Take-Home-Paycheck Calculator

Your salary is gross pay—what you earn before deductions. From each paycheck, your employer withholds federal and state income tax, Social Security (6.2%), Medicare (1.45%), and often pre-tax items like 401(k) contributions, health insurance premiums, and HSA or FSA deposits. Post-tax deductions such as Roth 401(k) and wage garnishments also come out. For most workers, 20–35% of gross pay never reaches the bank. Take-home (net) pay is what actually lands in your account and is the number that matters for budgeting.

First paychecks are usually prorated because most companies pay in arrears—your first check covers only the days you actually worked in that pay period. If you start mid-cycle on a $60,000 salary, a $2,308 biweekly check can drop to roughly $1,154 for a five-day period. Delayed benefit and 401(k) enrollment, plus withholding set to single until you submit a W-4, can also shrink it. Your second full-period paycheck should match the calculator much more closely, so compare after you have worked a complete pay cycle.

For a straightforward W-2 employee—single filer, standard deduction, one job—reputable paycheck calculators are typically within $10–$30 per check, roughly 95–98% accurate. Accuracy drops with multiple jobs, high income (Additional Medicare Tax above $200,000), or complex state and local taxes, where differences can reach $100 or more per check. Small gaps usually come from rounding in IRS withholding tables (Publication 15-T) or post-tax deductions you did not enter. Compare line by line against a recent pay stub and adjust your inputs for the closest match.

Bonuses and other supplemental pay are typically withheld at a flat 22% for federal income tax (37% above $1 million in a year), plus Social Security, Medicare, and state tax—which can make the check feel heavily taxed. That is withholding, not necessarily your final tax bill: at filing, the bonus is combined with your other income and taxed at your marginal bracket, so if you overwithheld, the excess comes back as a refund. The flat 22% supplemental rate is one of the most common reasons a bonus check surprises people.

FICA is the payroll tax that funds Social Security and Medicare. Employees pay 6.2% for Social Security on earnings up to the wage cap (about $184,000 for the current tax year, indexed annually) and 1.45% for Medicare on all earnings—a combined 7.65%. Your employer matches each half. High earners also owe an additional 0.9% Medicare surtax on wages above $200,000 (single). On a $60,000 salary, FICA alone takes about $4,590 a year before any income tax is withheld.

The most common cause is the Social Security wage cap: once your year-to-date wages cross the cap (about $184,000 for the current year), the 6.2% deduction stops, making late-year checks larger. The opposite happens for high earners when the 0.9% Additional Medicare Tax kicks in above $200,000. Other causes include a raise pushing more income into a higher bracket, a W-4 change, open-enrollment benefit changes, or rising insurance premiums. January checks also get smaller again because the Social Security cap resets at the start of each new year.

No—traditional 401(k) contributions reduce your take-home by less than the contribution because they are pre-tax: the amount lowers your taxable income for federal and most state income tax, so less is withheld. For example, in the 22% bracket, a $200 monthly contribution only cuts take-home by about $156, with the other $44 effectively coming back through lower taxes. Note that 401(k) deferrals do NOT reduce FICA—Social Security and Medicare are still calculated on your full wages, unlike HSA contributions and health insurance premiums.