Take-Home Pay Calculator

Enter your gross salary and tax brackets to see your net income.

The formula

Total rate = Federal% + State% + Social Security% + Medicare%
Periods per year: annually 1, monthly 12, bi-weekly 26, weekly 52
Gross for the year = Gross entered x Periods per year
Net for the year = Gross for the year x (1 - Total rate / 100)
Net per period = Net for the year / Periods per year
Monthly = Net for the year / 12
Weekly = Net for the year / 52
Gross Pay
Pay before any deduction, for whichever period you pick in the frequency menu. The two fields have to agree: a bi-weekly figure needs Bi-weekly selected.
Total rate
The four percentage fields are simply added together and applied once as a single flat rate. They are labelled separately for convenience; the arithmetic makes no distinction between them.
Pay Frequency
Sets how many times a year the gross figure is received, which is what turns it into an annual figure. It changes nothing else.

Worked example

Gross pay of 2,400 every two weeks, with Bi-weekly selected, 12 percent federal, 4 percent state, and the Social Security and Medicare fields left at 6.2 and 1.45.

The tool prints: net pay per two weeks $1832.40; annual take-home $47642.40 (monthly: $3970.20); weekly take-home $916.20.

This applies one flat rate that you supply

The four percentage fields are added and the total is applied to every dollar of the annual gross. That single sentence describes the whole model, and it is the thing to keep in mind before treating the output as a payslip. There are no tax brackets here: nothing is taxed at one rate up to a threshold and a higher rate above it. There is no standard deduction, no personal allowance, no filing status and no dependants. There is no wage base above which the Social Security percentage stops, and no additional Medicare rate on higher earnings. There is no city or local tax field. What you get is a clean answer to the question "if my overall rate were 23.65 percent, what would I keep" - useful for comparing offers or sanity-checking a budget, and not a substitute for a real payslip or a tax return.

Entering a rate that is close to reality

The most common mistake is typing a marginal bracket rate into the federal field. Because that rate is then applied to the whole of your income rather than the top slice of it, the result overstates the tax and understates what you keep. What belongs in that field is an effective rate: if you have a recent payslip or a filed return, divide the income tax actually paid by the gross for the same period and multiply by 100. The Social Security and Medicare fields are different, because those are genuinely flat percentages on wages within their limits, which is why the tool pre-fills them at 6.2 and 1.45.

Why the four printed lines all agree

The figure you enter is annualised first, taxed once, and only then divided back out into the per-period, monthly and weekly lines. That keeps every line consistent with every other: 1,832.40 x 26 comes back to 47,642.40 exactly, and so does 916.20 x 52. It also means the weekly line is a true 52nd of the annual net, not the per-period figure cut in half, which are different numbers for anyone paid every two weeks.

Bi-weekly is 26 payments, and twice a month is not the same thing

Being paid every two weeks means 26 payments a year, which is what the Bi-weekly option assumes. Being paid twice a month - on the 15th and the last day, say - means 24, and there is no option for it here. If that is how you are paid, add the two payments together and enter that with Monthly selected, or enter your annual gross with Annually selected. Picking Monthly and entering only one of the two payments annualises half your income and every figure on screen will be half what it should be.

Common questions

Is this the amount that will actually land in my account?

Probably not, and it is not meant to be. It applies one flat rate that you type in to your whole income, so it does not model tax brackets, allowances, filing status, pre-tax deductions or any local tax. It is a way to see what a given overall rate leaves you with. For the real figure, use a payslip or your tax authority official calculator.

What percentage should I enter for federal income tax?

An effective rate rather than your bracket rate. Entering the bracket applies that rate to every dollar you earn instead of only the top slice, which makes the answer too low. If you have a payslip or a return to hand, divide the income tax paid by the gross pay for the same period and multiply by 100; that figure is what this field is shaped for.

Does it account for retirement contributions or health insurance?

No. There is no deduction field of any kind, so the whole gross figure is taxed. If your contributions come out before tax, a closer approximation is to subtract them from the gross before entering it - which changes the taxable base but still will not reproduce a real payslip, since the underlying model has no brackets.

Do the Social Security and Medicare fields stop at a wage limit?

Not in this tool. Whatever percentages sit in those two fields are applied to every dollar of the annual gross, with no upper limit and no extra rate at higher earnings. For incomes where a wage base or an additional rate would apply in practice, the figure here will not match a payslip. They are pre-filled at 6.2 and 1.45 for convenience and both are editable.

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