Take Home Pay Calculator
Figures reflect 2026 tax-year limits (IRS Notice 2025-67 & SSA 2026).
This take home pay calculator runs your gross salary through the actual mechanics of a 2026 paycheck: federal withholding using the current brackets, state and local tax, the 7.65% FICA hit, pre-tax 401(k) and HSA contributions, health and dental premiums, and any post-tax items like Roth deferrals or garnishments. We built it because the offer letter number and the direct-deposit number almost never match, and the gap in New York City is bigger than almost anywhere else in the country. Plug in your gross, your filing status, your pay frequency, your state (or NYC), and the deductions you actually run through payroll. The tool returns the net figure your employer’s payroll system would produce on the same inputs. It is free, it works for hourly and salaried pay, and it is updated for 2026.
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Why the bonus check looks so small
The IRS treats supplemental wages (bonuses, severance, equity vests) under a flat 22 percent federal withholding rate for amounts up to $1 million in a year, and 37 percent for anything above. That is withholding, not tax — your actual liability could be higher or lower. NYC clients in the 24 to 37 percent federal bracket usually owe more than the 22 percent withheld and see a balance due at filing.
State withholding on supplemental income varies. New York uses a flat rate of 11.7 percent for supplemental wages — typically higher than the regular paycheck withholding. This is why first-time bonus recipients are often surprised when half the check disappears.
HSA is the most underused account
The HSA is the only account in the US tax code with a triple-tax advantage: deductible going in, growth tax-free, and withdrawals tax-free if used for qualified medical expenses. 2025 limits: $4,300 single / $8,550 family, plus $1,000 catch-up if 55+. To contribute, you need a qualifying high-deductible health plan.
The strategy we recommend most often: max the HSA, pay current medical bills out of pocket, save the receipts, and let the HSA grow as a stealth retirement account. After age 65, HSA withdrawals for non-medical reasons are taxed like a Traditional IRA — but if you have decades of saved receipts, you can withdraw tax-free against those any time.
FSA vs HSA vs HRA
Three accounts that all sound similar and behave differently. FSAs are use-it-or-lose-it within the plan year (with a small carryover). HSAs roll forward indefinitely. HRAs are funded by the employer only. For a job offer comparison, the HSA-eligible high-deductible plan often beats the lower-deductible plan over time, even if the premium is lower on the other — but only if you actually fund the HSA. We model this for new hires getting an offer letter.
Dependent care FSAs are separate: $7,500/year limit (couple; $3,750 if married filing separately), used for daycare or after-school care, tax-deductible up to the limit. Useful but harder to coordinate with the Child and Dependent Care Credit.
How does a take home pay calculator handle pre-tax 401(k) and HSA deductions?
What’s the difference between a take home pay calculator and a paycheck calculator?
Why does a take home pay calculator give different results across states for the same gross salary?
How do I use a take home pay calculator to compare two job offers in different cities?
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Frequently Asked Questions
Can a take home pay calculator show the exact amount I’ll see on my direct deposit?
Close but rarely exact. A take home pay calculator built on the same federal withholding tables, state tax engines, and FICA rates that ADP, Paychex, Gusto, Workday, and Rippling use will land within $5 to $20 of the actual direct deposit for most people. The gap between calculator and bank account comes from a handful of specific sources, and once you know them you can audit any pay stub line by line.
First source: rounding inside the federal withholding tables. The IRS publishes two methods in Publication 15-T — the wage-bracket method and the percentage method. Payroll software picks one or the other (or both, depending on income range), and each rounds slightly differently. A take home pay calculator using the percentage method might be off by $3 to $8 per check compared to your employer’s wage-bracket implementation. The annual total reconciles at filing, but per-check there is drift. The IRS allows both methods as long as the employer applies them consistently, so a $5 gap is almost always rounding, not error.
