Paycheck Calculator 2026 — Free Take-Home Pay Estimator

Take-home pay is what remains after every mandatory and voluntary deduction is pulled from your gross wages. Start with the gross figure for a single pay period, which is your annual salary divided by the number of pay periods in the year (usually 26 for biweekly or 24 for semimonthly). Pre-tax items come out next and come out first: 401(k) contributions, health insurance premiums, and HSA contributions all shrink the wage base before any income tax is figured.

Employers compute federal income tax withholding from the IRS tax tables in Publication 15 (Circular E), combined with whatever you reported on Form W-4. Your filing status, the dependents you listed, and any extra withholding you asked for all move the number. The W-4 was redesigned in 2020 and dropped the old allowances system, so it now handles multiple jobs, dependents, and other adjustments directly rather than through a count of allowances.

FICA comes off next: Social Security at 6.2% on wages up to $184,500 in 2026, and Medicare at 1.45% on all wages, with an additional 0.9% on earnings above $200,000. State income tax is far less uniform. Nine states levy none at all, while the rest run either flat or progressive rates, and a handful of localities add their own payroll taxes on top. Post-tax deductions such as Roth 401(k) contributions, union dues, and garnishments are applied after the tax withholding is settled.

Whatever survives all of that is your net pay. Knowing where each dollar goes lets you make deliberate trade-offs: a larger 401(k) deferral cuts your taxable income but also trims the amount that hits your bank account. Tuning your W-4 to match your actual situation keeps you from the two extremes, an oversized refund that signals you withheld too much, or a year-end bill that means you withheld too little.