Paycheck & take-home pay calculator
Estimate what reaches your bank account after employer withholding, payroll taxes, benefits, and deductions. Duplicate a scenario to compare jobs, locations, W-4 choices, and benefit elections side by side.
Additional earnings None
These amounts belong to the current check. Mark an item recurring only when it should also be repeated in the annualized planning estimate.
Pre-tax deductions No deductions
Each row is fixed per check or a percentage of gross pay. Presets determine which federal and FICA wage bases are ordinarily reduced.
Post-tax deductions No deductions
Post-tax deductions reduce the deposit without reducing taxable wage bases.
Year-to-date wage bases No prior wages
For Social Security, Medicare, and state-program wage bases, enter wages paid before this check by the same employer or a qualifying common paymaster. For the federal supplemental-wage threshold, include prior supplemental wages from all commonly controlled businesses, even without a common paymaster. Do not include unrelated employers.
Scenario comparison
Gross-to-net waterfall
Each scenario runs from gross cash earnings through every tax and deduction to take-home pay.
Pay allocation
One bar per scenario separates take-home, taxes, pre-tax benefits, and post-tax deductions.
Pay statement
Current-check earnings, deductions, and tax lines are aligned across scenarios. Withholding is not final tax liability.
| Line item | Scenario | Category | Current amount | Wage base | Rate / method |
|---|
Effective tax-rate curve
Effective rate includes annualized federal, FICA, state, and employee payroll-program withholding on recurring earnings. The dashed line is the active scenario’s federal Publication 15-T marginal schedule, not a total marginal tax rate.
Annual net pay
What this model assumes
- This estimates employer paycheck withholding, not final income-tax liability or a projected refund.
- Annualized figures repeat regular earnings and only the additional earnings marked recurring. They are a full-year annualized estimate, not a remaining-year payroll calendar.
- A supplemental-only check uses the selected payroll-period table with $0 entered regular wages and is marked Partial; actual payroll may use current or preceding regular wages or the optional 22% method when eligible. The mandatory 37% portion above $1 million is modeled separately.
- Benefit presets apply ordinary wage treatment. Actual employer plan treatment and payroll rounding can differ.
- Reciprocity suppresses work-state income withholding only when the required certificate is filed. Residence-state withholding is included only when the employer is confirmed to perform it.
- Local withholding is not calculated in this version. A potentially affected scenario is marked Partial; missing local tax is never shown as zero.
Calculations are estimates based on your assumptions. This calculator estimates employee paycheck withholding and take-home pay; it is not payroll, tax, accounting, or legal advice and does not calculate a complete income-tax return. Actual payroll may differ. Read the financial disclaimer.