Second source: post-tax deductions the calculator never asked about. Roth 401(k) contributions, after-tax life insurance over $50,000 of coverage that triggers Section 79 imputed income, union dues, employee stock purchase plan (ESPP) deferrals, charity matching, deferred compensation, and wage garnishments are all post-tax and invisible to a generic take home pay calculator unless you input them. Federal law caps most garnishments at 25% of disposable earnings, but child support orders can take up to 50 to 65% depending on the case. A take home pay calculator that doesn’t include a post-tax deduction field will overstate net pay.
Third source: local income tax. This is the biggest gap for NYC employees and the reason we field so many questions about why a Manhattan paycheck feels lighter than the offer letter suggested. NYC residents pay an additional 3.078% to 3.876% on top of NY State income tax. Yonkers adds its own surcharge. Philadelphia residents pay a city wage tax around 3.75% (or 3.44% if non-resident). Newark, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Birmingham, Louisville, Cincinnati, Columbus, Kansas City — each has its own city or county income tax that a generic calculator often skips. On a $200,000 NYC salary, the combined NY State and NYC city tax line alone runs $19,000 to $21,000 a year, which is roughly $800 per bi-weekly check before federal tax even enters the picture.
Fourth source: a state-tax surprise. The state tax line is where generic calculators are weakest. New York combined NY State and NYC tops out around 14.776% marginal — NY State 10.9% plus NYC 3.876% — for very high-income Manhattan residents, the highest state-plus-local rate in the country for wage income. California tops out at 13.3% plus a 1% mental health services surtax above $1 million. New Jersey runs nine brackets up to 10.75% above $1 million. Massachusetts charges 5% plus a 4% millionaires tax above $1 million. Illinois is the simplest: a flat 4.95% on all income. Texas, Florida, Nevada, Washington, Tennessee, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Alaska have no state income tax at all. A take home pay calculator that uses one-size-fits-all state logic will be off by 8 to 15% on the state line for high earners in progressive-tax states.
Fifth source: New York-specific payroll add-ons most calculators miss. New York State Disability Insurance (SDI) is a flat $0.60 per week, capped at $31.20 annually, deducted from every NY paycheck. Trivial in dollar terms, easy to miss. New York Paid Family Leave (PFL) is more significant: roughly 0.388% of wages per check in 2026, capped at $84.95 per week. For a $150,000 NYC salary, PFL costs about $400 to $500 a year. California has its own SDI mechanics with different rates. Each state with a paid leave program runs its own payroll deduction with its own rate and cap.
Sixth source: filing status or W-4 setup mismatches. The 2020 W-4 redesign removed allowances entirely, replacing them with dependent credits in Step 3 and other adjustments in Step 4. If a take home pay calculator still lets you enter old-style “allowances” while your actual W-4 uses the new format, the federal withholding line will be off by a predictable amount. Step 3 dependent credits ($2,200 per qualifying child under 17, $500 per other dependent) reduce withholding by a fixed dollar amount per pay period. A bi-weekly worker with one child sees $84.62 less withheld per check — the gap between calculator and pay stub is often exactly that number multiplied by some number of dependents, which is the easiest single mismatch to diagnose.
Seventh source: Social Security cap timing. Social Security tax of 6.2% stops once year-to-date wages cross $184,500 in 2026. If you crossed that cap in October, your November and December checks are larger than a take home pay calculator predicts because the calculator assumed the cap was not yet hit. Conversely, Additional Medicare 0.9% kicks in on wages above $200,000 from a single employer, so high-earner checks suddenly show MORE withholding than expected once that threshold is crossed mid-year.
The fix is to compare line by line. Pull a recent pay stub. Run the take home pay calculator with the same gross, the same pre-tax deductions, the same filing status, the same pay frequency, the same state, and the same local tax setting. If federal and FICA match but state is off, it is a state-rule issue. If FICA is off, it is usually a wage-base or supplemental wage issue. If everything is off by 4% or so, you are missing a local tax. For the official IRS guidance, the IRS Tax Withholding Estimator is the source of truth for federal-only withholding. State and city math has to come from a take home pay calculator built for the specific jurisdiction. Our individual tax return service covers the year-end reconciliation if the gap turns into a tax bill.