California Paycheck Calculator
United States Uses United States federal and state tax and payroll rules. Updated
CA paycheck calculator for 2026: federal withholding, FICA, and automatic California PIT and SDI from the official EDD Method B tables. Salary or hourly.
Educational estimate only. Not tax, legal, payroll, accounting, insurance, or financial advice. Consult a qualified authority before acting on a result.
Results
How to read this: the verdict describes how much room your numbers leave, not a decision or an offer. Change any input to see how much the result moves.
Paycheck guides
These guides explain the payroll concepts behind the calculator and link back to the specific paycheck tools for testing scenarios.
- How to calculate take-home pay
- Gross pay vs net pay
- How federal withholding works
- Salary vs hourly paycheck
- Bonus paycheck tax explained
For all guide topics, open Guides. For source and estimate boundaries, read Calculation Methodology and Sources and Assumptions.
When this calculator fits
Use this page for a California paycheck estimate when you want federal withholding, FICA, and California PIT and SDI calculated automatically rather than typed in by hand. California income tax withholding follows the Exact Calculation Method (Method B) that the Employment Development Department publishes for employers, so the figure matches the method a real payroll runs; enter your DE 4 allowances to match your own paycheck more closely. It works as a California salary calculator or a take-home pay calculator for hourly work, and it applies the same way in Los Angeles, San Diego or anywhere else in the state, because California has no city income tax to add. For hourly workers it is a California take home pay calculator for the period; for salaried ones it shows the monthly figure.
How to use this California paycheck calculator
Use this California paycheck calculator for a U.S. paycheck estimate with federal withholding, FICA, deductions, and partial California coverage with automatic SDI and manual PIT override guidance.
It also addresses related questions around California paycheck calculator, CA take home pay calculator, CA after tax calculator, paycheck calculator California, and paycheck calculator for California intent. The terms are grouped by the job a visitor is trying to complete, so the page stays readable instead of repeating the same phrase in different forms.
What matters for California paychecks
California state income tax withholding needs a fully verified automatic engine before it should be treated as complete. This page includes the supported SDI handling and keeps manual state withholding visible for cautious estimates.
The result should be read as a paycheck estimate for California, not a payroll instruction. Confirm unusual cases, local tax rules, employer setup, and official withholding treatment with payroll or a qualified authority.
For hourly, salary, take-home, W-4, bonus and paystub questions, start from the U.S. paycheck calculator, which lists each page; all of them apply the same federal calculation this page does.
How other states are handled
| State handling | Paycheck page |
|---|---|
| No state wage income tax, so the estimate is federal withholding and FICA | Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Wyoming |
| No state income tax, but a state employee premium is still withheld | Alaska, Washington |
| State withholding modeled automatically from official guidance | North Carolina, Indiana, Georgia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Massachusetts |
| Partial coverage, with manual state withholding kept visible | New Jersey |
How the paycheck estimate is worked out
How California withholding is worked out
California is a partial-coverage state in this calculator, and the page says so rather than implying otherwise. State Disability Insurance is modeled automatically at the official 2026 employee rate of 1.3% of wages, and the engine applies that rate to every dollar of the paycheck with no wage-base cutoff in the model. California Personal Income Tax is not calculated automatically. The income tax line therefore shows whatever you enter in the state withholding override, and the result is labeled as partial coverage instead of quietly reporting zero.
To close that gap, copy the state income tax figure from a recent California paystub covering the same pay frequency into the state withholding override. The SDI line is still computed for you, so the override should carry the PIT amount only. Folding SDI into the override is the most common way to make this page understate take-home pay, and the size of the error is about 1.3% of gross pay every period.
Because SDI is modeled with no wage-base cutoff, the California deduction does not stop partway through the year the way a capped program does, so a December paycheck carries the same SDI percentage as a January one. That is the opposite of how the New Jersey and Alaska contributions in this tool behave, and it means the year-to-date state payroll wages field does not change the California SDI figure at all.
State-level paycheck lines in California
| Line | How it is treated for 2026 |
|---|---|
| California SDI | Modeled automatically at the official 2026 employee rate of 1.3% of wages |
| SDI wage base | None applied in the model; the rate runs on every dollar of gross pay |
| California PIT | Not calculated automatically; the amount shown is what you type into the state withholding override |
| Result coverage label | Partial coverage: verified employee payroll tax, income tax override needed |
| Year-to-date wages entered | Does not affect the California result, because no wage base applies to SDI here |
A worked California paycheck
Take a single filer in California on $58,240 a year, paid every two weeks with no pre-tax deductions. $58,240 is the state's median annual wage across all occupations, so this sits near the middle of the California labor market rather than being a round number chosen to look tidy. The figures below are produced by running this page's own calculator, so they are what you would get by entering the same details in the form above.
