How to calculate take-home pay
Last updated: 2026-08-14
A $100,000 salary paid every two weeks comes to $3,846.15 per paycheck. What reaches the bank account is about $3,045. Most of the confusion around take-home pay lives in that gap, and no single tax rate explains it.
What follows is one paycheck worked all the way through: a single filer in Texas, no dependents, no pre-tax deductions, paid biweekly. Every figure on this page comes from that same example.
One paycheck, start to finish
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Gross pay | $3,846.15 |
| Federal income tax withheld | −$506.54 |
| Social Security | −$238.46 |
| Medicare | −$55.77 |
| State income tax (Texas) | $0.00 |
| Net pay | $3,045.38 |
About 79 cents of every dollar survives. Texas has no state income tax, so this is near the best case. The same salary in Illinois or Massachusetts lands lower.
Social Security and Medicare are the easy part
Both are flat percentages of wages, which makes them the only genuinely predictable lines on a paystub.
Social Security takes 6.2%, but only up to a wage ceiling. For 2026 that ceiling is $184,500. Earnings past it stop being taxed for the rest of the year, which is why some high earners see net pay rise in the autumn without any raise.
Medicare takes 1.45% and has no ceiling at all. A further 0.9% applies to wages above $200,000 for a single filer, or $250,000 filing jointly.
On $3,846.15 of gross, that is $238.46 and $55.77.
Federal withholding is not a flat rate
This is where hand estimates go wrong. Payroll does not multiply the paycheck by a tax rate. It follows the percentage method in IRS Publication 15-T, which annualizes the paycheck first, taxes the annual figure, then divides back down.
- Annualize the gross: $3,846.15 × 26 = $99,999.90. (Splitting a salary into 26 paychecks leaves a few cents behind; payroll works from the paycheck, not the salary.)
- Subtract the standard adjustment for the filing status. For a single filer that is $8,600, leaving $91,399.90.
- Find the band. That figure sits between $57,900 and $113,200, which withholds $5,800 plus 22% of everything above $57,900.
- 22% of $33,499.90 is $7,369.98, so the annual figure is $13,169.98.
- Divide back down: $13,169.98 ÷ 26 = $506.54 per paycheck.
Look closely at what the 22% applies to. It is charged on the last $33,499.90, not on the whole salary. Total withholding works out to roughly $13,170 on $100,000, which is about 13% of gross, not 22%. Mistaking the marginal rate for the effective rate is the most common reason a hand estimate comes out thousands of dollars wrong.
The same paycheck in six states
Everything above is federal and identical across the country. State withholding is the part that moves. Below is that same $3,846.15 gross paycheck, single filer, run against each state's rules:
| Work state | State tax withheld | Net pay |
|---|---|---|
| Texas | $0.00 | $3,045.38 |
| Indiana | $113.46 | $2,931.92 |
| Pennsylvania | $118.08 | $2,927.30 |
| North Carolina | $137.00 | $2,908.38 |
| Massachusetts | $188.46 | $2,856.92 |
| Illinois | $190.38 | $2,855.00 |
The spread between Texas and Illinois is $190.38 a paycheck, or about $4,950 a year on identical gross pay.
Local tax stacks on top of that. Someone living and working in Philadelphia on this salary pays the Pennsylvania $118.08 plus a further $143.65 in city wage tax, which is larger than the state line itself.
Pre-tax deductions do not all cut the same taxes
"Pre-tax" gets read as money that escapes every payroll tax. It is not, and the difference is worth real money.
A traditional 401(k) contribution reduces the wages used for federal, state, and local income tax. It does not reduce Social Security and Medicare wages. Put $500 into a traditional 401(k) and your income tax withholding falls, but you still pay the full 7.65% FICA on that $500.
An HSA, an FSA, and cafeteria-plan health premiums work differently. They reduce every active wage base, FICA included. That is why an HSA contribution saves slightly more per dollar than the same contribution to a 401(k), even though both are labelled pre-tax.
Roth 401(k) contributions reduce nothing. They come out after tax and lower net pay by their full amount.
The W-4 checkbox that moves the most money
Step 2 on the W-4, the multiple jobs box, gets ticked more casually than almost any other payroll input.
Tick it on the paycheck above and federal withholding goes from $506.54 to $706.42. That is close to $200 a paycheck, around $5,200 a year, from one checkbox. It exists for a good reason: two jobs each withholding as though it were your only job will under-withhold badly. It is correct to tick when it applies, and expensive to tick when it does not.
What an estimate cannot know
Withholding is a forecast your employer makes about a tax year that has not finished yet. It gets squared up when you file, which is where refunds and bills come from.
An estimate also cannot see wage garnishments, union dues, employer-specific benefit rules, a mid-year raise, or income from anywhere else. Treat the result as a close estimate of one paycheck, not as a tax return.
Run your own numbers
The U.S. paycheck calculator runs this whole sequence against your own salary, filing status, state, and deductions. For hourly work with overtime, start at the hourly paycheck calculator. To check a real paystub against the modelled figures, use the paystub checker.
Related reading: gross pay vs net pay and how federal paycheck withholding works.
Common questions
Why is my take-home lower than an online salary calculator said?
Most quick calculators ignore pre-tax deductions and treat every state the same. Health premiums, a 401(k) contribution and an HSA all come out before tax is computed, which lowers both the deduction and the tax. State and local withholding then varies enormously, and a calculator that averages it will be wrong for you specifically.
Does a raise ever leave me with less?
No. The United States uses marginal brackets, so only the income above a threshold is taxed at the higher rate. Crossing a bracket never reduces total take-home. What can genuinely reduce it is losing an income-tested benefit or a credit that phases out, which is a benefits cliff rather than a tax one.
Why does my first paycheck of the year look different?
Social Security stops once you pass the annual wage base, so high earners see it disappear late in the year and return every January. Benefit elections and contribution limits also reset on 1 January, so the first cheque of a year usually differs from the last of the previous one.
Should I aim for a large refund?
A large refund means you lent the government money at no interest for up to a year. Adjusting your W-4 to withhold closer to your actual liability puts that money in each paycheck instead. The trade-off is the risk of owing at filing, so most people aim for a small refund rather than a large one.
Related reading
The rest of this series, and the calculators that let you run the idea on your own numbers.
More paycheck guides
Try it with your figures
See also all guides, every calculator, and the calculation methodology behind these estimates.