Comprehensive Guide
Learn more in our Personal Finance Guide.
How it works
take-home pay calculator takes your inputs and produces annual take-home pay, monthly take-home, federal tax, state tax, fica. See what your salary actually pays: federal income tax, state tax and FICA come out, and monthly take-home is what goes in your pocket. You provide 5 inputs: Gross annual salary (currency, in dollars) (default: 90000 dollars); Federal tax rate (est.) (percent, in percent) (default: 17 percent); State tax rate (est.) (percent, in percent) (default: 5 percent); FICA rate (percent, in percent) (default: 7.65 percent); Pre-tax deductions (currency, in dollars) (default: 6000 dollars). The calculator returns 5 outputs: Annual take-home pay (the primary result); Monthly take-home (a secondary output); Federal tax (a supplementary figure); State tax (a supplementary figure); FICA (a supplementary figure). Personal finance decisions trade off today's comfort against tomorrow's security. The numbers behind that trade-off — how much to save, spend, borrow, or insure — are what this calculator makes concrete. Rather than rules of thumb, it gives you the actual arithmetic for your situation so you can compare options side by side and decide with confidence. The underlying formula: Take-home = Gross - federal(taxable) - state(taxable) - FICA(gross) With the default values, annual take-home pay is computed from the interaction of every input field — change any one of them and the result updates immediately, so you can stress-test different scenarios without re-entering the whole form. Adjust the inputs to match your real financial situation. The defaults are realistic starting points, but every person's circumstances differ — your actual income, expenses, rates, and timelines will produce a different answer. Use the tool iteratively: start with the defaults, then change one variable at a time to see which factor has the largest impact on your outcome.Formula
Take-home = Gross - federal(taxable) - state(taxable) - FICA(gross)
Tips
- Update the federal rate from the Income Tax Calculator for the same salary.
- A $1,000 raise is not $1,000: it is gross minus your marginal tax, minus state, minus FICA.
- Maxing pre-tax retirement contributions cuts today's taxable income at your marginal rate.
- Compare offers in take-home terms — a bigger gross in a high-tax state can net less.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between gross and net pay?
Gross pay is your salary before anything is withheld. Net (take-home) pay is what lands in your bank account after federal and state income tax, FICA payroll tax, health premiums, retirement contributions and any other paycheck deductions.
Which federal rate should I enter?
Your effective federal rate — total federal tax divided by gross income. You can estimate it quickly with the Income Tax Calculator, or average last year's actual federal withholding over your income.
Are pre-tax deductions worth it?
Pre-tax deductions reduce taxable income at your marginal rate while the money stays working for you. A $7,000 401(k) contribution to a 22% bracket filer saves roughly $1,540 of federal tax this year — the engine shows exactly how contributions reshape take-home and tax.
Does this calculator include insurance premiums?
Only as part of pre-tax deductions — enter your total monthly premium contribution there. State-specific payroll taxes beyond income tax (like disability insurance in some states) are not modelled, so treat the result as an estimate to within a couple of percent.