Tax
Paycheck & Take-Home Pay
See what actually lands in your account each payday — hourly or salary, overtime included — and where every dollar between gross and take-home goes.
Federal figures use 2026 tax-year numbers, which change every year. The federal line is the tax you’ll owe for the year spread evenly — your stub’s withholding follows your W-4, so it can run higher or lower than this.
Heads up: the 2026 federal figures in this tool — the standard deduction, the brackets and the overtime deduction’s cap — are still waiting on our CPA’s check against the IRS tables. Read the federal line as approximate until this note is gone.
What this means
On $2,660 gross every two weeks, about $1,951 lands in your account — 73% of it. Federal income tax takes $192, Social Security and Medicare take $197, your state takes $97, and $223 goes out before tax into your 401(k) and health premium. That last number is the one to build a budget on, not the gross. This is an estimate of what you’ll owe, not tax advice — a payroll or tax pro can walk through your actual return.
Your 5 overtime hours add $420 to the check before tax and $320 after — you keep 76%. There’s no special overtime rate: those dollars land on top of everything else, so they’re taxed at your highest rate, 12% federal here. What helps is the federal overtime deduction through 2028: the time-and-a-half premium — $140 of this check — comes off your federal taxable income, and that is already in the number above. Social Security, Medicare and state tax still apply to all of it.
The 401(k) line puts $133 into your account each paycheck but only shrinks the check by $112, because it comes out before income tax is figured. If your employer matches, that match is part of your pay — take it before paying extra on anything else.
Build on it
These are estimates to help you think — not personalized legal, tax, or investment advice, and not a promise of any result.
This calculator starts where the others end: the pay stub. Enter your hourly rate and hours — overtime included — or your salary, plus what comes out before tax, and it shows what actually lands in your account each payday, line by line: federal income tax, Social Security and Medicare, state tax, and your 401(k) and health premium.
Why it matters: every budget, every savings goal and every debt payoff plan is built on take-home pay, and most people only know their gross. The gap between the two is the difference between a plan that works on paper and one that works on payday. Knowing where each dollar goes is also how you catch a stub that is wrong.
How to use it
Enter how you're paid
Hourly: your base rate, your regular hours, and a typical week's overtime — not your biggest week. Salary: the annual gross from your offer letter. Then pick how often the check comes, because that decides how the year's numbers split up.
Add what comes out before tax
Your 401(k) percentage and your share of the health premium are on your stub. Both lower your income tax; only the premium also lowers Social Security and Medicare. Put in a state rate if your state taxes wages, and 0 if it doesn't.
Read the last line first
Take-home per paycheck is the number to build on. Then read the lines above it to see which one is biggest — for a lot of working people it isn't federal income tax, it's the combined Social Security and Medicare line, which comes out from the first dollar.
Behind the numbers
Marginal vs. effective
Your marginal rate is what your next dollar is taxed at. Your effective rate is what you paid overall, which is always lower, because the income below your top bracket was taxed at lower rates first. Nobody pays their top rate on everything.
Why overtime feels lighter
There is no special overtime rate. Overtime dollars land on top of your regular pay, so they're taxed at your highest rate, and if the extra hours push you over a bracket line, only the dollars past the line are taxed at the higher rate. What has changed: for the 2025 through 2028 tax years, federal law lets you deduct the overtime premium — the extra half over your regular rate — from your federal taxable income, up to a yearly cap that shrinks at higher incomes. The calculator applies it. Social Security, Medicare and state tax still come out of all of it, and you always keep more by working the hours than by not.
Pre-tax isn't one thing
A traditional 401(k) contribution comes out before income tax but not before Social Security and Medicare. A health premium through your employer's plan usually comes out before both. That's why two deductions of the same size can leave different amounts on the check.
Withholding vs. what you owe
The federal line here is what the year's tax works out to, spread evenly across your paychecks. Your stub follows your W-4 instead, so it may hold back more or less each period. Withhold too much and April brings a refund — money you lent the government at no interest. Too little and it brings a bill.
The math behind it
Start with gross for the year — rate times hours times 52, with overtime hours at time and a half — or the salary. Subtract the pre-tax deductions. Social Security and Medicare are figured on gross minus the health premium, at the employee's share. Federal income tax is figured on gross minus both deductions, minus the standard deduction for your filing status, minus the overtime premium the federal overtime deduction allows through 2028 (capped, and phased out at higher incomes), then walked up through the brackets so each slice of income is taxed at its own rate. State tax is your rate on the same base. What's left, divided by the number of paychecks, is the take-home.
Worked example
$28 an hour, 40 hours a week, paid every two weeks, filing single, 5% into a 401(k), a $90 health premium each check, and a 4% state rate, using this year's federal figures. Gross is $2,240 a check. The 401(k) takes $112 and the premium $90 before tax. Social Security and Medicare take about $164 — 7.65% of wages after the premium — federal income tax about $161, state about $82. Take-home: about $1,631, roughly 73% of gross. Add 5 overtime hours a week and gross rises $420 to $2,660 while take-home rises about $320, to about $1,951 — the premium half of that overtime comes off federal taxable income, which is why the overtime keeps a bigger share than the base pay does. (The federal figures behind this example are still waiting on our CPA's check against the IRS tables; read them as approximate.)
The three-quarters rule
For a rough take-home number without a calculator, take about three-quarters of gross. A single filer with typical deductions in a state with income tax lands somewhere near 70–75%; no state tax or a bigger 401(k) contribution moves it a few points either way. Use it to sanity-check an offer or a raise, then run the real numbers here before you build a budget on them.
Common questions
Why is my take-home pay so much less than my gross?
Three things come out of nearly every check: federal income tax, Social Security and Medicare, and often state income tax. Then anything pre-tax — your 401(k) and health premium. For a typical working paycheck, expect somewhere around a quarter of gross to go out before it reaches you, more with a state tax and bigger deductions, less without them. The calculator shows your own split.
Is overtime taxed more?
No. There is no separate overtime rate. Overtime pay is added to your regular pay and taxed the same way, but because it sits on top, it's taxed at your highest bracket rather than your average. It can look like a penalty on the stub; it isn't one. For the 2025 through 2028 tax years the rule actually tilts the other way: the premium half of your overtime pay is deductible from federal taxable income, up to a cap, whether or not you itemize. Your stub may not show that yet — withholding and the deduction on your return are two different things — but the calculator counts it.
Why doesn't this match my pay stub exactly?
Your stub's federal withholding follows your W-4 — filing status, dependents, extra withholding — and the IRS withholding tables, so it can differ from the tax you'll actually owe. This calculator shows the owed amount spread evenly. Local taxes, union dues, garnishments, Roth contributions and after-tax benefits aren't modeled here either. If your stub is far from this, that's worth a question to payroll.
Go deeper
The calculator gives you a number. The Budgeting & Cash Flow Brick teaches you what to do with it, in plain English. And if you’re not sure where to start, the free BrickScore Assessment checks your whole foundation in about 5 minutes.