Salary Calculator

Enter your gross salary and see your net take-home pay instantly. Our calculator applies current federal tax brackets, state tax rates, and FICA (Social Security + Medicare) to show your actual paycheck amount.

Know what net salary you need? Our reverse calculator finds the gross salary required to achieve your desired take-home pay after taxes. Perfect for salary negotiations and job comparisons.

Convert your hourly wage to annual salary and monthly income. Our hourly to salary calculator uses your hours per week to show yearly, monthly, and biweekly equivalents before and after taxes.

See your paycheck amount for any pay frequency: weekly, biweekly, semi-monthly, or monthly. Our paycheck calculator shows gross and net amounts with a complete tax breakdown.

A salary calculator works by starting from your gross pay and subtracting each mandatory and voluntary deduction until only your net take-home pay remains. The order matters, because some deductions lower the income that is taxed.

The engine follows a fixed sequence:

• Start with gross salary (total pay before anything is withheld).
• Subtract pre-tax deductions like traditional 401(k) and many health premiums to reach taxable income.
• Apply federal income tax using the progressive brackets the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) sets for the current tax year.
• Apply state income tax, if your state levies one.
• Subtract FICA (Social Security and Medicare), which the Social Security Administration administers.

Whatever is left is your net pay. Because brackets and the Social Security wage base change annually, always confirm current figures at IRS.gov.

To use the calculator, enter your salary amount, choose a calculation type, add your filing status and state rate, then read the take-home figures. Here is a full walkthrough.

Suppose you earn $80,000 gross, file as single, and pay a 5% state rate:

• Enter 80000 in the salary field and keep the type on "Gross to Net."
• Set pay frequency to annual and filing status to single.
• Enter your state tax rate and any 401(k) contribution.
• Read the net annual, monthly, and biweekly outputs plus the effective rate.

FICA takes 7.65% (6.2% Social Security up to the annual wage base, 1.45% Medicare on all wages), per the Social Security Administration. Federal tax follows the IRS bracket schedule for the current year, so your exact result shifts slightly each tax year.

The most common mistake is confusing gross salary with take-home pay, then budgeting around a number you never actually receive. A few careful checks prevent costly errors.

Watch for these frequent slip-ups:

• Ignoring FICA — Social Security and Medicare take 7.65% before income tax even begins, per the Social Security Administration.
• Confusing marginal and effective rates — your top bracket is not the share of your whole salary that goes to tax.
• Forgetting state and local tax — rates vary widely, and some cities add their own levy.
• Using last year's brackets — the IRS adjusts brackets and the wage base annually for inflation.
• Overlooking pre-tax deductions — 401(k) and HSA contributions lower taxable income and change the result.

When a paycheck decision affects your budget, verify current rules directly with the IRS and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

FICA is the federal payroll tax that funds Social Security and Medicare, and it totals 7.65% of your wages for most employees. It is withheld separately from income tax and applies even to low earners who owe no federal income tax.

The two pieces work differently:

• Social Security — 6.2%, charged only up to an annual wage base cap that the Social Security Administration updates each year.
• Medicare — 1.45% on all wages, with an additional 0.9% surcharge on high earnings, per the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Your employer matches the base 7.65% FICA dollar for dollar (the additional 0.9% Medicare surcharge on high earners is not matched). Because Social Security stops at the wage base, very high earners see their effective FICA percentage fall above that threshold. Always confirm the current wage base at SSA.gov before relying on a fixed figure.

Pre-tax deductions such as a traditional 401(k) reduce your taxable income, so you pay federal (and usually state) income tax on a smaller amount. This is why two people with identical gross salaries can have very different take-home pay.

The mechanism is straightforward:

• A traditional 401(k) contribution is subtracted before income tax is calculated.
• HSA and FSA contributions and many health premiums are also often pre-tax.
• Your tax saving roughly equals the contribution multiplied by your marginal tax rate.

Note that 401(k) contributions still count as wages for FICA, so Social Security and Medicare are unaffected. The IRS caps annual elective deferrals, and the limit rises periodically, so check the current IRS 401(k) contribution limit rather than assuming a fixed number. For neutral guidance on retirement saving, see the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

Your effective tax rate is the share of your entire salary paid in tax, while your marginal rate is the rate applied only to your last dollar earned. Mixing them up leads people to overestimate their tax burden.

Because U.S. federal income tax is progressive, income is taxed in layers:

• The first band of income is taxed at the lowest bracket rate.
• Each additional band is taxed at a higher marginal rate set by the IRS for the current tax year.
• Your effective rate blends all bands together and is always lower than your top marginal rate.

A raise that pushes part of your income into a higher bracket only taxes that portion more — it never lowers your overall take-home pay. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) publishes the current bracket schedule, which is adjusted for inflation each year.

If you are self-employed or paid on a 1099, you owe both the employee and employer halves of FICA — a combined 15.3% self-employment tax — instead of the 7.65% a W-2 worker pays. This is the single biggest reason freelance take-home pay differs from employee pay at the same gross.

Key differences to plan for:

• Self-employment tax applies to 92.35% of your net earnings, per the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
• You can deduct half of the self-employment tax when figuring income tax.
• No employer withholds for you, so you typically make quarterly estimated tax payments to the IRS.
• Business expenses reduce net earnings before tax is calculated.

Because you fund your own benefits, set aside more than a salaried worker would. Confirm current self-employment tax rules and the Social Security wage base at IRS.gov and SSA.gov.