Take-Home Paycheck Calculator — 2026 Withholding, All 50 States, Traditional vs Roth 401(k)

Your pay required

Gross pay ($)

That amount is…

Paid how often?

Your age

Stub's pay period # (optional)

Stub's YTD gross ($, incl. that check)

📄 Have a pay stub? Switch to "per paycheck" and copy its gross — that's more accurate than the HR "annual salary" number, which often doesn't equal your real checks (federal salaries assume 2,087 hours vs 2,080 actually paid; hourly and new-hire years drift too). Toggling converts the number for you. The two optional stub fields place you exactly in the year: YTD gross already contains every raise, bonus, and overtime hour you've been paid, so wage-base caps (Social Security's $184,500, etc.) land on the right paychecks even if your pay hasn't been level — and as the year goes on, just update them from your latest stub. Hourly with no stub? Enter your rate × usual weekly hours as a "per paycheck" amount and pick Weekly. Age is used only for catch-up limits and the retirement projection — it never affects your taxes here.

Federal W-4 required

Filing status (W-4 Step 1c) ✌️ Step 2 box checked (two jobs, or spouse also works) Step 3 — dependents & other credits ($/yr; e.g. $2,200 per child under 17)

⚙️ W-4 Step 4 — other income, deductions, extra withholding

4(a) Other income not from jobs ($/yr) 4(b) Deductions beyond the standard deduction ($/yr) 4(c) Extra withholding per paycheck ($)

Leave everything at zero to model a fresh, default W-4 — that's how most paychecks are set up. This calculator uses the IRS 2026 percentage method (Pub 15-T) — the same math your payroll system runs — for the 2020-or-later W-4 form.

📜 Withholding running higher than shown, and your W-4 is from before 2020 (the old "allowances" form)? Payroll runs those through the IRS "computational bridge," which withholds more. To match it exactly: enter $8,600 ($12,900 if married filing jointly) in Step 4(a), plus $4,300 × your old allowance count in Step 4(b).

State & local required

State you work in

Dependents (for state exemptions)

Local income tax rate (%)

Retirement & pre-tax deductions

Traditional 401(k)/403(b)/TSP (% of pay)

Roth 401(k)/TSP (% of pay)

⚙️ HSA & health premiums (the sleeper tax breaks)

HSA contribution ($/yr, through payroll)

HSA coverage

Health/dental/vision premiums ($ per paycheck, pre-tax §125)

HSA and §125 premiums are the only deductions here that skip FICA too — a 401(k) never does. That makes an HSA dollar the cheapest dollar you can save.

Other post-tax deductions ($ per paycheck) — life insurance, pension employee share (e.g. FERS), union dues, garnishments, allotments…

Your paycheck

—

Take-home per year

—

Total tax rate (all-in)

—

Federal income tax

—

Social Security + Medicare

—

State + local

—

You're saving (per check)

—

Traditional vs Roth — the election that's actually on your enrollment form the decision

Growth until retirement (%/yr)

Retirement age

Tax rate in retirement (%)

Same contribution both ways, so the account balance grows identically — the whole difference is when you pay the tax. Traditional skips tax now (bigger paycheck today, IRS owns a slice of the account); Roth pays tax now (smaller paycheck today, the whole balance is yours). Employer match is unaffected — it's always pre-tax (or its own bucket) no matter which you pick. FICA is identical either way.

Good-to-know moves

The HSA is the only true tax-free dollar. A 401(k) contribution still pays Social Security & Medicare tax; a payroll HSA (and §125 premiums) skips all of it — federal, state (except CA/NJ), and FICA — and never gets taxed again if spent on health care.
Two incomes? Check the Step 2 box on both W-4s. It's the #1 cause of surprise tax bills — each job withholds as if it's the only one, and two "only" incomes land in a higher bracket together.
A raise is never a pay cut. Only the dollars above each bracket line get the higher rate — see the "next $1,000" line above for what you'd actually keep.
Earn over $184,500? Social Security tax stops mid-year once you hit the wage base — your late-year paychecks get a ~6.2% "raise." The 📅 note above tells you exactly which paycheck that happens on and by how much.
50 or older and earning $150k+? SECURE 2.0 now requires your catch-up contributions (the extra $8,000, or $11,250 at 60–63) to be Roth — the base $24,500 can still be Traditional.
In Pennsylvania, Traditional gets no state break — PA taxes 401(k) contributions going in (and then doesn't tax retirement distributions coming out). The Trad-vs-Roth decision there is federal-only.
Withholding ≠ your actual tax. This shows what payroll takes out, computed the official way. Your April refund or bill is the difference between this and your true tax after credits and deductions.

📍 State-by-state paycheck guide reference

9 states take nothing from a paycheck, 15 have one flat rate, and the rest use brackets — but the sleeper line items are the employee payroll programs (disability, paid leave, transit) that quietly take another 0.4–1.9% in 14 states, and local income taxes that can beat the state tax itself (Ohio, Maryland, Indiana, Philadelphia, NYC). Pick your state above to highlight your row.

2026 rates verified against state sources in July 2026 — including the five spring retroactive cuts (AR, GA, UT, WV, SC) that most January-dated tables still miss. State withholding is estimated by applying each state's annual brackets, standard deduction, and exemptions pro-rata — the same structure most states' own withholding formulas use. Credits-in-lieu-of-deductions (AR/CA/DE personal credits) are applied; a few small state quirks (AL's federal-tax deduction, MO's partial one, OR's federal subtraction, phase-outs of WI's sliding deduction) are simplified — see the disclaimer.