💵 Paycheck Calculator
Turn a yearly salary into a real paycheck: federal tax, FICA and 401(k) taken out.
How it works
This calculator works the way a payroll department does, just without the mystery. Start with your gross salary and split it across the pay periods you picked. Then your pre-tax 401(k) contribution comes out — that money skips federal income tax this year, which is the whole point of contributing.
What is left, minus the 2026 standard deduction ($16,100 if you file single, $32,200 for married filing jointly), is your taxable income. Federal tax is figured with the 2026 tax brackets: 10% on the first slice of income, then 12%, 22% and up, with each rate applying only to the money inside that slice. Nobody pays their top rate on every dollar. The yearly tax is then spread evenly across your paychecks, the same way withholding works.
Social Security and Medicare — the FICA taxes — are calculated separately, and here is the part that surprises people: they apply to your full salary, before the 401(k) comes out. Social Security takes 6.2% of wages up to $184,500 in 2026 and then stops for the year; Medicare takes 1.45% of everything, with no cap. Your employer pays matching amounts on top, but that never touches your check.
Add the deductions together — 401(k), federal tax, Social Security, Medicare — and whatever remains is your take-home pay. Treat the result as an estimate only, not tax advice: real paychecks also lose money to state taxes, health insurance, parking, union dues and whatever else an employer deducts.
An example
Say you earn $75,000 a year, file single, get paid bi-weekly (26 checks), and put 5% into a traditional 401(k). Every check starts at $2,884.62 in gross pay.
The 401(k) takes $144.23 off the top of each check, $3,750 across the year. That lowers the pay the IRS taxes: $75,000 minus the $3,750 contribution and the $16,100 standard deduction leaves $55,150 of taxable income. Run that through the 2026 brackets — 10% on the first $12,400 ($1,240), 12% on the next $38,000 ($4,560), and 22% on the last $4,750 ($1,045) — and the federal tax for the year comes to $6,845, or $263.27 per check.
FICA does not care about the 401(k). Social Security takes 6.2% of the full $75,000, which is $4,650 a year or $178.85 a check. Medicare takes 1.45%, which is $1,087.50 a year or $41.83 a check.
Now the part that matters: $2,884.62 gross, minus $144.23 for the 401(k), $263.27 federal tax, $178.85 Social Security and $41.83 Medicare, leaves take-home pay of $2,256.44 per check — $58,667.50 over the year. About 78 cents of every gross dollar lands in your bank account, and another 5 cents is quietly growing in your 401(k).
Common questions
Why does my real paycheck look different from this?
This covers federal tax and FICA only. Most paychecks also lose money to state and city taxes, health insurance premiums, HSA or FSA contributions and other workplace deductions, so the real take-home is usually a bit lower.
Does my 401(k) contribution reduce Social Security and Medicare tax too?
No. A traditional 401(k) lowers your federal income tax today, but Social Security and Medicare are charged on your full wages before the contribution comes out. Only the income-tax slice shrinks.
What changes if I earn over $200,000?
Two things: Social Security tax stops once your wages pass $184,500 in 2026, and an extra 0.9% Medicare tax starts on wages above $200,000 for single filers ($250,000 for couples). This calculator skips that extra tax to stay simple, so very high earners will owe a little more.
Related calculators
This calculator gives estimates for learning. Rates, taxes and rules change, and your lender or the IRS has the final numbers — check big decisions against the real documents.