California: $58,240 a year, paid biweekly
| Line | Amount per paycheck |
|---|---|
| Gross paycheck | $2,240.00 |
| Federal income tax | -$184.95 |
| Social Security | -$138.88 |
| Medicare | -$32.48 |
| State income tax | -$71.42 |
| State employee payroll contribution | -$29.12 |
| Estimated take-home pay | $1,783.15 |
That is $1,783.15 every two weeks, about $3,863.49 a month and $46,361.90 over a year, an effective paycheck tax rate of 20.40%. Median wage figures come from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 state estimates, for all occupations.
Where these figures come from
California SDI is taken from the California EDD publication Contribution Rates, Withholding Schedules, and Meals and Lodging Values, using the 2026 SDI rate; no source is claimed for personal income tax because it is not modeled.
Why location coverage is labeled
No California city or county payroll tax is modeled. Philadelphia's wage tax is the only local rate this engine calculates on its own anywhere in the United States, so any California local payroll item has to come through the local withholding override. Left empty, the local line reports an inactive local engine rather than a verified zero. That distinction is deliberate: the tool is stating that it did not look, not that there was nothing there.
Coverage stays labeled in the result either way. Where a rule is not verified it is named as unsupported rather than guessed, and a manual override field is available when you know the amount from payroll guidance or an official source.
What this page assumes
The calculator converts salary or hourly earnings into one gross paycheck, subtracts pre-tax deductions, annualizes federal taxable wages for a W-4-style withholding estimate, applies FICA, then subtracts any entered state/local withholding and post-tax deductions.
Federal and FICA calculations run locally from versioned 2026 rule data. State and local withholding are coverage-labeled: unsupported jurisdictions are not silently guessed, and you can enter known withholding amounts when you have them. This is not tax, legal, payroll, or financial advice.
Common paycheck calculator mistakes
- Assuming every California payroll line is automatic. Read the result coverage notes and use manual override fields for items outside verified support.
- Assuming the automatic state line covers every local tax. California withholding here is computed from official guidance, but city, county and school-district levies in some of these states are separate lines. Check the local note above and enter a known local amount rather than assuming the state figure absorbs it.
What this calculator leaves out: This calculator is an educational estimate. It does not provide tax, legal, payroll, accounting, insurance, or financial advice; it does not file forms; it does not know every employer-specific benefit rule, local tax, wage-base history, payroll correction, reimbursement, or year-to-date adjustment; and unsupported state or local rules are not silently guessed.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a California income tax calculator built into this page?
Partly. The page models federal withholding, FICA and California SDI automatically. California state income tax withholding depends on the DE 4 you filed and the state’s own tables, which this version does not yet model in full, so the state tax line is a labelled manual entry: take the figure from a recent paystub or the EDD tables and enter it, and everything else is calculated around it. The result then shows what each line contributes to the gap between gross and take-home pay.
Why does this calculator show California SDI but not California state income tax?
The two sit at different verification levels. SDI has a single published 2026 employee rate and can be modeled exactly. California PIT withholding is not yet encoded and tested here, so instead of printing a guess the engine leaves it to the state withholding override and labels the page as partial coverage.
What should I enter in the California state withholding override?
The state income tax figure from a recent California paystub at the same pay frequency, and nothing else. Do not add SDI to it, because SDI is already calculated separately at 1.3% and added on top. If your paystub combines them into one state total, subtract 1.3% of gross before entering the remainder.
Does California SDI stop once I reach a wage cap?
Not in this model. The engine applies the 1.3% employee rate to every dollar of gross pay in the period, with no wage base subtracted and no year-to-date cutoff, so the same percentage comes out of a December check as a January one.
Sources
The rules this estimate applies, each linked to the official publication it was taken from. Federal withholding and FICA come first; the state lines follow.
- IRS Publication 15-T (2026), Worksheet 1A and 2026 Percentage Method Tables for Automated Payroll Systems — reviewed 13 August 2026, in force 1 January 2026 to 31 December 2026.
- IRS Publication 15 (2026), Social Security and Medicare tax rates — reviewed 13 August 2026, in force 1 January 2026 to 31 December 2026.
- California EDD, 2026 Withholding Schedules, Method B Exact Calculation Method — reviewed 22 September 2026, in force 1 January 2026 to 31 December 2026.
- California EDD, Contribution Rates, Withholding Schedules, and Meals and Lodging Values, 2026 SDI Rate — reviewed 22 September 2026, in force 1 January 2026 to 31 December 2026.
- California EDD, Information Sheet: Taxability of Employee Benefits (DE 231EB) — reviewed 22 September 2026, in force 1 January 2026 to 31 December 2026.
This page is an educational estimate, not personal financial or tax advice. Withholding on a real paycheck depends on the W-4 on file and on payroll items this calculator does not see.