does to both the tax line and the take-home.
- Pre-tax deductions per paycheck: health premiums, HSA and FSA contributions all reduce taxable income like a 401(k) does.
- Advanced holds after-tax deductions such as a Roth 401(k) or union dues, which reduce take-home without reducing tax.
What comes out of a paycheck
Federal income tax is progressive: each slice of income is taxed at its own rate, so a raise never re-taxes what you already earned. Your standard deduction comes off first, which is why the tax starts well above zero income.
Social Security is 6.2% of gross pay up to an annual wage base of $184,500 for 2026, after which it stops for the rest of the year. Your employer pays the same again.
Medicare is 1.45% of all gross pay with no ceiling, plus an additional 0.9% on wages above the threshold for your filing status. Together these two are what payroll calls FICA.
Pre-tax deductions — a traditional 401(k), health premiums, HSA and FSA — reduce the income your tax is calculated on. After-tax deductions such as a Roth 401(k) come out of what is left. That single distinction is why two people on identical salaries can take home very different amounts.
Why saving more costs less than you think
Because a traditional 401(k) contribution is never taxed, contributing $100 does not cost $100 of take-home. In the 22% bracket it costs about $78; in the 32% bracket about $68. The rest is tax you would have paid anyway, redirected into your own account.
That is what makes the pre-tax hierarchy so effective, and why capturing the full employer match is the first move in any plan: the match is free money and the contribution itself is discounted by your marginal rate. The calculator prices this in per-paycheck terms so the decision is concrete rather than theoretical.
The reverse holds too. A Roth 401(k) contribution costs the full amount today, because it buys tax-free withdrawals later — the trade the Roth calculator sets out.
Withholding is an estimate, not your tax bill
What your employer actually withholds comes from your W-4 and the IRS withholding tables, not from a straight calculation of your annual liability. This calculator spreads the annual figure evenly across your pay periods, which is close for steady pay and diverges when income is uneven — bonuses, commission, overtime or a mid-year job change.
Two consequences worth knowing. A refund means you over-withheld and lent the money interest-free for a year; a bill means you under-withheld. Neither changes what you owe. And a bonus is typically withheld at a flat supplemental rate that often exceeds your real marginal rate, which is why a bonus can look more heavily taxed than it eventually is.
If your withholding is consistently far off, the fix is a new W-4 rather than a change in behaviour. The IRS publishes a withholding estimator for exactly this purpose, and Publication 15-T is the authority on the tables your employer uses.
Hourly, salaried, and the gap between them
Switching the calculator to an hourly rate multiplies by the hours you enter and by 52 weeks, which is the right comparison when you are weighing an hourly offer against a salary. Two things make the real answer messier. Hourly work is usually paid only for hours worked, so unpaid time off, a slow week or a shift cancellation all reduce annual pay in a way a salary does not. And overtime — time and a half beyond 40 hours in a week for non-exempt workers — can push hourly earnings above the salaried equivalent in busy periods.
The reverse gap matters too. Salaried roles more often carry benefits whose value never appears on a pay stub: employer retirement contributions, a share of health premiums, paid leave. Comparing an hourly rate to a salary on gross pay alone routinely picks the worse offer, which is why the longer-term view is the one to judge on.
What this calculator assumes
- Federal tax only. State and local income taxes are not included, and they range from nothing in several states to double digits in others. This is the single biggest reason your real paycheck will differ.
- The standard deduction for your filing status, not itemised deductions.
- No tax credits — the child tax credit and others reduce a real tax bill and are not modelled here.
- Even pay across the year, with no bonuses, overtime or unpaid leave.
- 2026 figures from the IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32 and IRS Topic no. 751, which are indexed annually.
- Annual liability spread evenly, which approximates but does not reproduce W-4 withholding.
These are planning estimates. Your pay stub and your return are the authorities.
Take-home pay questions people ask
Why is my take-home so much lower than my salary?
Between federal income tax, Social Security, Medicare and any state tax, a quarter to a third of gross pay commonly disappears before deductions — and pre-tax items such as health premiums and retirement contributions come out on top of that. The effective-rate line above shows the federal share precisely.
Does a 401(k) contribution reduce Social Security and Medicare tax?
No. A traditional 401(k) deferral reduces the income your federal income tax is calculated on, but FICA is charged on gross pay regardless. That is why your take-home falls by less than your contribution but not by nothing.
What is the difference between being paid twice a month and every two weeks?
Twice a month is 24 paychecks a year; every two weeks is 26. The annual total is the same, so the biweekly paychecks are smaller — and two months a year contain three of them, which is worth knowing when budgeting.
Why was my bonus taxed so heavily?
Bonuses are usually withheld at a flat supplemental rate, which is often higher than your actual marginal rate. It is a withholding rule, not a different tax: any over-withholding comes back as a refund when you file.
Does this include state tax?
No. State and local income tax varies far too much to estimate responsibly without a sourced dataset for every jurisdiction, so this calculator covers federal tax only and says so rather than guessing.