💵 Paycheck Calculator

Estimate your take-home pay from gross salary using your own tax-rate assumptions. Enter your effective federal and state tax rates (from a pay stub or last year's return) for the most accurate result — this tool doesn't guess your bracket for you.

Gross Annual Salary ($)

Pay Frequency

Effective Federal Tax Rate (%)

State + Local Tax Rate (%)

FICA - Social Security + Medicare (%)

Pre-Tax Deductions / Pay Period ($)

Post-Tax Deductions / Pay Period ($)

Rates you supply, applied to taxable pay

This tool does not look up brackets. It takes the effective rates you enter and applies all three to the same taxable figure:

taxable        = gross - (pre-tax deduction x pay periods)
total tax      = taxable x (federal% + state% + FICA%) / 100
net annual     = gross - pre-tax - total tax - post-tax
effective rate = total tax / gross

On the defaults - $70,000, bi-weekly, 12% federal, 4% state, 7.65% FICA - the combined 23.65% comes to $16,555, leaving $53,445 a year or $2,055.58 of the $2,692.31 gross in each of the 26 paychecks.

Getting the rates right

Effective, not marginal. Take last year's total federal tax and divide it by gross pay. Someone in the 22% bracket on $70,000 usually has an effective federal rate nearer 10-12%.
FICA is 7.65% - 6.2% Social Security plus 1.45% Medicare. Social Security stops above the annual wage base, so high earners should enter a lower blended figure.
Pre-tax versus post-tax. Both boxes are per paycheck, not per year. A $200 pre-tax contribution costs only $152.70 of take-home here, because it removes $200 of taxable pay.

The tool exempts pre-tax deductions from FICA as well as income tax. That is right for health premiums and HSA contributions, but wrong for a 401(k), which is exempt from income tax only. On $5,200 a year of 401(k) the overstatement is about $398.

Frequently asked questions

What is my take-home pay on a $70,000 salary?

At 12% federal, 4% state and 7.65% FICA it is $53,445 a year, or $2,055.58 every two weeks. Drop the state rate to zero and it becomes $56,245.

Why is my paycheck smaller than salary divided by 26?

Because $2,692.31 is gross. Withholding, Social Security, Medicare and any insurance or retirement deductions come off first - roughly a quarter of it at these rates.

What effective tax rate should I enter?

Read it off a recent pay stub: divide the year-to-date federal tax withheld by year-to-date gross. Last year's tax return works too. Do not enter your top bracket, which only applies to the last dollars you earn.