How to estimate take-home pay

Your gross pay is one number. Your take-home pay is a different — and smaller — one. The gap between them is taxes plus deductions, and the size of that gap surprises most people the first time they look closely.

Estimating your take-home isn't complicated once you know the four main slices that come out before you see the deposit. This walks through each, what drives it, and how to put a usable monthly number together.

The four slices

1. Federal income tax

The IRS uses bracket-based withholding from a table called the percentage method. It works on annualized wages: your employer multiplies your paycheck by how many pay periods you have per year, looks up the right bracket for your filing status, calculates the annual tax, and divides back into a per-paycheck amount.

Two things matter here. First, your filing status (single, married filing jointly, head of household) changes which bracket table is used. Second, the standard deduction is built into the table — you don't subtract it manually. Most W-4 forms from 2020 onward use this same shape.

2. FICA (Social Security + Medicare)

Two payroll taxes here, often shown as one line:

• Social Security is 6.2% of your wages, but only up to an annual wage base ($184,500 in 2026). Above that, the rate stops applying for the year.
• Medicare is 1.45% of your wages with no cap. If your annual wages cross $200,000 in a calendar year, your employer also withholds an additional 0.9% on the excess — regardless of filing status.

These are flat percentages, easy to estimate, and they don't care about your filing status.

3. State income tax

Nine states (Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, Wyoming) have no state income tax on wages. Everywhere else, your state taxes you — but how varies enormously. Some are flat-rate (Pennsylvania 3.07%, Illinois 4.95%). Some are graduated like federal (California, New York). A few have local layers on top — NYC residents pay an additional 3–4%, many Ohio cities and Pennsylvania municipalities add a local earnings tax, Maryland counties piggyback on the state.

If you live and work in the same state, your single state appears on the pay stub. If you commute across a state line, both states may show up.

4. Pre-tax deductions

Anything you contribute pre-tax — traditional 401(k), HSA, health insurance premium, transit benefit — reduces the wages the IRS sees. That means it reduces your federal tax, often reduces your state tax, and (for HSA) also reduces your FICA. The exact rules differ by deduction; a 401(k) reduces federal but not FICA, while an HSA reduces both.

Post-tax deductions (Roth 401(k), garnishments, after-tax benefits) come out of your paycheck but don't reduce any tax line.

Putting it together

A rough mental model: gross pay − pre-tax deductions − federal tax − FICA − state withholding − post-tax deductions = take-home.

For most single filers in their 20s and 30s working a salaried job:

• About 7.65% goes to FICA (6.2% Social Security + 1.45% Medicare).
• About 10–20% goes to federal income tax, depending on bracket.
• State income tax ranges from 0% (no-tax states) to about 10%+ in high-tax states.

A rough rule of thumb in a no-tax state: gross × 0.78 ≈ take-home before any pre-tax deductions. In a high-tax state, more like gross × 0.70. But ranges are wide, and the right way to know yours is to run the actual numbers.

The Paycheck Snapshottool above does this end-to-end for any US state. Enter the gross pay number from your pay stub, your filing status, your state, and any pre-tax deductions you have, and you'll get a per-paycheck and monthly take-home estimate with each tax line broken out.

What this estimate doesn't cover

A few things the standard withholding tables don't handle cleanly:

• Multiple jobs. If you have two jobs, each employer is withholding as if their job is your only one — which typically under-withholds. The W-4 has a worksheet for this.
• Bonus pay. Bonuses are usually withheld at a flat federal rate (22% under $1M), not your normal bracket, so they often look over-withheld in the moment.
• Equity compensation. RSU vesting and ISO exercises trigger their own withholding rules.
• Local taxes. NYC residents, Yonkers, Philadelphia EIT, Ohio municipal, Maryland county, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and others have local income taxes on top of state.

If your situation includes any of these, treat the simple estimate as a starting point and confirm with your employer's payroll team or a qualified tax professional before making decisions that depend on the precise number.